I have this stereotype of the 1950s-era husband. Guy works hard all day. Stops off at the bar for a couple of bumps. Heads home. Dog brings him his slippers and his pipe. Wife is finishing up dinner in the kitchen. Eats food. Watches a little TV (or listens to the radio). And maybe, if according to the schedule these two have agreed to, retires for a little unsatisfying (at least for her) nookie. But I doubt it.

I know it’s not a fair stereotype. I’m sure there were plenty—like a hundred—of marriages in that era based upon an equality of intimacy where man and woman brought equal emotional investment and respect to the relationship. (I’m sure there were man and man or woman and woman relationships too, but you just didn’t hear about them.) But that’s certainly not the stereotype of that era. In fact, if I were a single guy at that time, I’d be a professional “kept man.” What an opportunity! There was a great market for outsourced intimacy.

Everyday, and especially now with a new year right around the corner, bajillions of companies are putting elaborate plans together to outsource their customer relationships to their PR firms or digital agencies. The term for this is “community management.” You’ve probably heard of it or perhaps have a proposal on your desk that offers it. The idea is that companies are going to launch a series of social environments where customers of all types are invited to gather and share their experiences together, interact with branded content, and make decisions about how they want to make their relationship with these organizations.

And these companies are going to outsource the oversight of these communities. They’re going to dial it in. They have no time for that squishy old “relationship stuff.” No! We make products, not babies!

So, that’s cool. They can do what they want to do. But customers are burning their bras, and they’re not going to take it anymore. They’re looking for a new kind of partner, one that recognizes that they have a voice, ambition, and power. You see, these people—these customers—have never experienced power before. They’re giddy. You think Gaddafi and Mubarak don’t know a little something about this customer power? How about Syria? How about . . . Google?

How about you?

It’s true. You have a choice. You can hire an agency to oversee your most intimate relationships with your customers. But don’t be surprised if they don’t represent you well. They’re not you. They’re them trying to be you. And customers see right through it.

The other choice is to change. To use our analogy, the cultural transition of women’s rights and empowerment wasn’t easy for traditional power struggles. (Our continued struggles with providing equal rights for gay people or people who are anything other than white are about fear and power as well.)

Are businesses immune from the same dynamics of transitioning power? Absolutely not. Can we dial it in? Can we simply say, “Oh, yeah—we do social media,” but never actually become social enterprises? That’s a choice for you to make, but remember history. It’s about to repeat itself once again.