[Am-info] Business Technology: Kids Want Straight Answers

[Fred A. Miller]

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Business Technology: Kids Want Straight Answers

Fourteen-year-old to parent: "So what do you think about this 
Enron thing?"

"Well, it's complicated. What part of it are you asking about?" 

Long, silent gaze, bordering on both incredulity at the question 
and suspicion at the dodge. "The part about a few top-level 
people lying through their teeth and selling their own shares 
while the price was high and making tens of millions while they 
were telling all the regular workers to keep buying the stock 
with all their pension money no matter how the price went."

"Well, like I said, it's complicated. A lot of people at all 
levels of the company made a lot of money, at one time, from 
Enron's innovative and market-making approaches. And that's not a 
bad thing. But equity markets are complicated, and it's hard to 
know when to sell."

"Why do you talk to me like I'm an idiot?"

"Hey, hey, hey: Why would you say something like that? I tried to 
answer your question in a reasonable way without making it overly 
complicated."

"I said it because you're speaking in some meaningless language 
and you're avoiding answering what I'm really asking when you say 
nonsense like 'Enron's innovative and market-making approaches.'"

"Geez, you gotta give me some slack here--I was just trying to 
put it in terms you could understand. See, Enron was doing things 
no company had ever done before--that was the innovation--and 
because of those new ideas, they were making a market for an 
entirely new type of company that behaved in ways no company ever 
had before." Pause; stage whisper: "It's a Wall Street term."

"So that makes it a good thing?"

"Well, it's not necessarily a bad thing. We have a lot of laws 
about who can know what and when they can know it and how they 
have to tell everyone what they know at the same time and how 
they can't act in their own self-interest on information that 
hasn't been shared with everybody. It's--"

"--complicated?"

"That's not the sort of attitude that helps you learn how the 
world works."

"Well, Dad/Mom, tell me this: Would you have done what those 
Enron people did?"

"Aw, c'mon, these hypothetical questions aren't fair! What I do 
know is that I can say I'm really, really sorry for all the 
employees who lost everything. But did those executives break the 
law? I don't know; it's compli--er, it's tricky."

"Mom/Dad, have you used Napster?"

"What do you mean?"

Silence. Stare. Sense of growing anger.

"Well, yeah, of course I've used it--I taught you how to use it."

"Have you used it since that judge said it was illegal?"

Cough. Run fingers through hair. Pucker lips. Flip hands. Reply 
with idiotic question: "Well, that depends on what you mean by 
'used' it."

Look of defiance mixed with tinge of pity and more than a little 
disgust. "Dad/Mom, I'll give you one more chance: What did Enron 
pay Arthur Andersen to do? And if you tell me it's complicated, 
I'll set my alarm clock for 3 a.m. and blast my Marilyn Manson CD 
out the window so loud it'll wake up the whole neighborhood."

"Arthur Andersen was supposed to make sure Enron followed all the 
laws we have about how companies have to tell everyone fairly and 
accurately about where and why money was coming into the company 
and where and why it was going out."

"And did Andersen do what it was paid to do and promised, by law, 
to do?"

"Apparently not. But that's hard to say."

"Ahhh--hard to say. I guess it's hard to say why they shredded 
documents if they had nothing to hide, right? And hard to say why 
they kept so quiet while all those employees were getting 
screwed?"

"Gosh, I don't know. ... Maybe they didn't really 'know' it, even 
though they probably should have, like, expected it." Horrible, 
long, deafening, awkward silence. "But Andersen is offering to 
try to make up some of the money some of the people lost."

Penetrating, otherworldly look. "OK, Mom/Dad, thanks a lot for 
the insights. Now I'm gonna go up to my room and log on to 
Napster. But don't worry about what I'll be doing: It's 
complicated." - Bob Evans is editor-in-chief of InformationWeek. 
Send E-mail to mailto:bevans@cmp.com or, better yet, give your 
feedback in his discussion forum:
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eGDU0Bce7K0V10NvU0Ah

- -- 
Fred A. Miller
Systems Administrator
Cornell Univ. Press Services
- ---KMail 1.3.2--- SuSE Linux v7.3 Pro---


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