Highly adept management for one thing, which made a number of shrewd acquisitions, and bet on heavy, sour crude. But no management can ride that kind of growth curve blind, and Valero has also wisely invested in IT and emphasized business intelligence for competitive advantage.

Currently upfront on EL is an interview with Valero Energy's CIO, Hal Zesch, and its director of reporting and financial systems, Kirk Hewitt. Hal addresses many of the perennial IT topics - compliance, IT governance, management accountability. Kirk discusses the importance of IT as business guide, providing the numbers and trends so critical in an industry driven by market fluctuations, pricing, and futures. Hearing these two men dialog about their critical roles in their corporation with mutual respect almost sounds like that elusive alliance between IT and business that's so talked about, lamented, and lacked in business today. (And, did I mention that both Hewitt and Zesch happen to be certified public accountants?)

Sometimes it feels as if the world economy is driven by big energy ... but is big energy equally dependent on the complexities of burgeoning globalization? If so, it must listen to the global economy's small, still voice -- not the bombast of politics or the music of culture, but the telling language of numbers.

For the global enterprise, the case for real business intelligence -- as opposed to mindless data collection -- has never been greater.

Valero Energy has shown it understands this -- and when you listen to our conversation with top execs Hal Zesch and Kirk Hewitt, you might also try listening between the lines.

This week, we offer for your listening interest, "Powertalk," a podcast interview with Dick LeFave, CIO of Sprint Nextel. The company that he helps power is a Fortune 50 behemoth with 80,000 employees, $40 billion in revenue, and 53.1 million customers. We had no doubt LeFave would be extremely savvy and interesting to talk to ... but he's also possessed with the kind of calm that comes with genuine confidence.

How does he view service-oriented architecture, with regard to his enterprise? How does IT get the business side to consider it as an equal (and not a "janitor" or "science-fair project")? And what about coaching new IT talent, and cultivating the CIOs of tomorrow? Dick LeFave is not a man of many words, but what he does say is deliberate, thoughtful, and seasoned by years of experience dealing with some of the most challenging environments IT has to offer.

This week, take time out to listen to "Powertalk," our interview with Dick LeFave, CIO of Sprint Nextel; you'll find it very much worth your time.

Is Web 2.0 just a passing fad that will never catch on in the hard-nosed reality of the corporation? Or, will these much-heralded technologies lead the charge in opening up, making more collaborative, and just generally redeeming the old, stone-and-mortar business model? 

Thomas Davenport wrote an entry in his blog in March, voicing a healthy skepticism around the widespread adoption of Web 2.0 technologies by the corporate enterprise.  His hesitation seemed to stem less from the possibilities opened up by Web 2.0 technologies than by the possibility that the corporation could get past its own culture to leverage them. "Most of the barriers that prevent knowledge from flowing freely in organizations -- power differentials, lack of trust, missing incentives, unsupportive cultures, and the general busyness of employees today -- won't be addressed or substantially changed by technology alone," he concludes.

You can't argue that those non-corporeal, but vastly powerful barriers of culture have kept creative innovation out of many modern hierarchies. But, what happens when change, in attitude and habit, permeates the corporate DNA from within? As Davenport muses, "It's going to be very interesting to see what happens when the young bucks and buckettes of today's wired world hit the adult work force." Interesting, indeed.

Already, numbers of the young and wired are becoming part of the corporate rolls every day; to these folks -- in varying degrees -- using Web 2.0 technologies comes as naturally as using email was for previous waves of workers. Do we really believe that this newest group of workers will check their online habits at the door (can't you just feel the collective shudder welling up from corporate IT departments)? It's more likely that mashups, wikis, and other Web-based collaborative apps will slowly make their way throughout the enterprise, cubicle by cubicle; then, up the hierarchy. Adoption will not be spurred because certain apps are just so killer, or because they drive toward some egalitarian, utopian ideal. Corporate employees ... and so, corporations ... will adopt new technologies if they help workers do their jobs faster, better, and more creatively.

But, here's part two of this observation: Don't expect these technologies to be unchanged themselves in the move from after-school hobbies to corporate tools. Any institution that  incorporates new technologies and cultures is certainly changed by them. But, the institution changes what it makes its own as well. And of course, the passionate proponents for the Web 2.0 culture themselves will change, grow older, evolve.

I don't think that Web 2.0 is a passing fad -- far from it. I think the next five years will be interesting ones for the corporate enterprise, and for Enterprise 2.0 ...

But, what do you think?

Corey has been on the job since 2004, having previously worked for McKinsey & Company in the areas of banking and securities, and information technology practices. He was brought to the SEC just after the debacles of Enron and WorldCom, so he knew the job would be, well, challenging from the start. But, in this interview, he talks about how he's managed to introduce new processes and technologies to the IT organization that have helped the agency in its mission. (He's a proponent of eXtensible Business Reporting Language, for example.) And he does not shy away from the topics of Sarbanes-Oxley, internal IT governance, and how IT is helping the SEC keep another Enron from happening.

We invite you to tune in to this week's interview, and to let us know your thoughts!

This week, Enterpriseleadership.org features an interview with a guy who thought just that, then founded his own company to prove just that. In 1998, the telecom where Arunas Chesonis worked was acquired by a megacorporation (name starts with A and ends with T), and he found himself out of a job. But instead of hitting the interview trail, he and a core group of also-displaced co-workers formed a company with the ambition to become  the most customer- and employee-oriented telecommunications provider around.

