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I'm thrilled to see how many alumni are taking advantage of these conferences, which first took shape in their present form at a 1990 HBSAA Board of Directors' meeting hosted by the Paris club. That program was so interesting that other clubs began asking how they might sponsor such events in their regions. Annual conferences in Tokyo, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Houston, and Sao Paulo followed (every other year the conference site is outside the United States), each of them organized by the local HBS club with the cosponsorship of the HBSAA and the School. Hosting a global alumni conference offers clubs the opportunity to raise the School's and alumni visibility in the community while providing a substantial educational experience to its members.
The amount of preparation that goes into these conferences is staggering - even by HBS measures - and appropriately might be compared with this issue's heroes of Olympic management. Sites are selected two years in advance by the HBSAA, based on proposals submitted by the local clubs. While the HBSAA provides guidelines on running the events, the content of each conference, as well as its organization and implementation, are entirely at the discretion of the club.
In general, the topics chosen for the conferences have been global issues that have had particular relevance for the communities in which the clubs are located - for instance, Sao Paulo's theme was business in Latin America, while Houston's was energy. In my experience (attendance at five global alumni conferences!), the local alumni business network has succeeded in attracting business leaders and experts who are right in the thick of the issues at hand; and, as one might expect from an HBS function, the dialogue and discourse is always superb!
The timing of the San Francisco conference could not have been better. When the HBSA of Northern California first proposed the conference and its technology-related theme in late 1993, no one could have imagined the magnitude of change that would occur in the technology market and at the School in just over two years. As you'll read in the pages that cover the conference, HBS is shaping up as a pioneer in the exploitation of technology in its academic programs and administration. We were delighted that both President Rudenstine and Dean Clark could be with us to talk about Harvard's information-technology path for the future, which is truly a fascinating story. Dean Clark held us spellbound with his account of the School's mission and the use of technology to facilitate the expansion of "Lifelong Learning" activities and the connectedness of the School with alumni, among other issues.
Conference cochairs Robert Hellman (MBA '87) and Lynn Odland (79th AMP) and their team did an excellent job of staging the San Francisco conference. The substantive program and social events flowed seamlessly - and we all know what kind of effort is required to make that happen! On behalf of the HBSAA and everyone who attended the conference, I'd like to thank the San Francisco club for their fine efforts, and I urge you to start thinking now about attending the next global alumni conference - Greater China: Myth, Reality, and Opportunity - which will be in Hong Kong, April 5 - 8, 1997. It's sure to be fascinating. I hope to see you there!
Cathy Connett
May 1996
Considering the title of the 1996 HBS Global Alumni Conference - The Information Revolution: "Bridging the Gap" - San Francisco was a particularly fitting locale for this forward-looking event. The city's Golden Gate has long been a symbolic bridge to the future, an icon for new eras and dreams and for the limitless possibilities associated with California and the West. And in keeping with the entrepreneurial dynamism that is so much a part of today's information technology explosion, "the City by the Bay" has always been a magnet for pioneers and risk-takers drawn by the promise of brighter tomorrows.
Appropriately, therefore, some nine hundred participants - most of them HBS alumni - convened in San Francisco last March to assess the outlook for business as it stands poised at the edge of unknown territory. At the elegant Fairmont Hotel, which dates from an era when railroads were the hallmark of sweeping, technology-driven change, HBS alumni, faculty, and invited guests representing nearly thirty countries considered today's newest frontier: the world of information technology.
Hosted by the Harvard Business School and the HBS Association of Northern California, this year's global alumni conference was the largest and, by all accounts, among the most successful ever. A team of 32 alumni volunteers, led by cochairs Robert B. Hellman, Jr. (MBA '87), and Lynn V. Odland (79th AMP), worked for over two years to put together the four-day program. In addition to two full days of talks and panel discussions, the conference featured hands-on technology demonstrations (including opportunities for attendees to explore the Internet) and visits to leading Bay Area companies. It also offered plenty of opportunities for alumni to network, compare notes, and catch up with friends and classmates.
As Harvard University President Neil L. Rudenstine - the first Harvard president to attend an HBS alumni conference - remarked in his welcoming address, "We don't use the word 'revolution' lightly, loosely, or often at Harvard." Yet as he and almost every other conference speaker went on to affirm, the radical changes being effected by today's information technology amount to nothing less than a new indus-trial revolution. Speakers and panelists repeatedly stressed two other topics as well: interconnectivity and networks as keys to the current phase of the information revolution and the necessity of "bridging the gap" between a mere comprehension of the new technology and its successful implementation. Conference attendees also learned from HBS administration and faculty about the current, fast-breaking revolution in the School's own deployment of information technology.
Addressing the conference's first plenary session, on March 20, HBS senior associate dean F. Warren McFarlan introduced the event's major themes and urged his audience to take the information revolution very seriously. Echoing Rudenstine's re-marks on the aptness of the word "revolution," McFarlan declared, "The changes are that fundamental and dramatic. Products, services, and industry structures are being turned inside out." McFarlan also noted the remarkable speed of these changes, observing, "Nobody on the organizing committee had any idea, when the planning for this conference began several years ago, how central concepts such as interconnectivity and the Internet would be by the time we gathered here in 1996." Emphasizing the importance of top managers' ability to put this new technology to effective use, McFarlan stated, "Making it happen is very hard. The major challenge in 1996 is much less the vision than it is the messy, complex problem of implementation."
