Secretary of Defense-sponsored Highlands Forum

Dear Mr. Lay:

On behalf of Assistant Secretary of Defense (C3I) and DoD CIO Arthur Money,
I would like to invite you to participate in the Secretary of Defense's
Highlands Forum. The Highlands Forum is a cross-disciplinary group of
eminent scholars, researchers, CEO's/CIO's/CTO's from industry, and leaders
from the media, the arts and the professions, who have met over the past six
years to examine areas of emerging interest to all of us. The idea is to
gain a better understanding of the new environment we will all be living and
working in, and to examine the fundamental changes that will impact that
environment. The Forum includes seniors from the White House, Defense, and
other agencies of government (we limit government participation to about
25%). Our meetings over the past six years have covered such diverse topics
as "The Mind, the Brain, and Computing"; "The Convergence of Information
Technology and Biotechnology"; and "Innovation in Public Sector
Organizations". Our meeting in May explored MEMS, nanotechnology, and
molecular computing; among our participants were: Sun Microsystems founder
Bill Joy, Phil Kuekes of HP, Nobel laureate Rick Smalley. Our last meeting
in September focused on the future of software, and participants included
Inktomi founder Eric Brewer, SUN CTO Greg Papadopoulos, Packet Design CEO
Judy Estrin (board member of FedEx and Cisco), and Esther Dyson.

The Forum is an idea engine--there are no reports and no consensus
recommendations. Meeting size is usually kept to around 30 people to remain
small and informal, encouraging maximum discussion of ideas presented by a
speaker or a panel; we call it strategic conversation. While there is media
participation in our meetings, there is no press coverage of the
discussions. Our distinguised media participants in this meeting (CEO, UPI;
Exec. Editor, International Herald Tribune) will take part representing
themselves and will act as moderators.

Several of our participants strongly suggested that I contact you to tell
you about the Forum and this particular meeting. We are going to hold
Highlands Forum 16 in Washington, DC, on December 14-15 (half day on the
15th). The topic will be built around the search for
information/transformation strategies for the Department of Defense (and
government in general). The Assistant Secretary would like to hold this
Highlands to think about the elements of an information strategy, and I have
suggested that we look at information and strategy from a business
perspective (transformation, productivity, competitive advantage). We will
look at 4 or 5 useful business cases for context. ENRON is a remarkable
example of transformation in a highly rigid, regulated industry, that has
created a new model and new markets.

The Defense Department is not only creating an operational strategy which
has information superiority (better, faster decision making) at its core;
the Department also has an enormous global business enterprise which can
benefit from many of the best practices and ideas from industry enabling it
to achieve greater efficiencies and be a better steward of public funds.
Clearly, not all the elements translate well from the business envrionment,
however, many do. I am interested in business cases which ideally describe
an enterprise-level information or transformation strategy--those which see
an information strategy as the overarching strategy, or at least as a core
component of corporate/operational strategy--use of information technology,
information protection/assurance, CRM, and perhaps how to use information
and technology to transition or capture or create a new market. One
operational example that we will look at is Cemex, the Mexican cement
company that uses I.T. (GPS and communications) to "swarm" its trucks in the
ready cement business. Their COO will be joining us to describe how they
succeeded in dominating their market. In addition to Cemex, other companies
represented in our agenda include Cisco, eBay, Schwab, and Sourceree.

ENRON is of great interest to us. What we learn from you may help the
Department of Defense a great deal as it works to build a new strategy. I
hope that you have time on your busy schedule to join us for as much of the
Highlands Forum as you can attend and speak with the group. I would be happy
to tell you more about the Forum. In the meantime, please take a look at
the Secretary's Website for the Forum to get a better idea of what it is and
what is has accomplished: www.hlforum.com; username: cc27 (lowercase);
password: SVN8 (Uppercase). I am also attaching a short document which gives
a bit more information about the Forum.

Among our confirmed guests:

Ms. Susan Bostrom, Senior Vice President, Internet Business, Cisco Systems
Mr. Tod Cohen, Counsel, Policy and Strategy, eBay, Inc.
Mr. Arnaud de Borchgrave, CEO, United Press International
Ms. Joan Dempsey, Deputy Director, CIA
Mr. Jaymie Durnan, Managing Director, Radius Capital
Ms. Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure Holdings, Inc.
Mr. Philip B. Evans, Senior Vice President, Boston Consulting Group, author
of Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/087584877X/qid%3D970625271/102-57228
99-8369728)
Dr. John Hamre, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for Strategic
and International Studies
Dr. William A. Haseltine, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Human Genome
Sciences, Inc.
Mr. David Ignatius, Executive Editor, The International Herald Tribune
Mr. Gelacio Iniguez, Chief Operations Officer, Cemex Corporation, Mexico
Mr. Ken Lyon, Chief Executive Officer, Sourceree, Ltd., London, UK.
(formerly President, eLogistics for UPS)
Dr. Lui Pao Chuen, Chief Scientist, Singapore Ministry of Defense
Mr. William A. Owens, Vice Chairman and CEO, Teledesic, LLC
Mr. Peter Schwartz, Chairman, Global Business Network
Mr. Ralph Terkowitz, Vice President for Technology, The Washington Post
Company
Mr. Morley Winograd, Senior Policy Advisor to the Vice President, Director,
National Partnership for Reinventing Government, The White House
Mr. Ed Zeitler, Vice President, Charles Schwab & Co.
Mr. Laurence Zuriff, Managing Director, Granite Capital

We very much hope that you will be able to participate in Highlands Forum
16; your company has been a key leader in business transformation, and we
hope that the public sector can derive new insights to make government
services better for all of our citizens. Please let me know if there is
anything I can do to assist. Thank you and best regards,

Dick O'Neill
Director, The Highlands Forum
301-469-7400
301-469-5878 fax

- winmail.dat