THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY

Melba Newsome’s tale about Shaw Furniture Galleries ["The Year of Living Dangerously," February/March 2001] was an eye-opener. She vividly portrayed the earnest but arrogant goings-on in Randleman, N.C., where Net nouveau riche executives rode into town as "we’re-here-to-save-the-day" hotshots, only to shoot themselves in the foot and the townsfolk through the heart. The hubris and colossal naivete of Living.com combine the well-intentioned but disastrous actions of the title figure of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American with the sheer foolishness of any Three Stooges movie.

Let’s have some more articles that put a human face on the New Economy.

—H.H. Chase
Washington, D.C.

Reading your article about Shaw Furniture Galleries reinforced one of the most prolific stereotypes of the Internet Age. That is that these young Internet millionaires were just lucky to be in the right place at the right time and deserve far less respect than traditional businesspeople.

The young man in your article shows his arrogance, as well as his ignorance of nontech business right from the start. The Shaws come off as sympathetic figures. (It made me think of the family farmer stories so prevalent a few years ago.) The interesting thing is that with the right combination of tech savvy and traditional retail business know-how, the concept may have worked. Too bad the young Turk didn’t seek counsel from the wise elder.

Oh, one more thing: If I ever sell a company to a guy with $47 million, I want the money upfront.

—Robert W. Miller
Senior Residential Appraiser
Miller Appraisal Group

SENSE AND CENSOR-ABILITY

John Perry Barlow’s article [The Great Lie, February/March 2001] demonstrates the spoiled attitude of America today about rights and entitlements. It also shows the general misunderstanding of the Constitution.

"We the people" will have a nation only as long as we show the responsibility and restraint to deserve it. There are many "freedoms" that we grant to people, such as driving, that really are privileges. Imagine if we simply rid ourselves of inconvenient traffic rules in the name of freedom and self-expression. The chaos that would arise beggars the imagination.

To say that we should let people totally do as they please in an area where it affects other people—such as the Internet—is irresponsible. True, censorship can go overboard. Obviously, we can’t let one person or small group make decisions for everyone about what kind of information we have access to. But our freedoms are only held in check from anarchy within rules agreed to by the majority and by rules that protect us from irresponsibility. Thus, a madman falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater is breaking a reasonable and necessary law.

While it’s immediately obvious that yelling "Fire!" is dangerous, the problem with fighting Internet censorship is that, in the beginning, it seems like a good cause: We’re fighting for the little guy, constitutional rights, and so on. But we need to understand the consequences early and decide how far is too far. All too often, people become captive to their youthful, unexamined ideals.

—David Ockey
Los Angeles

DUMB AND DUMBER IDEAS

I read Evan Schwartz’s article ["Dumb and Dumber Ideas," December 2000/January 2001] about the four worst ideas of the Internet Age. I want to know where the "digital CueCat" was. [The CueCat is a hand-held bar-code reader that is connected to a computer. Waving it over a product code will tell the computer to call up Web pages that provide information on the product.] That thing has to be a colossal failure. Who in the world is going to scan some code in an advertisement to get directly to a Web site?

—Ken Goldstein
Chicago-based entrepreneur

PROTECTING YOUR YOUNG

I enjoyed Timothy Rohner’s article [CEO User’s Guide, December 2000/January 2001]. It contained some good insights into how to make corporate venturing successful in a large enterprise.

Eastman Chemical Co. was cited in the article regarding our external advisory board. This eBusiness Advisory Board has been absolutely critical to providing us with the objective perspective required to navigate in the fast-paced business world.

We have been fortunate to have some very experienced, skilled, and wise counsel from such members as: Larry Downes, an e-business consultant and co-author of Unleashing the Killer App; Heidi Mason, managing director of the Bell-Mason Group; Tom Meredith, managing director of Dell Ventures; and Adrian Slywotzky, vice president and member of the board of Mercer Management Consulting Inc. and author of Value Migration. Our chief executive officer, Earnie Deavenport, and our chief information officer, Roger Mowen, also participate in the Advisory Board.

Eastman was brand new to corporate venturing in 1999 when we embarked on an aggressive strategy to invest in and launch new ventures. A few observations and lessons:

Top management support is required. Executive sponsorship is essential in order to maintain the momentum and successfully implement a corporate venturing effort. Deavenport and Mowen, as well as our chief financial officer, Jim Rogers, and our chief technology officer, Jim Chitwood, are extremely supportive and help to clear obstacles within the organization.

This is hard work. Serious change-management issues arise as you challenge conventional thinking and what might be currently well-performing business strategies. You will not win a popularity contest or make everyone comfortable leading a corporate venturing effort, but we believe this competency is critical to Eastman’s success.

You must build a portfolio of options. Scenario planning is useful to map out potential outcomes and to make strategic and financial moves that will prepare you for those scenarios.

The venturing group needs to align itself with the strategies being pursued by the corporation, its operating units, and the staff functions.

You need to use different metrics. Best-practice methods, like the Bell-Mason Diagnostic (developed by Gordon Bell and Heidi Mason), recommend an approach with clear milestones and disciplined accountability. It must be possible to pull the plug on a venture at each step along the way if objectives aren’t met. Acting quickly to kill an unsuccessful venture can save a lot of money.

For a venture group to be considered really effective, a huge amount of time needs to be spent in facilitating interaction between the portfolio companies and the corporation.

You must learn by doing. We have made mistakes along the way. But we realized we could not succeed by studying too long and developing a rigid five-year plan. We have learned quickly and adjusted tactics while maintaining our vision of transforming Eastman into an organization focused on customers.

Personal networking is essential (and so I live in the Bay Area).

Strategy is execution.

—Mark Klopp
Managing Director, Digital Business Ventures
Eastman Chemical Co.

UPDATE

A legal dispute has erupted over the fully automated parking garage in Hoboken, N.J., described in "These Garages are Full" [Virtual Horizons, December 2000/ January 2001]. The disagreements between the general contractor, Belcor Megan Group of Hackensack, N.J., and Robotic Parking Inc. of Pinellas Park, Fla., have delayed the opening of the facility.

Joanne Serrano, the director of the Hoboken Parking Authority, said in early February that she hoped the dispute would be settled quickly and that the 324-space, $6.2 million facility should be opened soon afterward. She declined to go into specifics on a timetable.