For the next two days, conference-goers would hear firsthand from an impressive array of speakers about both the promise and the realities of today's information revolution. Not surprisingly, in view of the latest wave of technological change, the conference devoted three entire sessions to the Internet.
Following McFarlan's introductory remarks, John Warnock, cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Adobe Systems, and Alan Taffel, vice president for marketing and sales at UUNET Technologies, discussed some of the most sweeping implications of today's information technology at a plenary session titled "The Internet Revolution." Warnock outlined the "fundamental economic drivers" of business use of the Internet, explaining, "The change in the production process of information is altering the way it's distributed. Information is moving from paper into bits. That is a fundamental change in the economics of distribution, and it is this shift that is causing the explosive growth of the Internet." Detailing how the Internet is revolutionizing the communications industry, Taffel spoke of the "paradigm shifts" that new technology can bring and how they are frequently ignored by industry leaders. "Businesses often don't want to see the paradigm change," Taffel asserted, "because it's in conflict with their old business models. They fear they may have to change their organizations, or that the business may become too risky."
After receiving this overview of the Internet revolution, many conference participants attended a breakout session on "Doing Business on the Internet." Peter Granoff, whose company Virtual Vineyards sells wine exclusively over the Internet, and Steve Kirsch, president and CEO of the Internet search service InfoSeek, were among four panelists who discussed fundamentals of Internet technology, commerce, and markets. For those at the conference still acquainting themselves with the basics of "the Net," Ilene Lang (MBA '73), vice president of Digital Equipment Corporation's connectivity software business unit, furnished essential facts and background at a March 21 plenary session. (Digital, one of sixteen corporate sponsors of this year's event, also provided hands-on Internet demonstrations throughout the conference.)
Yet as these and many other speakers stressed, new technologies such as the Internet are ultimately only a means to an end. To help conference-goers focus on the big picture, several sessions dealt with the larger managerial implications of the information revolution. In a lunchtime talk on March 20, for instance, Stephen Sprinkle, of the Atlanta office of Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group, described one key implication of the new technology. "Anything that increases the amount of relevant knowledge of a market tends to make it more efficient and to intensify competition," Sprinkle noted. "This means that each of us had better start experimenting in this realm right now." At lunch the next day, Vincent H. Tobkin (MBA '75) of Bain & Company contrasted "offensive" and "defensive" approaches to new information technology and summarized the "root causes" of unsuccessful implementation. "The good news," Tobkin stated, "is that the problems are not in the technology. Most of the causes of failure have to do with management."
Partnership and leadership were also important themes of a popular March 20 breakout session titled "The Silicon Valley Miracle." This panel discussion was led off by Gordon Moore, cofounder and chairman of Intel and one of the principal architects of the technological revolution that started not far from San Francisco. After Moore described the rise of the semiconductor industry and the uniquely fertile environment for startup companies in Silicon Valley, Arati Prabhakar of the National Institute of Standards and Technology discussed the future of the Silicon Valley model of independent-minded entrepreneurship. Noting that new levels of interconnectivity via the Internet could help foster IT entrepreneurship in other regions, Prabhakar also observed that global competition is infusing the "cowboy culture" of Silicon Valley with a greater awareness of the need for partnership and collaboration.
Following Prabhakar's remarks, Ed Zschau, a veteran of several Silicon Valley firms as well as a former congressman from the area, spoke about how new concepts of entrepreneurship, leadership, and partnership are emerging from the new business models of the information revolution. "Entrepreneurs are leaders - they recognize that very few things can be done by an individual operating alone," Zschau declared. "The old business model of self-reliance, of doing everything ourselves, is no longer applicable in a world that's changing rapidly and has global markets." Zschau went on to predict the emergence of a new Information Age business model - extending beyond both self-reliance and partnership - that he termed "organized chaos." "The partnership business model is to leverage your skills and resources by taking advantage of those that a few identified partners possess," Zschau said. "The new 'organized chaos' model involves creating a network platform that enables you to leverage your resources by drawing on the independent activities of large numbers of individuals and enterprises that may not be known to you at all."
Many of the conference's other sessions - even when focused on particular organizations, industries, or business functions and areas- combined a visionary look at the possibilities of the future with a pragmatic view of the challenges of achieving them. In the first of a pair of back-to-back plenary sessions on March 21, for example, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin stressed the theme of having to "do more with less" in his talk, "The Technology Redesign of NASA." After Goldin's presentation, Philip Quigley, chairman and CEO of Pacific Telesis, called the "packaging, bundling, and arbitraging of services" the key to the rapidly restructuring telecommunications industry.
