Welcome to the first “all digital” issue of Ethix.
As you explore our new website, you will see this is much more than a digital version of the old paper copy. Here are some of the things we hope will make this much more useful for all readers:
- Full search capability, including all of the archives
- Improved navigation
- More frequent updates –
- We have succumbed to the trend toward shorter articles by delivering shorter pieces of the Conversation on a regular basis.
- We will add to reviews, news notables, and other areas every two weeks or so.
- We will notify those who register when new material has been added to the site.
- Eventually, we will include short video clips from the Interviews.
- We have made it very easy to comment on any article or review.
- We hope to reestablish the reader Forum in this more interactive environment.
For those who will miss the paper (and many wrote in to say so) we have made it easy to print specific articles to carry with you in a briefcase, if that is your preferred form of reading the material.
We look forward to your feedback.
This Issue
In this issue we begin the Conversation with Bonnie Wurzbacher, senior vice president of The Coca Cola Company. Most of us have only a vague idea of how a multinational corporation works, with all of its outsourcing, distributed activity, and the like. Her insight into this operation for Coca Cola helps us understand the local/global challenges of a modern global enterprise. Watch for further installments of this Conversation, as we discuss sustainability, ethics, and leadership.
In Technology Watch, I discuss the “implementation gap.” Typically, we look forward to new technology and the opportunities it will bring, along with its business and ethical challenges. However, many companies have done a relatively poor job of implementing even yesterday’s technology. I develop two examples where the implementation leads to questions of deception and ethics. We invite readers to contribute their own examples.
We have also used our “target” companies from the auto and home building industries to provide us with an update on the economic challenges. Both Don Flow (owner of Flow Automotive) and Perry Bigelow (owner of Bigelow Homes) talked candidly with us in the March/April 2009 issue about living through the downturn of the economy. They both offer glimmers of hope in the short updates that will be posted by November 15. Not surprisingly, maintaining integrity through the downturn has been at the heart of both strategies.
Coming Up
We are in the planning stages of future Conversations. By the first of December, we will post the Conversation with Lord Bryan Griffiths, former advisor to Margaret Thatcher and currently vice chairman of the board of Goldman Sachs.
We have scheduled a discussion with Greg Page, CEO of Cargill, in early December. Cargill is an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial, and industrial products and services. Founded in 1865, it is a privately held company employing 159,000 people in 68 countries.
Readers are encouraged to forward questions we could take to the Conversation.
Al Erisman
Executive Editor