The CRO’s–Eye View: IBM's Stanley Litow
Stan Litow, Vice President, Corporate Community Relations, IBM
Interviewed by Jay Whitehead, CEO, The CRO, and Michael Levine, Chair, CSR Group, Epstein Becker & Green and CRO magazine columnist
Jay Whitehead: Just like his big picture on the cover of this month’s CRO Magazine, he served as Deputy Chancellor to the nation’s largest New York City public schools. He ran a big think tank, as you see interface, and was aide to the Mayor and Governor to the big State of New York. He initiated IBM’s program with the big agenda to reinvent education topping over 80,000 teachers and 8-million school kids nation wide. Now, he’s President of the IBM International Foundation, and is VP of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs for Big Blue, which is also some very big numbers; $91.4 billion in revenue in 2006, $9.4 billion in net income, 355,766 employees, and 613,993 stockholders, and is number 6 on the 2007 CRO Magazine 100 Best Corporate Citizens List; Ladies and Gentleman, Stan Litow.
Stan Litow: Thank you. [Applause]
Jay Whitehead: Joining me to help interview Stan here today is Michael Levine, who is the Chairman of the CSR Practice at the Law Firm Epstein, Becker and Green. And Michael is also a columnist in CRO Magazine, which qualifies him to be up here and not down there. So there we go. So, Michael and I are going to share the practice of grilling Stan and helping him help us understand better, what CR, Corporate Responsibility means and what Big Blue’s definition of it is. So, I’ll start and then we’ll go to Michael. Stan, now since this is the CRO Conference, The Corporate Responsibility Officer Conference, and you’re on the cover of CRO Magazine, are we correct in considering you, in affect, the CRO of IBM?
Stan Litow: No other answer at this point then yes.
Jay Whitehead: Okay, good. I wanted to paint you into a corner, that’s right. So, then, now we go to Michael.
Michael Levine: Stan can you help us understand the current versus past structure of CR at IBM? Especially changes in the philanthropy function and the corporate citizenship function and how they relate to the core business of IBM?
Stan Litow: Sure. I think that IBM is nearly 100 years old, and I think we’ve got a pretty fair record in all of the various elements of corporate and social responsibility. Labor practices; we’ve made a lot of pioneering efforts in terms of labor practices, environmental reporting, you know, corporate philanthropy. I guess if you go back to 1985, the conference board issued a report on contributions by US headquartered Companies, outside the US, and IBM accounted for 50% of the total. So that was fairly substantial, sort of over 20 years ago. So, I think to be fair, we’ve got a pretty good track record to run on.
On the other hand, I would also say that when I got to the Company, the sense was that in the corporate philanthropy area in particular, it lacked a focus, although there were a lot of good things. While the Company was spending a lot of money, it didn’t have a strategic element attached to it. It was disconnected a little bit from the business. I remember in my first week, a meeting with our then CFO, Jerry York, who said, “How can we give away all this money, when we’re not making any money?” And it was thought of as something that was only good if you made a lot of money, and then you would give something away. And there was not centralized, sort of organizational structure for corporate responsibility in the Company.
It had gone through reporting to a variety of different entities within the Company, from HR to Finance to a variety of different areas. And I think that what we’ve been able to accomplish, over the last several years, is a strategic focus for the philanthropic goals of the Company, totally connected to the business, around innovation and the use innovative technologies, through the research labs to address social problems on the one hand.
And then second of all, to develop an organizing structure within the Company, so that all the various elements of corporate responsibility are connected. So that when you encounter IBM in any State in the US, or any country that we do business with around the world; whether it’s India, China, Vietnam or Mexico, that there’s a common footprint to what the Company does, the way that we organize our corporate responsibility, the way it’s explained by our employees and hopefully, the way it’s understood by our customers and our shareholders.
Jay Whitehead: Now, how does it get funded? You know, we heard a comment to 2% of the top line goes in --- what’s your funding mechanism?
Stan Litow: As of last year, about, from a philanthropic standpoint, our contributions were about $153 million dollars which would put it at around 1.3% of any BT, but that’s not a definition for what you do in the community. We have over 80,000 employees who are doing community service through the Companies community service initiative. They contributed about 5 million hours worth of service; that’s not part of that total. Each year in the US, our employee charitable campaign last year was $35 million dollars; this year hopefully it will be larger; that’s not part of the total. So there are a whole host of things that I think have real economic value in the communities where we do business, that are not part of the $150 million dollars. Internally, we would say it’s a lot closer to a quarter of a billion dollars.
