August 2005

Conversations with Readers

Four of us who regularly work on this magazine spent part of two days recently talking with some of you via the telephone and in person at spring class reunions. We wanted to find out more than routine surveys tell us about what you read or ignore between these covers. Should we offer more stories about the school, the curriculum, the students? Should we write more about our most famous alums or provide more career or investment tips? Do you like to read about your former professors? About alums who have made drastic career changes?

The Stanford Business School Alumni Association surveys members every few years and ask questions about services of the School. From those surveys we know that the magazine is generally liked and appreciated with the Class Notes section topping the list of favorites. While answers to multiple-choice questions help us see patterns, they also have a tendency to hide the diversity of viewpoints. In our more personal conversations, we were able to learn that one of you considers the Newsmakers column “too gossipy,” while another thinks it is “a quick way to keep up with what people are up to.” We picked up some story ideas for the future, but mostly we learned that you are a very diverse group. If this magazine wants to stay a part of your lives, it needs a mix of content. We look forward to tossing new things into the mix.

This issue, I hope, provides something for everyone. There is Carie Lemack’s very personal story with takeaway lessons from the trenches of her traumatic leadership of families of 9/11 terror victims. Kirk O. Hanson, another alum and former teacher of some of you, probes what we can do to make cheating less rewarded in this society. Professor Emeritus Harold Leavitt writes about the value of hierarchies in our lives. Managers dealing with the health crises in developing countries provide insights on changes needed. There is much more, including the following letter. Please enjoy.

Letter to the Editor

According to Professor Bendor and coauthors, it’s a puzzle why people turn out to vote in a democracy in much larger numbers than game theories, like rational choice, bounded rationality, and adaptive rationality, would predict.

It is not a puzzle to me, and it certainly isn’t a game. In a democracy, people turn out to vote because they can and they believe they must. The privilege of voting is too precious to not use it. Maybe some of the fringe volume of the voting public is swayed by previous outcomes [of elections], but that is not why most people vote. The millions of Iraqis who voted in their last (first) election didn’t do it based on previous outcomes; there weren’t any.

DENIS E. LOWRY, Sloan ’77
Punta Gorda, Florida

From the Editor

Dean's Column

Kathleen O'Toole
Editor