What's New, What's Not

Carol Bartz

CEO and Chairman
Autodesk Inc.
San Rafael, California

I'm at the stage of my career when people often approach me to ask, "Will you be my mentor?" I don't know what the heck that means. Does it mean that they want me to be their mom? Does it mean that I'll be personally responsible for their success? Am I supposed to share my life secrets and private thoughts with them? To me, the prevalence of that question is a sign that a lot of people don't understand what is probably the most important shift in the new world of work: the demise of lifelong employment and of the corporation's promise of long-term stability. Today you are largely in control of your own destiny at work.

That's pretty damn liberating. It's also pretty damn scary. People are asking, "Who can I look up to?" That's understandable, but it's the wrong question. Work is more challenging than ever before. There's also an opportunity to get more out of it than ever before. The assumption behind mentoring -- "I'll tether myself to one person who will take care of me" -- is bankrupt. A better way is to build what I call a "personal mosaic" of influences, experts, and guides. Personal-mosaic building is about breaking mentoring down: What specific skill do I need? What's my next challenge? For each issue, you seek out an individual -- someone who can deal with crises in a certain way, someone who has an excellent time-management system, someone who seems good at handling office politics -- for advice, information, and models.

Carol Bartz took the helm at Autodesk, the nation's number-one PC design-automation software firm, in 1992. Since then, the company's annual revenues have grown from $285 million to $618 million.

Mike Volpi

Vice President, Business Development
Cisco Systems Inc.
San Jose, California

Historically, acquisitions have been viewed as one-time events that involve tremendous pain: You rope in dozens of people to work bruising hours on a deal. You rearrange lives, you fire people, and you perform all kinds of unnatural acts. Then 6 to 12 months later, you go back to your ordinary job.

At Cisco, we've transformed acquisitions into a standard business process, and we've made that process an important tool in the manager's portfolio. We have as many as 60 people, from various functional areas, dedicated to the task of acquiring and integrating companies. By going through the acquisitions process repeatedly, we improve it every time. That has allowed us to move very, very quickly -- we can now manage 10 to 12 acquisitions a year -- and it has allowed us to stay on top of the waves of technology that are rolling in with ever-increasing speed.

If anything in the technology business is in shorter supply than time, it's talent. Acquisitions are a fantastic way to bring new technical talent, new marketing savvy, and new know-how into an organization. After we complete an acquisition, we focus on easing the transition for new employees: We make it clear to people who come in from the outside that they're not outcasts at Cisco. The company is full of executives who have come in through acquisitions and who now run significant portions of the company.

As Cisco's top deal maker, Mike Volpi has supervised 29 acquisitions and more than 40 equity investments. Born in Milan and raised in Tokyo, he earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering, along with an MBA, from Stanford University.

Jay Chiat

Cofounder
TBWA Chiat/Day
New York, New York

Now more than ever, everybody is interested in the next new thing. But the real challenge isn't about introducing the new; it's about reinventing the old. That's a tough assignment. Kids -- that is, 12- to 24-year- olds -- determine whether a brand has any energy. And kids today are fickle: A brand holds their interest for only a moment. That's because kids grow up not only with television but also with computers and interactive entertainment.

Enduring brands share one quality: Call it "comfort." Brands like Kellogg's and M&M's have an inherent value for us -- because we grew up with them. When I was a kid, brands had a place at the table. These days, with 600 cereals in the supermarket, it's hard to develop "comfort" with any brand.

It's a truism that everything recycles eventually. Marketing is returning to older, more basic issues. It's not about how new a product is -- it's about how well that product resonates with people. How do you take something with a past and reenergize it? How do you get it back onto the table? Steve Jobs understands this: His energy, his intuition for marketing are amazing. He invented a revolutionary brand called Apple, and recently he has brought it back and revitalized it. Look at the iMac. It has all the qualities that made Apple lovable in the first place. It's easy to use; it's as much a friendly, beautiful object as it is a technology tool. And look at who's buying it: first-time computer users. That's amazing! The personal computer has been around since 1981. Almost two decades later, people who had never thought to invest in a computer are investing in this one. What's more, people are talking about it. That's one thing that will never change: Word of mouth is the ultimate form of advertising.