Consulting Summit 2001

When you recall the atmosphere of uncertainty and fear that seemed to cloud over much of last fall, there were few industry gatherings that projected more bare-knuckle optimism, perhaps, than Kennedy Information's Consulting Summit 3.0.

Of course, when you fill a room with nearly 200 management consultants, the unavoidable chest-pounding will more than likely drown out any large sighs or gloomy forecasters. And so it was in NYC in late November, when the collective clatter steadily escalated as the profession's minions met to debate, network, and listen to a roster of speakers representing the profession's premier firms.

First up was Boston Consulting Group senior partner George Stalk, who told the gathering to momentarily forget about the limits of present-day technologies and enter a world of infinite bandwidth — a place where information can be accessed anytime, in any form, anywhere, at zero cost.It's a destination where strategists can roam free, and Stalk wasted no time in shepherding his audience across its many peaks and valleys. Next up was IBM's vice president of technology and strategy, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, who shared his outlook on Grid computing — a computing vision that much of the research community describes as the next evolutionary step in the development of the Internet.