That same day, in a breakout session on "Using Technology to Better Manage and Serve Customers," John E. Groman (MBA '69), executive vice president and cofounder of the database marketing firm Epsilon, spoke of the need to reengineer marketing, a field he called "one of the last bastions to resist technology." "In the field of marketing," Groman said, "we are on the verge of an era in which quantitative analysis will fundamentally change the nature of marketing, much as it changed Wall Street in recent years. The 'quants' are coming to marketing, and marketing capital budgeting will reflect that."
As HBS alumni who made the trip to San Francisco also learned, it is not just business itself that is being revolutionized by today's information technology. As IT increasingly informs the basic environment in which managers will work and make decisions, business education also needs to change dramatically. In a talk on March 20 titled "HBS @ the Frontier: The Future of Management Education," Dean Kim B. Clark brought conference-goers up-to-date on HBS's newest innovations in the use of information technology. Clark declared that HBS needs to adopt innovative information technologies to continue executing the School's mission successfully: "We have been committed for more than seventy years," he said, "to a model of education in which we bring the world into the classroom - we immerse our students in the context of business and engage with them in an intense, interactive exploration of the problems that people face when they have to make decisions."
At the same time, Clark went on to note, today's business world is mediated by electronic communication, and information technology offers powerful new tools for enriching classroom context and increasing interactivity. As a result, he observed, information technology will be central to an HBS education.
In a review of the highlights of HBS's new information technology initiatives (see "Technology for Learning's Sake," HBS Bulletin, April 1996), Clark went on to emphasize the benefits that these developments should have for the broad HBS community. Speaking, for example, about plans to link alumni on a lifetime basis to the HBS network, Clark declared, "What I hope we can do is create a deeper, richer, and more valuable pattern of connection with the School on a day-to-day basis. We hope to establish what I call an HBS 'home base,' a place where you get value and information when you tap back into HBS." Meanwhile, Clark concluded, "Our new campuswide system is beginning to have a real impact. This is not a business-as-usual approach. We are embracing the prospect of change and innovation."
In keeping with the conference's emphasis on the implementation of information technology, Clark did not merely talk about the new technology initiatives at the School, he also helped demonstrate them for his audience. With Clark providing commentary and conference-goers viewing a live video projection of a computer monitor, Associate Professor David M. Upton displayed materials from his course, Designing, Managing, and Improving Operations, available on its World Wide Web home page. Upton first presented an electronic case, featuring both hot links to sources of case-related material and an interactive analytical module that allows students to simulate factory scheduling and operations. Upton then demonstrated the School's revolutionary Web-based video system that provides full-motion digital video on demand with random access to a desktop or a classroom. This exercise furnished a good example, Clark noted, of students being able to work with a range of materials in new ways. "With their rich data and context," Clark observed, "electronic cases offer exciting opportunities for learning."
Following Clark's late-afternoon presentation and again after a conference wrap-up by McFarlan the next day, alumni had a chance to try out the new HBS information technology for themselves. At cocktail receptions on both evenings, HBS graduates were invited to explore an electronic case or to visit the School's home page on computers set up specially for these demonstrations. Afterward, conference-goers were able to relax at events that showcased innovation in the arts. At the end of the day's program on March 20, the conference adjourned for an evening at San Francisco's new Museum of Modern Art. A March 21 dinner in the Fairmont's Grand Ballroom featured a dazzling video presentation on "the virtual movie studio" by Gordon Radley, president of Lucasfilm.
Once the speeches, panel discussions, and video displays had concluded, conference participants took to the field on March 22 for a day of company tours in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Among the firms opening their doors were Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Oracle, Silicon Graphics, a United Airlines' maintenance operations center, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and NASA's Ames Research Center. The tours reinforced what several alumni at the conference said was its strongest feature: the spotlight on managers trying to utilize information technology and grappling with actual problems.
At the end of their stay in San Francisco, alumni praised the conference's focus, organization, and the presentations by its panelists and speakers, with many singling out Dean Clark's discussion of HBS's implementation of new technology as a particular highlight. Observed Deborah McConchie (MBA '79), whose Boston-area consulting business has many high-tech clients, "It was a well-organized conference with a good cross-section of people and industries." Kenzaburo ("Ken") Mogi (MBA '73) of Kikkoman Corp. in Tokyo recalled, "In my day, there were fifteen or twenty terminals in the basement of Baker Library. By comparison, what is now happening at the School is really amazing." Yet as Robert J. Barrett III (MBA '71) from Merrill Lynch in Palm Beach, Florida, noted, the School's progress should not be measured only in terms of its past when its leadership in information technology is pointing toward the future. As Barrett put it: "We spend a great deal of time at my company on IT. It's important - and it's good to see - that HBS is exercising a positive leadership role in terms of informing business practice in this area."
Next year's conference will also be considering a special case of business practice, as seen from ective. From April 5 to 8, in Hong Kong, the 1997 HBS Global Alumni Conference will examine the world's fastest-growing marketplace of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan during an event titled Greater China: Myth, Reality, and Opportunity. Of special note will be the opportunity to observe and consider what's in store for the former Crown Colony on the eve of its transformation into a "Special Administrative Region" of the People's Republic of China.
by Daniel Penrice
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