We have come to the end of an 11-year run.
This is the final print version of Ethix. I view this with mixed emotions. On the one hand, moving to an all-electronic format offers new opportunities. We have laid the groundwork for more interactivity, and the opportunity for including video clips from the interviews. Our updates will not be limited to bimonthly, and our articles do not have to fit perfectly on a single page. And we will include (eventually) all of the archives from past issues with a search capability. This is the excitement part.
On the other hand, we will miss the tangible product to carry in the briefcase and pass out to people on the road (although we will make it easy to print and forward individual articles). Many other newspapers and magazines have made this transition before we have, and they weren’t trying to make a print magazine work without advertising. So the combination of challenges and opportunities have brought us to this decision.
What does this mean for our readers? Those who choose can receive notice when new material has been added to the site. We promise not to do this more than twice per month, and will not spam our readers with other email. Write us at info@ethix.org to register for Ethix update feeds. The Ethix content will continue to be at www.ethix.org.
In this issue I have taken advantage of the last print edition to meet with a long-time friend, Wayne Alderson. When I was a mid-level manager at Boeing in the early 1980s, I read his story (Stronger Than Steel by R.C. Sproul) after hearing him interviewed on the radio. But I went further. I called him, and since then we have had many visits back and forth over the years. Here was a business leader who was passionate about valuing people, and he strongly influenced my own life, management style, and view of business. He is truly one of a kind. He is now working with his daughter, Nancy McDonnell, and they continue to do seminars on Value of the Person for businesses throughout North America. Nancy’s husband, Pat McDonnell, owns and manages a chain of restaurants in Pittsburgh and is implementing Value of the Person principles in his restaurants, so I interviewed him in the second Conversation.
Consistent with Alderson’s Value of the Person concept, some Harvard MBA students developed a professional oath for MBA graduates that we have reprinted in this issue. And my theme for Technology Watch develops the conclusion that a business focusing on only money, ignoring its people, must tend toward ethical failure. Even Bill Gates has called for some revisions to capitalism in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 2008. A book responding to this speech is reviewed in the InReview section. So for Ethix, the consistent theme continues to be the importance and challenges of managing an ethical business in an age of increasingly short-term thinking and globalization.
Two more Conversations are underway that will start rolling out on the web in September. Bonnie Wurzbacher, executive vice president for Coca Cola, will be the subject of our next Ethix Conversation. And Lord Brian Griffiths, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs, will follow.
See you on the Web.
Al Erisman
Executive Editor
P.S. Cinda Peters, Cinda Peters Design Inc., (cinda@cindapetersdesign.com) has been producing the graphics and layout of our print version of Ethix for 10 years. She has done a terrific job for us, and I would recommend her to assist any organization in designing a publication, creating graphics for print advertising, presentations, branding, or other collaterals.