Interview with David E. Chesebrough, PE

Citation

Stankosky, M. (2006), "Interview with David E. Chesebrough, PE", VINE, Vol. 36 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/vine.2006.28736daf.001

Interview with David E. Chesebrough, PE

Interview with David E. Chesebrough, PE

Dave Chesebrough became the second President of the Association for Enterprise Integration (AFEI) on November 6, 2001. During his tenure the association has redefined itself to become the premier industry group dealing with net-centric operations and enterprise integration. The Association for Enterprise Integration is an affiliate of the National Defense Industrial Association.

Mr Chesebrough has over 30 years’ experience with technology, business management and strategy, including Defense acquisition, international information technology consulting, aerospace, nuclear power, and education. He has lectured, taught and consulted extensively in the USA, Asia, Europe and Africa. He founded and operated a strategic e-business consultancy for B2B and B2G e-commerce.

His experience in Defense work began on entering the US Air Force in 1976, where he served four years as an Astronautical Engineer. His responsibilities included the integration of experimental payloads with the Minutemen I ballistic missile.

Prior to entering the Air Force he was an engineer with Babcock and Wilcox, designing fuel and control components for commercial nuclear power generation plants. Mr Chesebrough re-entered industry in the Washington, DC area providing technical and management support to a variety of military programs, including underwater acoustics systems, Army telecommunications, and Navy command and control installations. He owned and operated a small information technology firm for nine years, providing technical and management support to government and industry in electronic business practices. His interest in the application of information technology to improve information sharing in enterprises began in the mid-1980s, and he has pursued that passion ever since. Today he is guiding the NDIA family of associations into a central position as the leading industry-wide advisory body to government on net-centric operations.

He is a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

What is the mission of AFEI?

The mission of AFEI is to build and sustain effective collaboration between industry and government in ways that promote the advancement of innovation in information sharing, assurance and net-centricity. In accomplishing this mission we look to active participation on the part of industry, government and academia in helping understand, and shape, the future.

AFEI advocates the effective use of technology to promote enterprise-wide ability to share information; promotes vigorous, responsive, open and objective government-industry and business-business collaboration; provides platforms for exchange of information on issues, policy strategy and best practices; and collects and disseminates information resources that help define enterprise integration into the future.

This is particularly important at the moment, not only because of the increasing reliance of government systems and processes on commercial products, but also because the IT market is changing. The emergence of service-oriented information environments built upon ubiquitous networking is a product of the internet and the information age. Information technology is moving further into commoditization, making possible integration of multiple products into unique configurations and capabilities. This is rapidly becoming the target environment for government.

You’ve been associated with GW and their knowledge management (KM) program for sometime now. Can you tell your audience what is your perspective on KM as it relates to AFEI?

The information age and net-centric labels are popular, but they don’t really convey the true intent of where we are going. You often see the logic string of data-information-knowledge-wisdom, indicating that increasing level of understanding and interpretation humans apply to what they receive. What we are really trying to get at is knowledge: to perceive or understand facts and truth; to be cognizant or aware of circumstances, situations and surroundings; and to accumulate experiences, knowledge and information. That makes for interesting academic study, but what intrigues me about the program of Dr Stankowski at George Washington is that they focus on the practical. How does knowledge make better business and government? It is analogous to return on investment in the financial world, how do we make use of all of the knowledge we can accumulate?

Knowledge management is an integral discipline for organizations as they become increasingly impacted by globalization. This in turn means the growth of knowledge-centric industries that are, by and large, virtual in nature. By this I mean the global interconnectedness that telecommunications and the Internet provide allows, in Tom Friedman’s words, the world to be flat. This in turn means real changes in markets and economies. With globalization comes the need for practical knowledge management tools, even if they are not known as such.

The management of information, the distillation of relevant knowledge and the sharing of that knowledge are quickly becoming competitive discriminators for organizations as markets become more fragmented. In AFEI we are concerned with how enterprises are able to operate more effectively in highly networked, complex environments. KM establishes the intellectual underpinnings and provides the necessary tools and approaches for determining what you know – the knowledge assets of the organization. Today events unfold quickly and decision cycles can be drastically shortened. The organization that has a better grasp of its complex knowledge dynamic is in a better competitive position. AFEI perceives and promotes the value of knowledge and the critical need for managing that knowledge within its extended enterprise context.

You have numerous clients in your association. How do they perceive KM?

Some are more enlightened than others. The largest corporations all have initiatives that touch on KM, but as yet they seem not to have grasped the importance of having an enterprise approach to knowledge. Often it is considered a niche expertise that can be marketed to others rather than an important internal enterprise infrastructure activity. Because KM has an infrastructural or overhead cost aspect to it, it is often placed at a lower priority than more immediate revenue producing capabilities. Most executive incentives involve growing their business, so there is a natural disinclination to promote better enterprise-wide functions.

What are the main challenges for your members in this fast-moving, high tech era we operate in?

The main challenges are two-fold: dealing with ever increasing dynamics in markets, and adapting/adopting technology into client offerings. With regard to markets they are concerned with maintaining market position, bringing new products and services into a dynamic market, and coping with the yet-to-be-understood impacts to traditional business models of the transformation currently unfolding in government markets. Smaller, more agile innovators have made in-roads into traditional markets usually dominated by the large corporations. In addition, the vendor community is rapidly changing as it sees opportunity developing that is fueled by enormous demand for technology services. Where there are entrenched cultures defined by older technology, change can be slow, and the turtle will always lose this race.

What do you perceive as the biggest challenges in the next decade for managers?

In the future the biggest issue will be dealing with the complexity wrought by ubiquitous networking, globalization and rapidly advancing technology. Web 2.0 is one example of how different the next decade will be. Wireless, advanced computing, and the expectations of a new generation will bring continuous change to the landscape. Traditional notions of product, value and property may be challenged as new capabilities engender new business models and money flows to yet unknown innovations. Complexity is the condition in which there is ambiguity and competition among goals, and no clearly defined strategy can be established. Old value models will be invalidated, resulting in new processes. As is always the case, we can only judge the future by what currently exists and extrapolate from there. Information Technology will continue to evolve. However, I believe that it will be driven by consumer demand more than ever before. Business will have to be careful in adopting products and services, mindful of increasing security and privacy concerns.

Michael Stankosky