Michael Levine: Just one other part about past versus current practices. What change has there been if any, about accountability for results?
Stan Litow: Well, I think that there’s been a lot. I mean, again, when I first got to the Company about 13 years ago, it was hard to find accountability in the individual areas. Whether it was a grant making function or there were records kept on environmental data and labor practice information and cost of a variety of different functions, but it wasn’t in one place. Right now, I think we do a much better job at providing accountability. In the technology area we look at the intellectual capital that we develop.
For example we developed a new way to teach children how to read, using voice recognition technology. And in the research labs, that’s the first time that voice recognition technology has been successfully managed over the web. Obviously, it has a huge benefit into communities, but it has a very specific benefit to IBM, because that is a piece of technology that will be embedded in many, many of our business practices.
One of the things that you reported in your article was the use of grid technology, which allows you to harness the individual power, on an individual PC for another purpose. It will have a great benefit in the business arena for our customers to be able to harness the power, use less servers, use less power, but what we did was we harnessed that to create the 4th largest super computer in the world for humanitarian purposes.
Michael Levine: You’ve worked under 2 CEO’s at IBM, Lu Gerstner and Sam Palmisano. Can you describe, for the audience, your working relationship and any changes? And your involvement with other senior executives as well as IBM’s board?
Stan Litow: Well, I would say, first of all, and there are many colleagues of mine at other Companies in the room, and I think you know, corporations are very hierarchical in their structure. And it’s not just in terms of corporate responsibility, but in any other area, the CEO counts a lot. From my experience in the public sector, if the Mayor made a proposal, there were some people that would say, well, he or she, they’ll be gone soon. Chancellor makes a proposal; he or she will be gone soon. But in the corporate arena, CEO’s count for a lot. They provide you know, the overall business direction and the strategy for the Company so, I don’t think you can be successful in this kind of work without the immediate contact and direct access and direction from the CEO. So I’ve been very fortunate.
I was brought to IBM by Lu Gerstner, I worked very closely with him, he re-engineered many elements of the Company, include corporate responsibility area. I think in the transition to Sam Palmisano; if anything, the exposure the focus and the structure of corporate responsibility in the Company has increased, it’s directly tied to business strategy; both a Company developed on demand as a business strategy, the Company developed on demand community as a community strategy. The Company is in the forefront of grid technology, world community grid. Automatic language translation, that’s been a major focus of our social responsibility; programs tying environmental practices to the environmental business of the Company. So I think that from a CEO standpoint, the kind of direct engagement, direct access and leadership from the CEO of the Company is something that we were able to manage through the transition from one CEO to another.
From a board standpoint, I think access to the board is key too. I do my regular presentation to the IBM board, there’s a great deal of involvement and engagement on the board level. Many Companies that are on our board are also business customers or business partners, so we’d like to think that not only do we model our business practices but we model our corporate responsibility practices to the board.
From a senior leadership in the Company standpoint, I think that in each year, over the last 5 years, corporate responsibility has had a major role in the IBM senior leadership team meeting. And in terms of figuring out ongoing business strategy for the Company, corporate responsibility has been critically important.
Many of you may have seen an article that our CEO had in Foreign Affairs Magazine, about the globally integrated enterprise, and the evolution of Companies from national to multi-national to globally integrated enterprise. The globally integrated enterprise, as it’s being thought about at IBM, integrates corporate responsibility and members of my team; and I’ve got a couple of them in the audience; Jenn Crocer and Kevin Thompson. We are very much in the forefront of figuring out how we manage that and chart the direction for the Company around globally integrated enterprise. So, I think, if you have not been able to accomplish the support from the CEO, from the board and senior leadership, it makes it very difficult to do the work.
Jay Whitehead: So now lets go back to the profession Stan, of corporate responsibility. All these people here are interested in the growth and expansion of this profession. Now we’ve heard that the biggest professional downside of being in the compliance role in Companies is that nobody will eat lunch with you in the cafeteria. But, I hear people laughing and saying, “yeah, of course, nobody will eat lunch with me.” Now what’s the biggest professional upside and downside to being an affective corporate responsibility leader and what’s special and unique about doing that role at IBM?
