Walking the Talk
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University of Michigan Business School Spring 2000 WalkingWalking thethe Talk:Talk: Sam Zell and Ann Lurie Invest in Entrepreneurial Studies Plus: Your Customers are Key Collaborators by V. Ramaswamy Save on taxes. Live forever. Interested? With a Planned Gift you can leave a lasting legacy at the University of Michigan Business School. In addition, such gifts may offer certain tax benefits. For more information, call Barbara Ackley at 734-763-5775 or return the business reply card. Spring 2000 FEATURES DEPARTMENTS 3 Across the Board 28 Tough Guy Sam Zell GeoCities’ David Bohnett… Ford’s Jacques Nasser…Taxes and Puts His Money Campaign 2000…Citizens Rank Uncle Sam…C. K. Prahalad in Where His Heart Is Taiwan and more… Sam Zell says there are nine personal characteristics essential to the successful 9 Quote Unquote entrepreneur; his $5 million gift to the Business School aims to foster those Who is saying what—and where. characteristics on a large scale. 13 Faculty Research In the Know on IPOs 31 Devoted Mother, Theresa Welbourne finds HR strategies Committed Philanthropist predict long-term survival of start-ups. PLUS: A list of recent journal articles Ann Lurie’s deceased husband, Robert H. Lurie, wished to further the study of written by University of Michigan entrepreneurship at the University of Michigan Business School. With her Business School faculty and how to $5 million gift, his wish comes true. obtain copies. 15 Ovation 34 Entrepreneurship in Everything’s Coming Up Roses: Keith and Valerie Alessi Renovate Action: Michigan Students the Courtyard Alumni and Friends Honor Gilbert Lead the Charge and Ruth Whitaker Entrepreneurial studies have become one of the most popular fields among business school students 18 Alumni at Large nationwide. Learn what Michigan is doing and why. “Give Me Equity or Give Me Death”: a profile of Jeff Rich, BBA ’82 PHOTO STORY In the Swing of Things: Elaine Crosby, BBA ’80, drives her career in the LPGA 20 Reunion ’99 37 Alumni Activities INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL Club news from Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, 11 Seismic Shift: Think of the Twin Cities, France and Thailand. 39 Class Notes Customers As Collaborators The goings-on of friends and colleagues Radical as it may sound, Venkatram Ramaswamy says anyone who is selling anything in the new economy needs to think of the consumer as a key 45 Obituaries collaborator in product development. 47 Alumni Network Dean: B. Joseph White; Senior Associate Dean: Susan J. Ashford; Update Associate Deans: Gautam Kaul, F. Brian Talbot Strengthen ties with the University of Editor: Cynthia Shaw; Class Notes and Copy Editor: Fred P. Wessells Michigan Business School: Complete and Contributors: Claudia Capos, Eldonna May return your update form today! Editorial Assistants: Mary Joslyn, Diana Munoz Designer: Blue Pencil Creative Group, Ltd. Chief Photographer: Michael J. Schimpf; Photographer: Bill Wood Copyright ©2000 The University of Michigan Business School. This publication is produced by Cover photo by the Office of Communications and made possible through the generosity of private donations. Michael J. Schimpf University of Michigan Business School Web site: www.bus.umich.edu Dividend 1 SPRING 2000 University of Michigan Business School March 2000 Dear Business School Community, I am writing to inform you of my plans to complete my second five-year term as dean of the University of Michigan Business School next year (2000-2001) and then undertake new professional challenges. Accordingly, I have communicated this decision to Provost Nancy Cantor and President Lee Bollinger. 701 Tappan Street Serving as dean of our School has been my dream job. I have been deeply honored, challenged, and gratified Ann Arbor, Michigan to have this wonderful opportunity to work with and for all of you. 48109-1234 Tel 734 764 1361 I had long planned to serve as dean for a decade. By mid-2001, I will have been dean for eleven years and in Fax 734 763 0671 the senior leadership of the School for fourteen years. I will be ready at that time to pass the baton to my successor. Email [email protected] I want you to know how grateful I am to our faculty, students, staff, alumni, generous donors, corporate friends, my dean colleagues, and Nancy and Lee and their predecessors for the tremendous support they have B. Joseph White provided to the School and to me personally. Dean and It has been a joy for me to participate in the innovations and improvements in our programs, and in the Wilbur K. Pierpont creation of the William Davidson Institute, the Joel D. Tauber Manufacturing Institute, the Frederick A. and Collegiate Professor Barbara M. Erb Institute, and the Samuel Zell and Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. It has been gratifying to honor our faculty with 26 new named, endowed professorships, to double our annual expenditures on student scholarships, and to