Where IT’s @: Technology and the Economy
September 10, 2004
Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the National Association for Business Economics

Since 1995, productivity has surged, with output per hour rising an average of more than 3 percent annually. Information technology is getting credit for much of this increase. But should it?

IT has brought significant enhancements: streamlined supply chains, automated routine workflows and greater customer insight, to name a few. These productivity advances have assured firms a leg up on the competition. But now, with the dust beginning to settle, some see IT as just another commodity, another input necessary to compete but insufficient to ensure competitive advantage.

This conference, cosponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the National Association for Business Economics, will explore the state of information technology as it relates to productivity, the economy, business operations, venture capital, education and more. Join us and hear distinguished speakers assess technology and its potential impact on economic growth and productivity.

Conference Information

When
Friday, September 10, 2004
8:30 a.m.– 4 p.m.

Agenda

Speaker Bios

Chris Anderson
Editor in Chief
Wired
Anderson joined Wired as editor in chief in 2001 and led the magazine to National Magazine Awards nominations for general excellence in 2002 and 2004. Previously, he was U.S. business editor of The Economist, where he specialized in coverage of technology and the new economy. From 1997 to 2000, he was The Economist’s Hong Kong bureau chief and Asian business editor. As technology editor in 1994-97, he started The Economist’s Internet coverage, directed its web strategy and built its initial web site. Before joining The Economist, Anderson worked in various editorial positions at Science, Nature and The Scientist. He holds a B.S. degree in physics from George Washington University and studied quantum mechanics and science journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.

Vikas Bajaj
Technology Writer
The Dallas Morning News
Bajaj joined The Dallas Morning News in June 1998 as a metropolitan reporter. After a year of covering local government and police, he moved to the business desk to write about employment and the job market. Since July 2000, he has covered the telecommunications industry. He previously worked at The Associated Press in Bangkok and The Chronicle of Higher Education in Washington, D.C. Bajaj received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University.

Erik Brynjolfsson
Schussel Professor, Sloan School of Management, and Director, Center for eBusiness
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Brynjolfsson is an award-winning researcher and director or advisor of several technology-intensive firms. He was among the first researchers to measure the productivity contributions of information technologies, and his research has been recognized with six “best paper” awards by fellow academics. His books include Understanding the Digital Economy and Strategies for eBusiness Success, among many others. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous academic journals as well as Time magazine’s board of economists. In 2003, he was profiled in BusinessWeek as one of the five “visionaries” of e-commerce. Brynjolfsson previously taught at Stanford Business School and Harvard University. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied mathematics and decision sciences from Harvard and a Ph.D. in managerial economics from MIT.

Nicholas G. Carr
Author and Former Executive Editor of Harvard Business Review
Nicholas G. Carr, a business writer and consultant whose work centers on strategy, innovation and technology, was named one of the 10 people to watch in 2004 by American Way magazine. His book, Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage, argues that information technology's strategic value has diminished steadily as its presence and power have grown. Carr’s ideas have sparked a widespread debate on the role and value of IT in business and have been featured in articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, The Economist, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, USA Today, Fortune and Forbes, among others. Between 1997 and 2003, Carr held top editorial positions at the Harvard Business Review, including executive editor and acting editor. He won McKinsey Awards for best articles published in HBR in 1999 through 2002. Before joining HBR, Carr was a principal at Mercer Management Consulting. He is currently a contributing editor at Strategy & Business, for which he writes a column on innovation. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and an M.A. from Harvard.

W. Michael Cox
Senior Vice President and Chief Economist
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
As senior vice president and chief economist, Cox advises the Bank president on monetary policy and economic issues and leads the free enterprise research group. He authors the Bank’s annual report essays on rising American living standards and the New Economy. These reports have received extensive attention from leading publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek and Investor's Business Daily. He is also widely published in the nation’s leading economics journals, such as the Journal of Monetary Economics and Review of Economics and Statistics. He is coauthor of Myths of Rich and Poor. Cox is a past president of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, a CATO Institute adjunct scholar and National Center for Policy Analysis senior fellow. He has taught economics at Southern Methodist University since 1985. Cox received his undergraduate degree in business and economics from Hendrix College and his Ph.D. in economics from Tulane University.

Jeff Donnellan
Vice President and CIO
Landmark Graphics Corp.
Donnellan is responsible for worldwide use of information technology at Houston-based Landmark Graphics, the leading supplier of software and services for the upstream oil and gas industry. His focus on improving productivity, speed and agility drives Landmark’s IT foundation strategy to enable end-to-end business processes and IT efficiencies throughout the organization. Before becoming vice president and CIO at Landmark, Donnellan was vice president and chief of staff for Halliburton Energy Services Group. Other positions at Landmark include vice president of product development, vice president of corporate operations, vice president of R&D operations and program management, director of technology transfer for Asia Pacific, North America operations manager, and director of client services worldwide. Prior to joining Landmark in 1988, Donnellan was a geologist, geophysicist and research specialist at Pennzoil Exploration and Production Company. He has a bachelor of science degree in geology from Auburn University and a Stanford University Executive Program Certificate.

