Business Leaders Press the Case for Competitiveness, Growth, Sustainability

At the PBLN Washington Summit, 75 innovative CEOs and top business leaders are gathering now for what will be 24 hours of dialogue with policy leaders, fellow executives and key decision makers. Some have remarked that since the meltdown on Wall Street and the recession, the business world's attention to Washington has increased dramatically. This may be more true in some sectors than others. Certainly there has long been a permanent industry in Washington of business lobbying for policies that are represented as "good for business." Whether that business agenda is good for the public interest or even good for private sector innovation beyond a series of parochial short-term interests is the big question.

Undeniably some business leaders who have recently been drawn to Washington are driven by concern over new scrutiny of their industries or by short term opportunities via the stimulus or TARP programs. But renewed interest in Washington among entrepreneurs is much more significant. There is a recognition shared widely among those gathering at the PBLN Summit that government is an essential partner in the drive to invent a more sustainable, competitive economy. And many of the initiatives couched currently as stimulus are really just examples of the government making choices about how to align the nation's resources and priorities with the demands of its future. With global competition and fundamental impediments to growth at home like soaring healthcare costs, inadequate public education, long-term unemployment and a total dependency on foreign energy supply, that sounds like a good thing. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick often credits House Financial Services Chair Barney Frank   for saying "government is simply the name we give for the things we choose to do together." Some who ridicule the use of this phrase help to prove its relevance. Participation by progressive business leaders in the Washington dialogue is one way to shape those choices.

Some examples of the issues we will be focused down here over the next 24 hours? Here is a quick list and our full agenda is at www.pbln.org:

• Climate change legislation (as a group we advocate putting a price on carbon emissions and as we did in the Boston Globe May 12, 2010 we make the cost case for renewable energy projects like Cape Wind);
• Implementation of the healthcare reform bill (looking for access to care AND real cost containment and for how the administration will leverage the power of entrepreneurs to bring its vision to life);
• Education - specifically how school reform can drive the next century of workforce and inventor-force that the tech-driven knowledge economy requires;
• We are looking hard at House Financial Services Chair Barney Frank's work on Financial Markets Regulation - this is in part about access to stable capital markets so that business, labor, families, non-profits can count on our financial system as a partner in growth. It is also about reining in greed and excess where people have been hurt without accountability or consequences, and so far without a strategy to prevent a repeat. One of our CEOs said tonight that this is an issue the entire fractured body politic ought to be able to come together on....but will it?
• Jobs - what more can you say except business leaders want to hire and invest, and they need to better understand the role of the government today as a partner. Not an obvious subject to pair these interests together (business and government) but it is nothing new. We are just getting a chance to recalibrate the mix of what we prefer/need as a country.

Addressing each of these individual issues is necessary but none is sufficient unless we see how they are interconnected; this is what is meant by the effort to invent a more sustainable, competitive economy. There is a new partnership emerging between government and business around meeting a newly identified list of pressing societal needs that will not wait. Innovators are ready to produce value aligned with meeting society's pressing needs. Investors are ready to back them too, but the open question that represents the missing piece on so many issues is still whether the public policies we adopt as a society will facilitate innovation or protect the status quo. The message of the coalition of diverse business leaders represented at the PBLN DC Summit is that "business as usual" is not an option.

Member Spotlight

Diane Hessan, President & CEO - Communispace
According to Advertising Age Communispace is one of the fastest growing marketing and technology companies in the country, with a Blue Chip client list that would make a Madison Avenue giant jealous. A pioneer in creating online communities to help marketers deeply engage customers, Diane helped found Communispace in 1999 and hasn't looked back.