build Sam Wyly Hall. It has been remarkable to see the School’s endowment increase from $40 million to nearly $150 million between 1990 and 2000. And yes, we’ve had more than our share of victories in the unscientific but nonetheless consequential ratings and rankings of the world’s top business schools. Leadership work is easy if you love your institution and cherish those with whom you work. For me, both have been true during the last decade. We have much to do in the coming year to maintain and build scholarship, recruitment, education and development programs, facilities and global reach, financial strength, and our leadership as an innovator. The School’s leadership team and I will work aggressively on making our School even stronger in each of these areas. While I cannot be certain what my next professional challenge will be, I am deeply drawn to faculty work and to continuing my membership in the Business School community. What I know for certain is how important new challenges are to each of us as the key to continued growth, learning, and excitement and energy about work. The University of Michigan has an established and effective process for selecting deans. I expect that our School will be very attractive to outstanding candidates. As I’m sure you know, I have tremendous confidence in the strength, momentum, and future promise of this institution. With warm and grateful regards, B. Joseph White Dean and Wilbur K. Pierpont Collegiate Professor Entrepreneur of the Year ACROSSTHE GeoCities BOARD and space for users to create their own Web pages and interact with one another. This Founder David strategy proved to be a winner among users and among advertisers who jumped at Bohnett Tells the chance to promote their wares to self- segregating groups of like-minded people. Bohnett attributes his achievements to His E-Story innovative thinking. “Entrepreneurs need Michael J. Schimpf -business success hinges on under- to ask: ‘How can I look at things differ- Jacques Nasser Estanding how the Internet is changing ently?’ Not, ‘How can I create a business people’s behavior and building innovative that does the same thing, except on the Auto Industry business models to capitalize on those be- Internet?’ It is important to understand havioral changes, says GeoCities founder what is driving the change in the Internet,” David Bohnett, MBA ’80. he said, “and then to build business models Customers Will A rapt audience packed Hale Auditorium around that.” last fall to watch Bohnett receive the Uni- Obtaining venture capital often is a Design New Cars versity of Michigan Business School’s 1999 stumbling block for start-up companies, he Entrepreneur of the Year Award and hear added. After sinking his entire net worth— him deliver the keynote address at the $350,000—into his fledgling enterprise, he Says Nasser Fourth Annual Entrepreneurs Forum. knocked on doors for two years in search echnological advances are compelling of investors. Tautomotive manufacturers and other In early 1996, he convinced CMG (now “nuts-and-bolts companies” to rethink CMGI Inc., an Andover, Maryland-based their business models on virtually all levels, corporation that develops and operates In- Ford Motor Company CEO Jacques Nasser ternet companies) to purchase half the told incoming MBA students at the Leader- company for $2 million. GeoCities went ship Development Program’s welcome ad- public in August 1998. dress last August. Bohnett now heads his own investment Last fall, Ford announced it was part- company, Los-Angeles-based Baroda Ven- nering with Microsoft Corp. to sell build- tures LLC, and he has founded and serves to-order cars to customers over the Inter- as executive director of the David Bohnett net via Microsoft’s CarPoint auto-sales Web Foundation, a nonprofit grant-making or- site. Nasser estimated 40 percent of Ford ganization that works to improve society customers now use the Internet to obtain through social activism. information about car products and pric- Bohnett predicted the Internet’s ing, a trend that will continue to grow. He strengths—the elimination of time, the predicted in 20 to 30 years only half the elimination of inefficiencies, the lack of dealerships in business today will exist as regulation and the lack of natural bound- owner-operated enterprises. Michael J. Schimpf aries—will foster tremendous changes in In addition, consumers are demanding— David Bohnett business practice, including the eventual and auto companies are installing—more collapse of intellectual properties. Fixed electronic equipment on their vehicles than “The Internet, though still in its infancy, is pricing will give way to dynamic, variable ever before. “More and more, the automo- creating new markets and business opportu- pricing in real time. Even education will bile is going to be an extension and reflec- nities for those willing to embrace fast- shift its emphasis from basic information tion of the technology consumers now get in paced technological advances,” he said.