Stan Litow: Since I eat lunch at my desk, I don’t know about the cafeteria part. You don’t get any special attention; nobody puts you to the front of the line. But they don’t send you to the back of the line either. I think that, you know, it is --- I operate out of corporate headquarters and in corporate headquarters, people have a variety of different views about a variety of functions within the Company. Our Corporate headquarters is a relatively small building. There are 500 or 600 people who work there and as you said, there are about 560,000 people who work in the Company.
The challenge isn’t the people that you work with in corporate headquarters. The challenge is integrating with what happens throughout the IBM Company. And their internal communications is key. And getting employees to buy in to the work that you’re doing. And I mentioned earlier, this effort to engage the Company, all of the employees in doing community service, that’s integrated into the corporate responsibility of the Company.
The on demand community is an Intranet site at the Company. Any employee can register on it, they can log their hours, they can determine what kind of community service they want to provide and then they can pick and choose of about 140 different technology tools that have created for them, in a multiply of languages, that they can access to engage in the community. So, what that does, is it engages those individuals around the globe, about 55% of them outside the US, directly in the work of corporate responsibility. So, if you don’t catch them that way, I think it’s hard to get them engaged in the work that you’re doing.
And I think the challenge that a lot of people have about corporate responsibility is what does it mean to an employee? If you’re newly hired to the IBM Company in India, what is IBM’s corporate responsibility program mean to you? I was in Hyderabad recently and talked to about 500, newly hired, IBM’s in India. Average age about 24 ½, average tenure within the Company about a year. And a large number of them, when I asked, and raised their hands, were registered in the Companies corporate responsibility initiative, on a local level. And one of them explained to me how great it was, because he had grandparents who lived in one of the rural villages, where IBM has brought a particularly important education program, and he was volunteering there and how much it meant to him.
That’s a connection and it’s much deeper than, you know, talking in the cafeteria or meeting somebody in corporate headquarters, and very hard to do. And it requires a lot of time and attention and there, you know, country general managers are critical to this and it’s critical that they see it as connected to their business strategy. If it’s something apart from the business of the Company, it’s going to be something that you can get some people engaged in, but not everyone, and not for long. But if it’s connected to the business and totally engaged in the business strategy, then you’ve got a better shot at it.
Michael Levine: Picking up on your comment about integration and how important that is, my recent article, for CRO Magazine, which Jay was kind enough to mention, was titled, “Legislating Corporate Change.” And it looked at the notion, that there is some legislation, which may not become law, but it representative, I think, of a dissatisfaction of some sectors, that voluntary efforts aren’t enough. And that Companies really need to walk the walk, before they’re made to walk the plank. What do you think of these existing efforts to either regulate or legislate corporate behavior? And what’s on your radar screen as far as other initiatives or efforts to influence corporate behavior?
Stan Litow: I’m really not up for walking the plank. If that’s going to happen later, I opt out of that. You know, I’ve worked in all 3 sectors. I worked in the voluntary sector, not just in the think tank, but also as an organizer for social responsibility programs. I worked in government; I worked in a school system and now in the private sector. I think --- I don’t mean to say that legislation or regulation aren’t important, I think in some instances they can be very important. But it’s not the whole ball of wax.
We have initiated something called the Global Leadership Network. I chair it, but 30 or more Companies are part of it and we’re trying to develop an interactive way for Companies to benchmark their performance and use it as a bases to improve in corporate responsibility. Not just signing on to something or providing a report. You know, if you asked somebody about their strategy or plans, in terms of their own improvement on finances, hardly any of them would point to their income tax filing, which they have to do, as their strategy for financial improvement. So, regulation and legislation, obviously, has its place.
I mean there are a number of things I think that might be helpful going forward, in terms of regulation or legislation, but I really think the major focus here is Companies working together to understand how to improve and learn from one another. One of the things I think that is particularly significant, about the corporate sector, and a little different from my experience in the public sector and the voluntary sector.
In my school experience here in New York City, we have over 1,000 schools. If you said, “here’s a great middle school and they have these great results, and why don’t you be like them?” They’ll say, “well, they’re on this street and we’re on that street, they’re high up, we’re low down, they have 800 kids we have 1,200 kids, it can’t possibly be relevant to us.” And in the public sector you go to the government and you say, “so and so organized their transportation ---.” “Oh, that’s a big city, we’re a small city.” But in the profit sector, if somebody’s got a business process, or done something successfully, people what to steal it and they want to learn from it, and they want to do it. And I think we have to apply that same thing to corporate responsibility. I think if people feel that somebody has gotten an edge, in terms of their shareholder value or talent in the Company or economic vitality for the business, and they’ve been able to enhance it through their integration with corporate responsibility, then people will want to learn from it and they will want to get better.
Michael Levine: Well let’s approach it from the other side now. And you’ve mentioned you’re past service and top posts in the public, private and voluntary sectors. What role really should the public and voluntary sectors play in CR?
Stan Litow: I think that we need a real change, maybe even close to a revolution in how the various sectors work together. But I think that having been in the public sector, the way you ask for a higher level of performance very often, is you build it into a contract or you build it into a process for giving money to your vendors and people find a way to get around that. And that there’s a real, I think, lack of understanding and appreciation in the challenges across the 3 sectors.
I once spoke at a meeting in the UK and somebody was saying, we’ve just appointed a minister for corporate social responsibility, if that was an end into something. What did the person do? What was the responsibility there? Or asking people to sign-on to a pledge, does that make them a good corporate citizen? If Enron signed the pledge, did that make them a good corporate citizen? From a non-governmental standpoint, I think, you know, people look at social reporting. I’m not downplaying the importance of it, but it’s not an end. So I think if there were a vehicle for the three sectors, to understand more about the challenges among and between them, and figure out more creative and perhaps, newer ways to work together, I think we might do better.
We’ve just initiated something at IBM; we call it “The Global Innovation Outlook.” And I think it’s a new tack on stakeholder engagement. We’ve gone through 3 varieties of this, and we’re just setting up “Global Innovation Outlook 3.” And we institute meetings around the world on a thematic set of areas, we engage non-governmental organizations, customers, business partners, government leaders, media people and produce an innovation outlook that identifies, what can IBM do? What can others do? And then find a way to work together.
And when we finish the global innovation outlook, we actually ran an innovation jam. And electronic conversation over a 48 hour period and said this is the future. And we asked hundreds of thousands of people to engage in identifying what were the 10 best ideas in terms of utilizing innovation. And one of them, you know, in terms of environmental practices; what came out of that was, the partnership between IBM and the Nature Conservancy; The Great Rivers Project, to utilize IBM digital imaging technology as a way of improving water quality. There are a couple of other announcements that were in the paper today; maybe you say them in the New York Times, about energy improvements. So, I think stakeholder engagement isn’t just gathering information, it’s working collectively, using the innovation and the tools and the talents of a Company, to make some significant and measurable improvement.
Michael Levine: I skipped over an interim question because I thought it would be useful to kind of contrast the public/private aspects, but some Companies now, especially energy and Companies that make energy and intensive commodities, are actually urging Washington to make laws requiring higher standards in order to create a level playing field. Does IBM have any such initiatives?
Stan Litow: Yes. We announced a reduction in CO2 admissions, a really significant reduction in CO2 admissions. And then we announced a further reduction and if you saw that story in the New York Times today, it was about big green initiatives to reduce energy consumption, electrical consumption, through more innovative uses of server technology in our customers. And part of the announcement in the story in the New York Times today is, an 80% reduction by Proctor & Gamble, in their electrical use.
And in the data centers of the world, that are only expanding, they require an enormous amount of energy to manage their need for that kind of data. And the IBM research people at the Watson Research Lab have come up with a range of innovative technologies to work with our customer’s. And what was announced was a process of diagnosis with our customer’s and then a prescriptive, improvement program with some very, very significant goals. I think it’s sort of like the supply chain practices area. It’s one thing to take pride in the way you operate, it’s another thing to translate that into your supply chain, which is a big challenge for a Company that’s got a $47 billion dollar supply chain. You’ve got a variety of things in that area and I think that we’re making some progress. But in the area of sustainability and energy use, you can utilize the same kind of concept, around the supply chain, moving up the supply chain, not down.
Jay Whitehead: And so, congratulations again, Stan of making number 6 of the 100 best corporate citizens list for 2007 but, I’ve got a 2 part question here. One is, you get a ranking like this, and there are many of them out there, how do you use it? What’s the best way for IBM to use it? And then the second part of the questions is, we’ve heard that this 100 best list is sort of a sledgehammer approach; it ranks everybody together and the reporting process is rather onerous. Actually filling out the questionnaire’s and it’s rather a challenge and then getting those questionnaire answers understood is even more of a challenge by the ranking organizations. So the second part of the questions is, we’ve heard that it’s better to be ranked by sector; top 10 in each sector because it’s hard to compare an IT Company to a Transportation Company, for example, or a Financial services Company. So, first, how do you use this kind of a ranking, and then second, if we were to morph it to something more like this top 10 and sectors, do you think that would be more valuable to the stakeholders at large?
