Our first "Yellow Pages

Citation

Randall, R.M. (2003), "Our first "Yellow Pages", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 31 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2003.26131caa.001

Our first "Yellow Pages"

There's a potentially important Strategy & Leadership innovation that I'd like to bring to the attention of readers, future contributors, and suppliers of consulting services. It's the "Scenario innovators: practitioners, consultants, and researchers" directory appearing in the back of this issue. I hope that readers will discover that this "Yellow Pages" of professionals with a special interest in innovative scenario technology makes a useful contact list.

Liam Fahey and I have been collecting contacts in this strategic management niche over the past decade while soliciting article material from scenario development consultants and corporate practitioners for this journal, its predecessor, and our book, Learning from the Future. A number of the scenario innovators in the directory were the authors of articles on scenario development and corporate planning that appeared the previous two issues of Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 31, No. 1 and No. 2. To make the list more inclusive, we also solicited suggestions from our contacts and issued invitations to associates they recommended.

However, I can't claim that the list printed in this issue is complete. In fact, I should issue a warning to readers that, because the directory is not the product of a literature search, we probably have left out many important academic researchers. However, based on my first hand experience, I can assert that the directory will facilitate contacts between managers who want to learn about scenarios and experienced practitioners willing to share their extensive knowledge. One other feature of the directory that merits attention is its carefully chosen list of articles, case studies, and books that will serve as guides for managers.

In the future, I hope to be able to offer other "Yellow Pages'' directories of niche strategic management specialties or knowledge categories as features of Strategy & Leadership. Your comments on this one and future possibilities would be highly valued. Requests and suggestions of readers will help guide our research and the selection of which niches to mine for contact information. We would also consider alliances with list compilers.

A nod of appreciation: Behind almost every author who appears in S&L there stands a hardworking team of consultancy staff professionals – researchers, writers, editors, publications executives, and chart makers. I would like to thank the many staff people at the various strategic consultancies who helped their firm's authors process articles for this issue: IBM Business Consulting, Bain & Company, A.T. Kearney, Woodside Institute (formerly The Strategos Institute), Smock Sterling, Edelman, and Ackoff Center for Advanced Systems Approaches.

Robert M. RandallEditor