G. Anthony Gorry
Friedkin Professor of Management and Professor of Computer Science
Rice University
In addition to his current research on the impact of information technology on organizations and society, Gorry directs Rice’s Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning, which develops computing and telecommunications for sharing knowledge in schools, universities, the workplace and the home. He previously conducted research on the application of artificial intelligence in medicine and the development of decision support systems for management. Gorry is a director of the W. M. Keck Center for Computational Biology, a joint endeavor of Rice, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Houston. He also directs a training grant on computational biology funded by the National Library of Medicine. Gorry served as vice president for information technology at Rice for seven years. Before coming to Rice, he held the same position at Baylor College of Medicine. He also held faculty positions at MIT in computer science and management. Gorry received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, a master’s from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. from MIT.

Ron Harris
Founder and General Partner
Southwest Capital Partners
Harris has been involved in successful entrepreneurial ventures for nearly two decades. In 1994, he spearheaded the acquisition of Novell’s database division and established what is now Pervasive Software. Harris served as president and CEO at Pervasive from its inception until 2002 and as chairman until 2004. Prior to Pervasive, Harris was instrumental in the start of Citrix Systems. He has also served on the boards of several successful technology companies, including Exterprise (prior to its acquisition by Commerce One) and AG-Tech Corp. in Nagoya, Japan. In 1998, Ernst & Young named Harris Austin Entrepreneur of the Year. In 1999, he was appointed to the board of directors of the San Antonio Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and has served as chairman of the board for three consecutive terms since 2002. Harris also serves on the advisory board for the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas and is chairman of the nonprofit organization Community New Start. Harris has a B.S. in computer science from Vanderbilt University and an M.B.A. from the University of Texas.

Alan Camerik “Rik” Heller
President and Founder
FreshLoc Technologies
Heller has been a successful entrepreneur in high-technology start-ups for more than two decades. During the 1980s and 1990s, he founded and managed several companies providing innovative industrial products. In the late ’90s, he focused his development team on products using radio frequency identification devices to gather environmental and location data. In 2000, seeing an opportunity for RFID wireless sensor solutions to monitor quality and safety in the food supply chain, Heller started FreshLoc Technologies. Nonfood applications of Freshloc’s RFID technologies are being used in semiconductor plants, hospitals, Department of Transportation programs and even in Bill Gates’ residences. Heller holds nine utility patents in the computer and communications fields and is a national mathematics award winner. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

Robert Helms
Lars Magnus Eriksson Professor and Dean, Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science
University of Texas at Dallas
Helms is one of the world's foremost experts in engineering research and education. Before coming to UT–Dallas, he was president and CEO of International SEMATECH and corporate vice president and director of silicon technology research at Texas Instruments. Prior to his work at TI, Helms was a professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University, where he was named professor emeritus in 1999. During his academic career, Helms led research efforts on semiconductor processing and new materials, especially related to atomic-level surface phenomena. He has published more than 150 papers in top refereed journals in engineering and applied physics. Helms earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering at Stanford and an undergraduate degree at the University of California at Berkeley.

Douglas S. Rasor
Vice President and Manager of Worldwide Strategic Marketing
Texas Instruments
Rasor has more than 20 years of experience in the semiconductor business. In his current position, Rasor scouts, pioneers and incubates Texas Instruments’ entrance into new high-growth markets that leverage the company’s real-time signal-processing core competency. He is also responsible for spearheading TI’s external venture fund activities. Rasor has held multiple field sales and business unit marketing assignments at TI and sales/marketing management roles at Sierra Semiconductor. Before his entry into the semiconductor industry, Rasor was director of engineering at SIMUTECH, where he led the development of real-time simulation hardware and software for the avionics network on the F-16 fighter aircraft. Rasor holds a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from Wright State University with postgraduate work in computer science.

John South, CISSP
Director of Information Security and Information Systems Security Officer
Alcatel North America
South is responsible for the security of Alcatel computer systems and information throughout the United States, Canada and Latin America. In this capacity, he and his staff design secure computing environments for the company, including those that connect Alcatel to its customers and vendors. He is also a program director and co-creator of the Information Assurance program at the University of Dallas. He is a recipient of the Certified Information Systems Security Professional certification from the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium. South is a member of the advisory board of the North Texas Electronic Crimes task force established by the U.S. Secret Service. He is a member of the High Technology Crime Investigators Association, Information Systems Security Association and IEEE Computer Society. South received a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University and an M.B.A. from the University of Dallas.

Hal Varian
Professor, School of Information Management and Systems
University of California at Berkeley
Varian has taught at MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Michigan and other universities around the world. His current research concerns the economics of information technology and the information economy. He has served as co-editor of the American Economic Review and is on the editorial boards of several journals. Varian has published numerous papers on economic theory, industrial organization, financial economics, econometrics and information economics. He is author of two major economics textbooks, which have been translated into 22 languages. Varian is a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, Econometric Society and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is coauthor of a bestselling book on business strategy, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, and writes a monthly column for The New York Times. Varian received a bachelor’s degree from MIT and an M.A. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dennis Wilson
Chief Technology Officer, Chairman and Founder
Nanotechnologies, Inc.
Wilson is cofounder and co-inventor of Nanotechnologies’ proprietary process for producing a wide variety of custom-engineered nanoparticles. His expertise is in hypervelocity physics, fluid dynamics, plasma dynamics and materials synthesis. He has more than 30 years of experience in industry, government and university research. He has eight years of technology management as founder and president of Applied Sciences Inc. and director of special projects at the Institute for Advanced Technology. Before founding Nanotechnologies in 1999, he was a professor in the mechanical engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written more than 50 technical publications and has been awarded three NASA research fellowships. Wilson received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas.