>SO SAYS Jericho Communications Inc., a New York public relations firm, in a not-exactly-scientific survey of what CEOs would be willing to do if trapped on a deserted island. Among the captains of Internet industry, 23 percent said they would eat another human if it came to it, compared with 6 percent of their bretheren in bricks-and-mortar businesses.
The tongue-in-cheek responses of 376 chief executives, half from the new economy and half from the old economy, reaffirm popular perceptions that e-commerce is a fiercely caffeinated arena, where billions of dollars are made and lost faster than you can say Yahoo, and where there is little room for the weak of heart.
"The Internet CEOs are risk takers, they're bolder, they're braver, they have more guts, they're willing to put their backsides on the line everyday," said Eric Yaverbaum, Jericho's president.
As for the bricks-and-mortar crowd? "Well, I think that they are more calculated, they take longer time to make more decisions," he said.
KOURNIKOVA OR GREENSPAN?
The differences just don't only apply to culinary preferences. The first two things Internet chief executives would take with them on a deserted island are matches and bug spray, according to the survey. Bricks-and-mortar chiefs would bring a cell phone and a copy of Playboy, or Playgirl, as proclivities would have it.
Dot-com CEOs said any venture capitalist would be their top choice for someone to be trapped on a deserted island with; Russian tennis bombshell Anna Kournikova ranked second. The bricks-and-mortar people preferred the Federal Reserve's Alan Greenspan.
The dot-com chiefs are not all about business, though. The No. 1 thing that they would miss on a deserted island is sex. For the old-economy contingent, it's golf.
A TASTE FOR THE JUGULAR
Among those who would be willing to eat another human is Jeff Lee, 30, director of strategy services at Proteus Inc., a Washington Internet consulting agency. "New-economy folks are definitely younger and fancy themselves smarter, faster, stronger than the old-economy folks, and perhaps more ambitious and ruthless," he said.
At least one member of the bricks-and-mortar side is okay with the differences. "I might eat pizza and junk food, but I don't think I'd go for rats and people," said John A. Challenger, 45, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an international outplacement firm based in Chicago.
SNAIL-MAIL SURVEY
The survey, of course, is part publicity stunt. But for Jericho, the questionnaire also told the firm something about its clients. "It gives us a clear definition of the animal, and the animal is different," Yaverbaum said of the Internet crowd.
Jericho, a closely held firm with 55 employees, was founded in Washington and has been representing blue-chip companies, including Domino's Pizza Inc., for several years. The firm began representing Internet companies about three years ago and established an office in Seattle eight months ago.
Jericho spent about $7,500 to learn more about this new breed and how it differs from the other guys. Using an old-economy approach, the mail, Jericho five weeks ago sent out 4,500 surveys, including 2,500 to Fortune 1,000 companies. The survey was anonymous.
Yaverbaum declined to name the firms surveyed, but he did say who he would choose to live with on a deserted island: "I think I'd go with bricks-and-mortar."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company |
