ABSTRACT
The quote above is the opening remark of the chief executive of an acute hospital as he began an interactive live webcast to his organization at the start of January 2002. In what was probably the first event of its kind in the UK health service, the chief executive’s joke echoes many business leaders, being both enthusiastic to embrace the opportunities of innovative online technologies and yet anxious about its unknown threats. In some ways, it is clear that the webcast event did feel to him more like a challenging game show format than anything he had done to lead the organization to that date. We will return to this example later, to fill in the details and explain how it all turned out. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the newer online technologies that are starting to impact on the role and development of the corporate leader.
