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It has been a long time since people talked about "management by walking around." But this issue of Context suggests the idea should come back in a slightly new form: The walking around shouldn’t occur in corporate hallways but, rather, in those foreign lands known as college campuses. The idea shows up in "Fast Forward," which is both the pace of business change today and the title of a lovely piece of reporting on how the Nintendo Generation has come of age. The article shows how students on ultrawired campuses use their computers to check e-mail between frames at bowling alleys, do research on-line in the middle of class, and even buy or sell stock the moment that a respected finance professor says something about a company’s prospects. The article notes that the wired students have their weaknesses (even beyond the obsession with checking e-mail). Some professors have to insist that students do at least some research in libraries, to learn to tell the difference between real erudition and the stuff they might find posted on-line. The article suggests that executives would do well to study these campuses, because the rest of the world soon will be as wired as campuses, and everyone will start acting more like college students. In other words, to get a glimpse at your customer of tomorrow, you can visit a campus today. To get a peek at the workplace of tomorrow, we asked former Labor Secretary Robert Reich to look into his crystal ball, which has so often yielded up valuable insights. In this issue’s interview ["The Reich Stuff"], he describes a world in which traditional companies are having their innards ripped out, with their purchasing and many other functions being replaced by "B2B auction models based on the Internet." Reich, in the midst of writing The Future of Success, sees once-hierarchical companies morphing into "networks of partnerships and units." Reich also suggests that, while the globalization of business is inevitable, it won’t be easy. University of Chicago Professor Marvin Zonis develops that theme in the CEO User’s Guide ["Caution: Curves Ahead"]. He says that globalization is inherently destabilizing and has historically led to backlashes and other problems that executives had better be prepared to withstand. Mats Lederhausen, a Swede who is the vice president of corporate strategy at McDonald’s, continues the globalization theme in The Great Lie ["(Not) Made in the U.S.A."]. He warns that American executives need to stop assuming that the U.S. leads the way in all areas of technology and e-commerce. The Book Excerpt ["Car Wreck"] by Bill Vlasic and Bradley A. Stertz recounts the problems with the Chrysler/Daimler-Benz merger, which was touted as an example of how truly global companies are forming. The excerpt shows how hard it can be to combine corporate cultures forged in different countries. Two final notes: If you’re intrigued by the on-line exchanges that are being announced in so many industries, read Digital Strategy ["Dot-Coming of Age"], by John Sviokla and Adam Gutstein. The authors, who helped put together the biggest of the exchanges, explain why companies should—or shouldn’t—join the trend. For fun, read Man and Machine ["Word-Weary"], by T.J. Carson. It shows how the Internet is giving the language a beating. Cheers, Paul B. Carroll |
