The Network Is the Company

The basic message is that the network creates the company -- whether that company is NetDay or Sun Microsystems. Your e-mail flow determines whether you're really part of the organization; the mailing lists you're on say a lot about the power you have. I've been part of the Java group at Sun for four or five years. Recently, by mistake, someone removed my name, John.Gage@eng.sun.com, from the Java e-mail list. My flow of information just stopped -- and I stopped being part of the organization, no matter what the org chart said. I got back on in a hurry.

The best way to understand what's happening in a company is to get to its alias file -- the master list of all its e-mail lists. Before the Web, I used the alias file as my main mechanism for knowing what was going on at Sun. I didn't need anyone to tell me when we were working on a new chip project. Suddenly there's a new e-mail list, Sun Blazer, and I know what's happening. I didn't need anyone to tell me Java was getting hot. There used to be 35 people on the Java alias list, then there were 120. Something's happening.

And people create their own private aliases. I have one called JavaBoss. It lists the people I believe are the real players in Java, my personal view on the power structure. They're the people I send messages to. A fellow named Geoff Baehr is on my JavaBoss list even though he works in a completely different part of Sun. But he's one of the drivers. You'd never know it from the org chart.

You're suggesting everyone can develop their own organization chart, their personal view of who does what at the company?

That's right. And then there's a second round. Let's say I mail you a message about Java, or I mail [Sun CEO] Scott McNealy, along with everyone else on my JavaBoss list. Suddenly the CEO sees who I think should get this information, who I think is important. I remember bumping into Scott at a conference in Geneva. Java is really heating up, he's getting lots of mail, and everybody is copying a guy named Mike Clary. Scott asks me, "Who's Mike Clary?" He's never met him, Mike works with [Sun cofounder] Bill Joy in Aspen. There's a new, virtual organization taking shape below the CEO.

That's important. Because he is on a lot of e-mail lists, Mike Clary has been recognized by his peers as an important person. It's like the science citation index. This affects people's careers. If your name is on e-mails flying around the company, that's good. You're getting far better exposure than in any annual review.

That doesn't mean people can't play politics. E-mail is a Rorschach test. People who are masters of back-office politics still play lots of games. They prune their lists to limit distribution. They time-stamp messages so when you're at a meeting, they can tell you exactly when they sent the memo you're supposed to have read. They are legalistic in their style. E-mail breeds people like this too.

Will the spread of World Wide Web technology inside companies -- intranets -- make traditional e-mail less important?

The Web is a step beyond e-mail. Putting up a Web page means you have something to say. And the way you put it together says a lot about who you are -- not just the words but also the style, and your links to other pages.

E-mail and the Web are merging. It means I can e-mail you a hypertext page which, when you bring it up on your machine, has links to other documents, other people, other computers in other companies. We've gone from "dead" e-mail to "live" e-mail. People won't just send messages anymore. They'll send their view of the world, and express it as a series of links to other pages.

It just alters things. With conventional e-mail, I can persuade you through my words, with ad hominem arguments about why something is important. With live e-mail, I can show you. There's power in that.

At what point does technology create too much communications? Sun's people generate 2 million e-mail messages per day and have created 250,000 Web pages. Now you're installing universal videoconferencing. Don't you risk overload?

Every time we've increased the ability of people at Sun to communicate electronically, good things have happened. So we just keep increasing it. I can think of lots of interesting ways to use video. Let's say Bill Joy is sitting in Aspen and he has an idea, and he wants to start a discussion about it inside the company. He can do a video and put it out on the Net. Suddenly the entire company can learn from its most brilliant person. People can play it over and over and have an electronic discussion. We are merging video, audio, publishing, and telecommunications to create a new work environment that lets us combine and distribute our collective wisdom.

Let's move from networks inside companies to the networked economy. Is it all that different doing business on the Net?