Visions for Technology Leadership
After Gary Forsee’s luncheon address, a diverse panel of executives took the stage to discuss global technology leadership. Hardik Bhatt, CIO of the City of Chicago, Steve Goldman, Director of Architecture, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Raymond Spencer, CEO of Kanbay International, and David Weick, Global CIO of McDonald’s, shared their visions for Chicago’s global role in the world. Janet Kennedy, Midwest General Manager of Microsoft, gracefully moderated the panel discussion. The Executives’ Club of Chicago’s quarterly Technology Conference took place March 8 at the Chicago Hilton.
“Getting global” can mean many things, and panelists hit the issue from many directions. I’ll venture that, more than anything, it means changing one’s mindset, focus and approach, all of which are difficult to measure. All panelists represented organizations that had had international operations for decades, so how is global different?
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Gary D. Forsee, Chairman and CEO, Sprint Nextel Corporation, set the stage for the Executives’ Club of Chicago’s Technology Conference by outlining Sprint’s wireless strategy and a new vision for global community at the March enterprise CEO luncheon at the Chicago Hilton.
LinkedIn is a “social” site that will prove to be of rare benefit to business executives and professionals in building individualized collaborative networks, as I explained in detail in the GHCJ Review of LinkedIn. However, LinkedIn is seriously lacking in providing a step-by-step guide to help the motivated executive to tap its real value. The functionality of the website is easy to use, but many of the finer points of LinkedIn are lost on the majority of users. This guide attempts to address that.
I’ll risk using a hype-laden term like “Web 2.0” in the title: I think most of us have been around long enough to understand that hype doesn’t mean that nothing is there, although it can distract us from seeing things that we should be watching.
As readers of these pages know well, I estimate that one of the most poignant changes that faces Industrial Economy enterprises is shifting their primary focus from production and operations to the customer. The Industrial Economy mechanized work and production, and by any measure it created unprecedented wealth by drastically lowering per-unit costs of any kind of product you can name, bringing more products within the means of more people. This worked extremely well while demand exceeded supply: customers were excited to have their first car/house/television, and they were happy with what producers brought to market.
The Executives’ Club of Chicago assembled a visionary panel to give Midwest business leaders their advice for media communications in the (“new” ,^) digital age. Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO, Denuo Group and Chief Innovation Officer, Publicis; Dr. Jim Taylor, Vice Chairman, The Harrison Group and Emily L. Barr, President & General Manager, ABC 7 Chicago were panelists, and Susan D. Whiting, Chairman, Nielsen Media Research moderated the breakfast, which took place 30 January 2007 at Chicago’s Mid-America Club.
Plus ça change* was the theme of The Executives’ Club of Chicago High Technology Conference December eighth, where an esteemed panel gave varying perspectives on Chicago’s importance as a technology center. William Avery of Brunswick Corporation, James O’Connor, Jr. of Motorola, Inc. and Ira H. Cohen of Goldman, Sachs & Co. spoke about technology from enterprise IT, mobile technology and investment points of view respectively. Prior to their prepared remarks, John Gentry of CSC Consulting outlined key results of the forthcoming Chicago Technology Outlook Survey, in which corporate technology leaders commented on IT trends for 2007 as well as Chicago’s role as a technology center. He moderated the panel during a Q&A session.