Stan Litow: Well I think it would be valuable to do both. And I think when you look at you know, a variety of different industry analyses, or overall analyses, people generally do, do both. They identify people by sector, in terms of profitability or you know, employee base or a whole range of things and then they identify them overall. They are some people in the Company who aren’t interested at all, unless you’re number 1. I mean, that’s the only thing, you know, that counts. So, while it’s great to be 6 of 100 or 6 of 1,000, there are people who what to know why we can’t be number 1 and I think we can be. We’ve been 1 before and I think we can be again. And I think it requires a lot of work, and it requires a lot of investment.
And I think the value of being able to point to third parties that identify you, is the ability to get people to continue to do the really difficult things that are needed to be able to sustain the kind of --- it requires an investment. There was an earlier session where somebody talked about you know, long-term shareholder value as opposed to quarterly value. That’s what this corporate responsibility is all about.
We had a first ever call with IBM’s financial analysts and social responsibility analysts about our corporate responsibility programs. Because we think that you know, if you are well regarded, it should count in the overture that you make to shareholders. Some people disagree with that. Some high-profile people disagree with that and say it’s not possible to identify what is a good performance in the area of social responsibility. I don’t think it’s perfect, but I think it does count for something, and I think if it counted for something in the bottom line, not just as a screen against certain kinds of misbehavior, but as a reward for strong behavior, I think you would find more interest in the Companies that aren’t interested and more heightened interest in the Companies that already are. So I would encourage doing both. By sector, overall, and to you know; obviously always strive to make the analysis better.
Jay Whitehead: Michael?
Michael Levine: Stan if we held this conference 4 years ago, the dominant topic would probably have been Sarbanes-Oxley and related compliance. Today, the themes are climate change and sustainability. Do you see those as remaining with us for a long while or do you see that some other disruptive change like work force shortage could set them aside and lower them down on the priority list?
Stan Litow: I think that issues of climate change and you know, environmental issues are going to be with us for a long time, because we’re not going to come up with solutions to this long-term systemic problem overnight. But I do think that the work force issues in the area of globalization are particularly important, and I think it’s going to require an enormous amount of thoughtful leadership and collaboration, among the sectors, to be able to come up with strategies.
If you look at the US, for example, Companies have always moved around the United States, based upon a variety of different incentives or issues from geography to geography. You know, Companies may have moved from the rustbelt, or the North East to the South or to the West; moved jobs, moved around. Sometimes the people moved with them, sometimes they didn’t. Now that we’re talking about a globally integrated enterprise, and operating on a worldwide basis, I think corporate responsibility is a critical part of that. You operate a particular kind of way in one geography; you should operate the same way wherever you do business. You have responsibilities in the communities that you’re going to, you have responsibilities in the communities that we’re going from.
And I think a more nuanced understanding; and I don’t think it is work force separate from the environment, I think they’re all connected. So all of the ways that you develop a good posture, in terms of corporate responsibility, you can’t be a good performer in the environment and have lousy labor practices and expect to be competitive wherever you do business. You’ve got to do it all.
Michael Levine: When we talked before we came up here today, we talked about the articles that you mentioned earlier and I think it’s truly innovative that you’re not only thinking in terms of sustaining IBM’s business, but helping the customer’s to sustain their business. So what is your long-term vision of CR? And then looking ahead, and I hope it’s in the far future, when you retire, what would you like your legacy to be?
Stan Litow: Well, in terms of long-term vision in terms of corporate responsibility, I think that we as a Company and other Companies, and all those people who are engaged in this, need to create the clear information base that demonstrates that this is in fact good business. And if it is, it will catch on in the many Companies that don’t think it’s something that they need to worry about, especially smaller Companies around the entire globe.
I think that people will move in that direction and just like people look to corporate leaders to develop certain kinds of business practice, they’ll look to the leaders about development of other practices. I think in terms of going forward, I think what we need to do is not just model corporate behavior, but model individual behavior. When we look at environmental practices or you know, corporate responsibility, it’s not just the Company; it’s those 360,000 IBMers, who work with the Company. What about their practice in the community? How do they engage with local schools? How do the engage with community institutions? We want to give them an incentive to be a good environmental citizen. And we want to be able to model that behavior for our customers, our business partners, and perhaps even our shareholders. And that provides the corporation with a real opportunity to exert real leadership.
