The chairman and CEO of 3M, L.D. DeSimone, will discuss his company's product line, business structure and approach to R&D on Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 3pm in the Wong Auditorium (Rm E51-115).
The 90-minute presentation, entitled "Managing Technology: Balancing Strategic Planning and Technical Innovation" is part of the "Industry Leaders in Technology and Management" lecture series, co-sponsored by the School of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management and hosted by the Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development.
3M manufactures products including ScotchT Tape and Post-itR Notes, and operates on technology platforms that span disciplines including specialty chemicals and polymers, adhesives, non-woven fibers, films, optics, filtration, and microstructured surfaces. It employs approximately 70,000 people in more than 60 countries and had 1995 sales of $13.5 billion. Over the past five years, the company has invested more than $4 billion on R&D, more than twice the average for US industrial companies. Scientists at 3M are encouraged to spend 15 percent of their time pursuing their own ideas. One product that stemmed from this "15 percent rule" was the Post-itR Note.
Mr. DeSimone is on the International Advisory Board of the Alliance for Global Sustainability, an innovative research effort recently formed by MIT, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and the University of Tokyo. He is also chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
The lecture is open to the MIT community. Seating is limited to a first-come/first-serve basis. For more information, call x3-0404 or refer to the CTPID home page at
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 20, 1996.
