is an affiliate of the drucker school of management
In 1993, the federal government
and the University of Illinois released
the first graphical web browser:
“ Mosaic for X.”
That same year, Peter Drucker
wrote: “ Every few hundred years in
Western history there occurs a sharp
transformation… Within a few short
decades, society rearranges itself—
its worldview; its basic values, its
social and political structure; its arts;
its key institutions.
“ Fifty years later, there is a new
world. And the people born then
cannot even imagine the world in
which their grandparents lived and
into which their own parents were
born.”
Drucker concluded that we were
smack in the middle of our own,
equally profound transformation—
the move to knowledge work.
But as rapidly as we’ve gotten
here, Information Technology has
been, by and large, too focused on
the T— that is, the collection,
storage, transmission, and
presentation of data— and not
focused enough on the I. As Drucker
put it: “ What is the meaning of the
information? What is the purpose?”
What we need now, according
to Drucker, is not, as a rule, “ more
data, more technology, more speed.”
What we need is to step back and
better determine what kind of
information is required to perform
the tasks at hand.
Peering out at the shelves of
Drucker books here in the Institute—
which total 39 titles and some
10,000 pages— it’s plain to see that
those of us working to put Drucker’s
ideas and ideals into practice face a
similar challenge.
As with IT, “ more data, more
technology, more speed” alone won’t
cut it.
Amid a deep global recession,
spectacular cases of fraud, and the
uneasy transition to a knowledge
Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker
Institute, writes a bimonthly column for
BusinessWeek online that ties Peter
Drucker’s work to today’s headlines. For a
list of all of his columns, click here.
Rick’s recent “ Drucker Difference” columns:
• A Marketing Spill on Starbucks’ Hands Feb. 20, 2009
• Making Music with Drucker Feb. 6, 2009
• Obama’s Call to Duty Echoes Drucker Jan. 23, 2009
• Ask “ For What?” Before “ Who?” Jan. 9, 2009
Letter from Claremont
“ The Drucker Difference” on BusinessWeek. com
Drucker Society Spotlight
How Drucker Societies worldwide are
advancing ethical leadership and effective
management.
Who says you can’t go home again?
Although Peter Drucker’s insights
transcend borders, “ his mind” according to
Drucker Society of Austria founding
president Richard Straub, “ was shaped in
Europe.”
This is the key insight behind the
Vienna- based Drucker Society of Austria’s
first Global Peter F. Drucker Forum—
“ Reaching Out– Coming Home.” The event
will run from November 18- 20, 2009.
Drucker was born in Vienna on November
19, 1909.
Featuring an invitation- only senior
executive symposium as well as an open-enrollment
conference, the Forum will
focus on topics that are relevant to 21st
century managers. Key themes will
include management as a social function,
entrepreneurship and innovation, and the
role of nonprofits in the economy of the
future.
Continued on the next page Continued on the next page
claremont graduate university
The Drucker Institute offers free tools for effectiveness online. Whether you work for a corporation, nonprofit,
government, or yourself, there’s something there for you. Get effective at www. DRUCKERinstitute. com/ tools.
1021 n dartmouth ave, claremont, ca 91711
THE WINDOW “ I don’t predict. I just look out the window and see what’s visible but not yet seen.”
— Peter F. Drucker
The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www. druckerinstitute. com Mar/ Apr 2009
is an affiliate of the drucker school of management
economy, the world clearly needs Drucker’s wisdom now more than ever. For too
many of us, though, time to read and reflect is in short supply. We are awash in
technology that all too often fails to help us find meaning in the information it so
quickly offers up.
That’s why we were so excited to announce a few weeks ago the launch of
Drucker Apps. This new product— being spearheaded by our Institute colleague,
Christina Johnson— combines Drucker’s teachings with the latest from today’s
Drucker- like thinkers and doers, and distills it all into a bite- sized downloadable
collection of useful insights for the everyday.
In other words, this is timeless wisdom delivered by the latest in 21st century
technology. So fire up Mosaic for X, or your browser of choice, and check out
Drucker Apps. It’s time to use all that high- tech gear to deliver not just more
information, but information with real meaning.
Rick Wartzman and Zach First
Director and Assistant Director
The Evidence
The need for ethical
leadership and effective
management— that is, the
need for Peter Drucker’s
principles and practices— has
never been greater.
80%
of worldwide spending on IT is “ dead
money” that doesn’t create growth or
enhance competitive advantage.
Do your resources really
go to creating new
opportunities?
Source: Gartner Research
It seems lately that every day brings
a new medium for transmitting
information across the Internet. In a
world of Twitter and Facebook, email
already feels outdated.
With new technologies comes the
double- edged sword of abundant data.
In the 1980s, Peter wrote in The New
Realities that “ information is data
endowed with relevance and purpose.”
The flood of facts that the Internet
provides can be overwhelming, leaving
us to wonder where the relevance and
purpose is in this sea of data.
Although easy access to massive
amounts of information has only
recently become ubiquitous, the idea of
information overload predates the
computer revolution by several decades.
In a 1995 letter to Drucker, Solomon
Dutka, CEO of the market research firm
Audits and Surveys, wrote that in “ trying
to put together a paper on the issues of
information vs. meaning,” he came
across a 1939 poem by Edna St. Vincent
Millay:
Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts… They lie unquestioned,
Uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun, but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric…
Times may have changed since the
days before WWII, but the theme
remains the same: The more we know,
the more desperate we become for a
way to make sense of it all.
The historic Federation of
Austrian Industry building will serve
as the location for the conference,
which will be held under the
patronage of Vienna’s mayor.
The Drucker Society of Austria
has formed conference partnerships
with leading European business and
academic institutions.
Doris Drucker, Peter’s widow
and a noted entrepreneur, inventor,
and author, is among those set to
address the Forum.
“ Peter Drucker was a global
citizen,” said Straub, but “ his unique
approach to society and
management has deep roots in this
continent.”
With its Drucker Forum, the
Drucker Society of Austria intends to
put on a fitting tribute in a fitting
place, one in which people from
around the world will gather not just
to revisit ideas from the past but to
apply them to the future in order to
effect positive change in their
companies and communities.
Society Spotlight, cont’d
Letter from Claremont, cont’d
The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www. druckerinstitute. com Mar/ Apr 2009
FROM THE ARCHIVES
The Window