There’s a story, an IBM story about our past, over 50 years ago. Our CEO then, Tom Watson, was considering opening a printing plant in Kentucky. And in the negotiations with the Governor, was going to bring a large number of jobs to a State that really needed economic growth and the Governor made it clear that if the plant operated in Kentucky, it would have to be a segregated plant because there were no integrated manufacturing plants below the Mason-Dixon line. And Watson made it clear that if that was the policy, the plant wouldn’t be in Kentucky, it would be elsewhere. That was an extraordinary amount of corporate leadership at a time when there was no significant civil rights legislation in the United States. The plant opened in Kentucky, it was an integrated plant, and it demonstrated the value. It wasn’t the only thing that influenced civil rights practices in the US. But it was critically important for a business leader, with a good deal of economic clout, to be able to make that point and make it on a sustaining basis. So I think you could see that same kind of leadership in a lot of significant areas in the future.
In terms of when and if I retire, you know, I think that in all of our work, we would like to see the institutions that we’re involved in, you know, carry-on the kinds of you know, things that we’ve done. And I think you know, that you work really hard to put them in place. I guess what I would like to see is the same kind of restless energy within the Company, to always to better. Because in every element within a corporation, you can’t rest on your laurels. Lu Gerstner used to say, when you did something really good, you’ve got 30 seconds to pat yourself on the back and then sort of more on to step 2. And I think if that were, you know, apparent in the Company that would make me feel good.
Jay Whitehead: Okay, let’s get to our final question, Stan. And again, it’s a 2-part question. If there were 1 or 2 things that you’re most proud about at IBM on the CR front; so talk about that. And then also talk about the again, for our audience’s benefit, the 1 or 2 things you would suggest that they can initiate tomorrow, with their Company, to be more effective in this corporate responsibility domain?
Stan Litow: Well, it’s hard for me to pick like 1 or 2 things that I’m most proud of, but I will say that, based upon my background and I think based upon the interest of our employees and our customers and our shareholders, I know there are a lot of issues that are significant and important, but I don’t know a more significant or important issue then literacy, on a global basis.
If people can’t read, it’s very, very, difficult for them to develop any kind of economic security. And these other issues, whether it’s environmental practices or anything else, flow from that. And I’m very proud of the work in the IBM research lab in developing this new technology that provides the equivalent of on the web, and hopefully for free, the ability to allow, any non-literate child or adult, to learn how to read, anywhere in the world. We’re getting close to that, we’ve got about a 1,000 sites around the world that are using this tool.
I think the early results are incredibly promising and if we could accomplish anything, it would be to make that the norm, all around the world. Second thing, is use of technology to break down the language and culture divide. We’re working on a program at IBM called now, “The Maydon (sp)” project, which provides automatic language translation; English to Arabic, with social networking tools. Maydon (sp) means a town meeting place in Arabic, and an opportunity for people who don’t speak the same language, to use the technology to solve problems and collaborate together, in the way in which people are using the web in one language in the business community all the time. And I think that’s an incredibly innovative and successful piece of technology. And if we could accomplish that, I think it would be, you know, enormously useful.
So those are the kinds of things that get me excited about the work that we do. And some of it is unique to IBM because we have these amazing researchers and scientists who have the capacity to solve problems like that for our business customers and in the social and educational arena. From the standpoint of my colleagues, I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to suggest what other people could and should do about their work back in their own Companies.
But I would invite anyone to talk with us about joining this global leadership network. I think it is important that Companies don’t wait for somebody else to set the standard for corporate responsibility, that we work collectively to improve our practices on our own, in the way that Companies know best how to do it, is to totally integrate it into their business strategy. And I would like to see, not just dozens of Companies or hundreds of Companies but large numbers of Companies around the world being part of this GLN network.
Jay Whitehead: Is there a website for that, Stan?
Stan Litow: Yes, there is. You can contact us at IBM. My colleague Kevin Thompson in the back would have ---.
Jay Whitehead: Kevin Thompson raise your hand.
Stan Litow: Yeah, get to Kevin and he’ll tell you all about it.
Jay Whitehead: You know, I’ve got to have Kevin’s home phone number, you can call him anytime, it’s fine.
Stan Litow: Anytime. [Laughter].
Jay Whitehead: It’s fine. Anytime. So that’s great. Stan Litow, IBM, thank you so much. Michael Levine, Epstein, Becker and Green, thank you very much.