Executive Thought Leadership

New technologies expand the scope of what it means to be "connected," not only boosting productivity but also offering the potential to rewrite the rules of business.

In the past, for employees to maximize productivity using the Internet they typically needed to be at work or working from a home office with a high-speed Internet connection. But new technologies are changing the way we work and are directly affecting our productivity by allowing anytime, anywhere Internet access. These advances mean that my productivity isn't affected by where I am; in fact, my most productive hours can actually come while I'm sitting on my living room couch or in an airport with a wireless connection. Additionally, new services are allowing me to connect more securely to my corporate intranet from anywhere, and new applications of the Internet are creating unique ways of communicating never before considered.

This month's Executive Thought Leadership Quarterly features two thought leaders who focus on the opportunities afforded by the Internet and associated new technologies, and how these are affecting the way we do business. Charles Giancarlo, senior vice president for the Cisco general commercial line of business, shares his thoughts about the latest empowering Internet technologies and efforts to make these technologies transparent to users. He also discusses how Cisco and its partners are using the Internet to help increase productivity. His "instant Internet" vision means that the technology comes to the user, rather than the user going to the technology. The inevitable consequence will be to improve the quality of people's lives and their relationship to technology, providing them with more choices for doing what they want to do, wherever and whenever they want to do it—yet another example of the power of the Internet to change the way we work, live, play, and learn.

Our Guru Q&A is with Gary Hamel, one of the world's foremost thought leaders on strategy and innovation, visiting professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School, and best-selling author of Leading the Revolution (Harvard Business School Press, 2000). Hamel's book explores radical business concepts and new wealth creation, and in this interview he discusses the role that imagination plays in shaping winning business practices. Hamel provides invaluable insight and examples of applications of technology, noting that we can only speculate at the moment about how the Internet will change the internal structure of companies and relationships between companies. I especially appreciate and echo his advice about "living inside the customers' skin" as a tool for rethinking the ways in which companies can use the Internet to revolutionize the customer's experience of a company.

I hope you enjoy this issue of the Executive Thought Leadership Quarterly .