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Supporter Opportunities

SUPPORTER OPPORTUNITIES

For more information on these opportunities, please contact us.

The Leadership for a Networked World (LNW) Program seeks to engage the leadership of information technology communities, including its senior elected and appointed officials, to develop service and performance strategies as our nation addresses the risks and opportunities of highly networked organizations.

Corporate Support

Corporate support helps underwrite the costs of our efforts, which include original research, executive sessions, and case studies. Firms wishing to support LNW may support us at various levels and in ways that suit their strategic objectives.

As a supporter of the LNW Program all firms become part of a community of practitioners, providers, and researchers that investigate the opportunities for technologies to transform government services in order to provide the highest value. All sponsors enjoy these benefits:

The LNW Program has three levels of support available to suit the strategic goals of partnering organizations: Charter, Program, and Associate. Each represents a different level of investment and benefits. Please contact us for further details.

Additional Opportunities for Engagement with LNW

In addition to supporting the LNW Program, there are opportunities for codevelopment on custom executive sessions, case studies and research, and white papers.

Executive Sessions on Technology-Enabled Change in the Public Sector

In 2007, the LNW Program will address the challenge of leadership of technology-enabled change in key verticals of the public sector. These verticals will include, for example, health care, public safety and security, social services, education, energy and the environment. Our goal is to stimulate action and change within and across these verticals by working with senior business leadership to identify high-value opportunities, pathways to implementation, and key challenges and enablers in these arenas. Specifically, we work to translate these ideas into action wherever information technologies may help achieve the transformation of work and service. Supporters are welcome to participate in the development of these sessions.

Kennedy School of Government Case Study Series in Information Technology and the Public Sector

One of the ways students in Kennedy School degree program and Executive Education classrooms gain insight into the challenges of implementing and using information technologies is through faculty use of case studies. Case studies are an important means to raise awareness among today and tomorrow's leaders regarding critical issues in a particular domain, such as information technologies. Each year many thousands of students at Harvard and around the world, gain insight into practice-level issues of policy and management through the case study method, pioneered at Harvard. In addition, cases are a valuable tool to raise domestic and global awareness of key issues of importance to supporters, to develop knowledge of issues and choices among current and future decision makers, and to project the supporter's brand by its support.

Supporters can underwrite a series of two or more related teaching case studies on a topic related to information technologies and the agencies of government where lessons of implementation and outcome for technology-enabled change are ripe. We also invite supporters to nominate topics and to identify the individuals they recommend as subjects for the case.

Once a case is funded, Kennedy School staff will research, write, edit, produce, and distribute the case. They conduct fieldwork and interviews, as well as secure permissions and authorizations. The final case usually runs 15–25 pages and takes 12 weeks to complete. Typically, credit is given on the first page of the case to the supporting organization. When finished, cases become part of the Kennedy School Case Program's official catalog and are available to professors both at Harvard and throughout the world, through the Case Program's distribution office and online catalog.

Harvard White Paper/Monograph Series on Topics in Information Technologies and the Public Sector

As part of our ongoing research and thought leadership efforts, we intend to bring forward a series of topical monographs related to the cross-boundary use of information technologies to enable change in the public sector. These will be white paper-style treatments of subjects that are of pressing interest to our practitioners. These topics may have been the subject of workshop treatments in this program or reflect other research that is underway at the Kennedy School.

Our goal is to project the mission of the program to practitioners by using white papers coauthored by faculty, staff, and leading practitioners. Our experience is that such monographs can be influential in raising awareness of critical issues throughout the world, and in shaping the conversation among practitioners and providers alike in the industry around them.

We invite supporters to underwrite one or more monograph series on a topic related to information technology and cross-boundary, technology-enabled change in the public sector, that they nominate, and which may focus on subjects they recommend. For example, the monograph series may be in the areas of security and identity; disaster recovery and preparedness; financing, acquisition and procurement; implementation and management of innovation; enterprise architecture and planning; shared services; governance and portfolio management; or other areas of topical interest. Planning for the series will be undertaken with the supporter; each monograph in the series will be 8–12 pages, and will be written, produced, and made available for global distribution through the Kennedy School.

As an example, here is a link to a series—Perspectives on Policing—comprising 17 monographs written for the Kennedy School's Executive Session on Policing, with the support of the United States Department of Justice, and coauthored by Harvard faculty and leading practitioners. Together with case studies written around the same theme, this series exemplifies the power of the monograph so designed to gain attention, standing, and awareness around pressing industry issues. Please see Perspectives on Policing.

Custom Workshops and Executive Training

We invite our supporters to underwrite one or more custom workshops at the Kennedy School. Modeled on our "open" workshops—which are available to all applicants—custom workshops use the same techniques of classroom teaching, seminars, panels and presentations on-site here at Harvard, to communicate with a group of students brought to the school by "invitation only."

Organizations may wish to create awareness of issues and subject matter among a concentrated group. These may be decision makers or leaders from within a particular policy or industry segment, such as those having strategic or operational decision-making authority over technology acquisitions within or across certain lines of business, jurisdictions, or sectors. Or, the workshop participants may be a public or private sector organization's workforce, where the desire is to increase awareness and understanding of major issues, procurement and implementation methods, and decision spheres within which the organization operates.

The Kennedy School makes available its facilities, faculty, staff, and logistical support for the development and administration of such custom workshops. They include classroom work led by practitioners, Harvard faculty, and the sponsoring organization itself. Numerous sponsors have availed themselves of this opportunity, and participants and sponsors alike have enthusiastically received the resulting workshops.

For more information on these opportunities, please contact us.