ASPEN, Colorado -- Global business executives gather at the prestigious Davos summit each year. American civic leaders meet at the annual Renaissance Weekend on Hilton Head Island every January.
Politics and technology aficionados have their own, albeit more modest getaway: An annual gathering that brings together politicans, executives, and academics for a three-day conference nestled between the verdant alpine slopes surrounding this posh resort town.
Organized by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, each year's Aspen Summit typically focuses on a theme, like broadband access or telecommunications deregulation, that's timely that year. This week's gathering intends to explore capital markets, the increasingly dim future of e-commerce, and what can be done to undo the Nasdaq's tech wreck.
Previous Aspen gatherings were notable for their enthusiasm for all things Internet, with speeches lauding the "digital revolution," keynote addresses from tech-boosters George Gilder and Alvin Toffler, and, in 1996, a discussion titled: "Growth of the Internet is a 'Leading Cultural Indicator' of Progress."
Now, with Internet growth in the United States slowing, bankrupt dot-com startups failing by the score, and the Nasdaq closing Friday at 1,867 from last year's high of about 5,000, the Aspen Summit has taken on a far more somber tone.
"This year's focus -- the problems of the IT sector of the economy, and what can be done to get it back on track -- is definitely the right issue," says PFF president Jeff Eisenach. Before co-founding PFF, a nonprofit group, Eisenach worked in the Reagan White House and ran GOPAC, a fundraising vehicle for Republican candidates.
Instead of a 1997-era opening presentation titled "The Emerging Digital Economy," Monday's keynote address, by Siebel Systems CEO Thomas Siebel is noticeably less brash: "E-Commerce Grows Up: The IT Meltdown and the Coming Recovery"
"I think this shows a realization that however great the promise of technology is, tech companies still need customers if they are going to command the valuations they have in the past," says Jim Lucier, an analyst in Prudential Securities' Washington office.
Lucier, an Aspen regular who says this will be his sixth summit, says: "Some of the things that come out of this conference will deal with improving access to capital for some of the customers as well as accelerating the broadband rollout that tech companies will need to support a market for their next generation products and services."
PFF -- once former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's favorite think tank -- has never been far removed from political issues, and they remain an important part of this year's event. PFF is a centrist group with conservative leanings that broke with many of its usual ideological allies by taking cash from Oracle and Sun and endorsing a four-way breakup of Microsoft.
One panel, featuring Rep. Jane Harman (D-California) and AOL Time Warner VP Lisa Nelson, will ask whether the technology sector has lost its clout in Congress. Other discussions include global antitrust, a free-market approach to privacy, and broadband deregulation legislation that Congress is scheduled to debate next month.
Hewlett-Packard chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina opened the summit on Sunday evening, and Sun Microsystems chairman and CEO Scott McNealy is scheduled to speak at dinner on Tuesday. CSPAN has said it will cover portions of the conference.
