Stanford Executive Briefings: Technology

Creating Winning Social Media Strategies

Citing intriguing examples from Oracle, Southwest Airlines, Walmart, Comcast, and Starbucks, Charlene Li shows us how companies can use social media tools to develop more intimate and beneficial relationships with customers.

Wikinomics

Interactive web technologies, in the form of self-organizing Internet communities, are driving a social revolution. Don Tapscott describes how companies innovate using the knowledge, resources, and computing power of widely distributed internet users organized into a massive collective force.

The Best Service is No Service

With the ever-present need to reduce costs and boost customer loyalty, Bill Price argues that companies should challenge the need for customer service in the first place. This game-changing approach treats service as a data point of dysfunction since it is almost always needed either to fix mistakes or to resolve customer confusion.

Bill Gates in Conversation with Stanford President John Hennessy

In this candid and lively presentation, Bill Gates gives you his perspective on where technology is headed. He responds to issues of privacy and security, and talks about improvements in productivity.

Leadership in a Wired World

Tim Sanders explains his advocacy of compassion in business, and helps you understand why genuine kindness and caring make bottom-line sense. Sanders believes that, in a wired world, nice guys finish first.

Competitiveness and the Future of the High-Tech Industry

The U.S. high-tech industry faces considerable challenges today in spite of upswings in jobs and exports. Betty Baker presents statistics detailing the decline in highly skilled workers, and government policies that create a disadvantage in global trade and R&D. Baker argues that concerted action is needed to reverse negative trends and help put the industry back on track.

Supply Chain Management in the Internet Age

Professor Hau Lee argues that companies should not be satisfied with the substitution effect or the scale effect when enjoying the benefits of the Internet on supply chain management. He shows how select companies have leaped ahead by collaboratively integrating supply chain management and the Internet.

The Opportunity and Threat of Disruptive Technologies

Many of history's greatest growth markets were created by a disruptive technology that was met with resistance from traditional industries and organizations. Clayton Christensen demonstrates that in order to create new business in emerging markets, you need appropriate management of technological innovation and the ability to find new markets for new technologies.