CLEVELAND -- The Weatherhead School of Management's Department of Information Systems and the Weatherhead Executive Education area have teamed up to launch an innovative program to help companies better manage information technology.

The Case Western Reserve University program, known as the Consortium for Intelligent Organizations, will consist of two parts. One is four days of intensive executive education on information systems topics for up to four executives of each company in the consortium. The second is the opportunity to participate in Weatherhead faculty members' research on IS issues. Consortium member will invest $30,000 annually to support the research and executive education resources.

Consortium members and Weatherhead information systems faculty will decide collectively on topics for executive education, as well as subjects for research, according to Richard Headley, a senior member of the Weatherhead Executive Education management team who has responsibility for the consortium. Headley added that possible research topics might be "Ownership and IT Performance," "Ensuring the Success of IT Consulting Projects," and "Knowledge Management."

In the past, corporate executives complained about a lack of information about how their organizations were performing. "Today it's not the dearth of information that decision makers have to worry about, it's overload, and how you make sense of it," Headley said. "And where do the IT professionals fit into a strategic approach to information management and distribution?"

Added Betty Vandenbosch, associate professor of information systems, "the time is ripe now with the advent of ubiquitous computing for us to sit down together and sort through some of the issues that arise out of these new information technologies."

Vandenbosch said that planning for the consortium benefitted from the presence of Richard Boland, professor of information systems, and the Weatherhead faculty member with the greatest input into the design of the school's new Peter B. Lewis building.

"Because of his involvement (with the Lewis building), our whole department has started to think about design, and how organizations can be designed rather than managed. And that has led us to ask, what does design involve? How is design different from organization or from management? Those discussions permeated our ideas for the consortium."

Information technology departments at other universities frequently have research relationships with corporations, Vandenbosch said. "I think what's unusual about ours is the connection between learning and research, and ensuring that the participating companies work together to figure out what kinds of educational experiences they'd like to design for their organizations."

Companies participating in the consortium will have early access to the results of research Weatherhead faculty carry out on the issues that participants have identified as important to their organizations.

Another advantage for consortium participants, said Vandenbosch, will be the ability to talk to peers in non-competing companies and organizations about common problems.

"Folks in business usually don't have enough time to reflect," she said. "We'll be giving them the opportunity to come and sit for a few days and work with their peers and think about these IT issues."

Headley said the consortium organizers have identified about 35 companies in the region as possible participants, based on their size and use of information technology. "We won't be doing a mailing, but will describe the opportunity in face-to-face meetings with chief information officers of these organizations. This is how we will get a sense of the market."

He added that organizers hope to begin the consortium's activities in late fall.