Flash forward to 2007, after the rise and fall of many other ambitious start-up telecoms: Chesonis�??s company �?? PAETEC �?? is still alive and well, and has recently merged with another telecom, U.S. LEC, nearly doubling its size. I guess taking good care of customers and employees also makes good business sense, after all �?�

And speaking of streamlined budgets, compliance, and politics, you might also take a look at our interview with Global Crossing�??s CIO, Dan Wagner. Mr. Wagner was appointed to his current job in 2002 �?? just two months after the company filed for bankruptcy. He was brought in as part of a turnaround team for Global Crossing, and moved the IT group from $400 million/month in the red to being firmly in the black. And it wasn�??t all just about cost cutting; under Wagner, a new, intelligent front office was created to help employees collaborate with each other as they work.

All good stuff; and be sure to check back with us next week, for an interview with Pete Loshin, author and consultant who talks about the emergence (convergence) of open source and the enterprise.

For those not familiar with Second Life, it describes itself as �??a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 1,966,820 people from around the globe.�?? It is an enormously popular multiplayer online game in which people can create their own virtual identities, called �??avatars,�?? can buy and sell �??property,�?? socialize, start businesses, shop, and even make (non-virtual) money. Get the idea? It seems that more and more non-virtual players are ...

Media outlets including Reuters and CNET have established offices in Second Life, as have companies like Sony and Toyota and even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (rolling out an ambitious, new education project). But the lure of a huge audience of tech-savvy creatives, as well as being a part of a hip, international community, is too hard to resist for tech companies like Dell, Sun Micro, Intel, and yes, IBM. The company has about a half-dozen Second Life islands, reserving most only for its employees, but recently opening its Almaden island (named after its Almaden Research Center in California) to the (Second Life) public. It is reportedly interested in using its virtual sites for training, meetings, and recruitment �?� but surely it is also exploring the possibilities for e-business as well. Palmisano recently chose to announce IBM�??s $100 million investment to develop new business opportunities in the real-world location of Bejing, while his avatar made a parallel announcement in SL�??s �??The Forbidden City,�?? created by IBM and the Chinese government.

Will Big Blue�??s Second Life venture pay off? Company execs seem to be confident that it will, even if they are not exactly sure how. In an interview with CNET, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, vice president of technical strategy and innovation at IBM, said, �??I really believe that highly visual and collaborative interfaces will become very important in the way we interact with all IT applications in the future �?� There is something very human about visual interfaces. I almost think of text-based interfaces, including browsers, as �??narrowband�?? into our brains, whereas visual interfaces are �??broadband�?? into our brains." (The interview was conducted at CNET�??s Second Life office, of course.)

So, what does this mean if you�??re a lot more accustomed to calling for reports mined from data than listening to anecdotes from customers/employees/partners? Maybe, that there will likely always be a place for the kind of intelligence that well-mined data can provide, but listening to people and what they have to tell you could provide more than intelligence �?? it could provide intuition, which ultimately can lead to creative solutions. Beyond tracking the number of times a customer swiped her credit card to purchase your company�??s pet treats, what if there were a place on your Web site where that customer could describe the kind of healthier, low-fat treats she�??d love to buy for her pudgy pet? What if you heard that feedback, or something like it, a number of times? You could have the making of a hot, new product.

Pioneering companies like Virgin know this concept well: they reserve a section of their Web site to court customers and non-customers alike for the next �??big idea.�?? Patricia Seybold also championed this concept in her recent podcast with us.

Everybody knows that people, not data, work the assembly lines, ship out the products, and buy goods and services. Maybe listening to their stories, and trying to discern patterns in those stories, will lead to your next �??big idea.�??

We recently featured an interview on EL with Patricia Seybold, a real thought leader, in my humble opinion. Now, I understand that term�??s been bantered around a few too many times, to promote (or self-promote), a few too many times. But there are real thought leaders among us. Patty Seybold is one of them.

Her latest book, Outside Innovation, identifies a trend in modern, global commerce that's really more of an imperative: innovation, enhancement of products and services, at the bidding of your customers, not just your R&D group. If that seems like a monumental (and expensive) task, it doesn�??t have to be: She also shows how to harness the new, social-networking paradigms made possible by the ubiquitous �??Net, so customers and users can help you come up with all those great ideas for your business. Her ideas resonated with us at EL, because we�??ve heard that theme expressed again and again in other interviews we�??ve conducted over the last year. It�??s innovation �?� but with a remarkable urgency. In this global economy, enterprises are on notice: You�??d better innovate, not only to thrive, but to stay alive. And in a world that runs increasingly in 24/7 real-time, you�??d better invent, and reinvent, and reinvent again, or you�??ll be toast (make that day-old toast).

This is innovation with an edge.

If you have a few minutes to spare, I highly recommend that you give Patrica Seybold�??s latest podcast interview with EL a listen. I also highly recommend Outside Innovation, of course: It�??s full of out-of-the-box ideas and case studies that are (at the minimum) sure to get discussion going. I got a review copy myself, and I ain't givin' it out to nobody!

And if you have a few minutes more after listening to the podcast, give your thoughts on innovation by commenting on this blog entry. What�??s your company doing to fuel new ideas and processes? What should you be doing? Are you considering utilizing some of the new tools Seybold talks about, or something else? In a world where companies that invented the game are now struggling players (think Ford and GM), can innovation be the best answer?