BUSINESS World Class At Last?

April is “international” month in Dallas. The Dallas World Salute committee will sponsor a variety of events ranging from bicycle races to African art exhibits; the Dallas Chamber of Commerce will hold the Mayor’s International Ball, which will draw a score or so of ambassadors from nations all over the world; and the Texas Association of the Atlantic Council will host a conference on the emerging world economy. The objective of all this “internationalism” is to sell Big D, to the world and to Dallasites, as a budding “international” city.

Dallas an international city? Someone’s got to be joking. London, Paris, Rome, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong-these are international cities, They are the capitals of great powers. They are financial and trading centers. They are cities with large cosmopolitan business enterprises, large populations of foreign nationals, and an ambience developed naturally over the centuries.

Yes. Dallas is home to some big companies with worldwide operations, and Dallas is sporting a large number of new Oriental restaurants, but if Texas has a true window on the world, it’s Houston. Even if the energy industry is flat busted, Houston can still claim to be its world capital; what is Dallas a world capital of? Houston has a seaport through which millions of tons of shipping pass, bound to and from the four corners of the globe. Houston’s Intercontinental Airport boasts twice as many international flights as D/FW.

But wishful thinking aside, Dallas had best figure out how to become an international city, or be prepared to become economically and culturally inconsequential. American businesses both great and small will have to export or die. American businesses, even service industries, will have to compete against foreign companies at all levels. Financing for new ventures or expansions will frequently come from foreign sources. And all those exotic restaurants springing up are only the most visible symbols of a sweeping cultural cross-pollination that will transform our lives.

What precisely is the shape of this international city, this prototype for the future, which Dallas hopes to booster itself into being? To be a true international city, we must be home to large multinational corporations and have a broad base of industry aggressively seeking to export overseas. Foreign corporations must have offices and facilities here, and foreign nationals should have property and other investments. The international city has large, well-defined ethnic populations, major cultural events and museums, and widely respected educational institutions that are driving forces behind technological and intellectual innovations that will influence the course of world events. Above all, we’ll need a business and intellectual leadership active in addressing important international issues.

How does Dallas become that kind of city? First, let’s realize that a month of parties and sporting events does not an international city make. That job takes far more time and money than any have imagined. Whether we are willing to pay the price of this expensive gamble is open to question.

If Dallas is to become an international city, we must first create a step-by-step plan detailing specific goals and specific steps to attain those goals within a given time frame-just like any other serious business venture. Indeed, a good use of some of the funds raised by activities during the Dallas World Salute month would be to hire, in the finest Dallas tradition, some consultants to devise the required plan. The mayor already has a task force pondering the idea of international citydom, so the consultants will have someone to report to.

It won’t be hard to quantify international achievements. One goal might be to have 2,000 manufacturing companies with sales of $10 million or more exporting $2 billion in goods by 1999. Another might be to have direct air service to Japan and certain other countries by 1990, or to have one-third of all high school graduates from area schools semi-fluent in a second language (or, the more cynical might say, at least get them to correctly identify the seven continents). All these things are possible if the right steps are taken to get there, and all these steps will pay dividends of wealth and opportunity to Dallas. Some suggestions:

1. Establish a Center for International Studies.

In our information age, corporations pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a handle on what in the world is happening and why, so they can try to either change the course of history or adjust to it. This institute should not be associated with any of the existing universities; rivalries and politics need to be avoided. It should bring together the top thinkers from various disciplines throughout the world. It should establish the most detailed database on world economic and demographic trends available. When experts want to know about patent laws, birthraies, commodity production, or manufacturing capacities available and in use, they should have to call Dallas. Such an institute would give local talent, and foreign talent living here, a considerable edge over their faraway competitors.

It should be noted that we need not bring everyone to Dallas for institute conferences and seminars-we can take the mountain elsewhere, thus creating the perfect traveling ad for Dallas the International City-the city with its face to the future.

2. Establish an Export Guidance Center.

Export is hard work, and not many in Dallas know how to do it. Take the recent “trade” mission organized by the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, which took some of the city’s most distinguished business and political leaders to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. There was just one problem; few on the mission had anything to trade. Actually, there were several problems. Those on the mission weren’t particularly well briefed on where they were going, with whom they were meeting, and how they hoped to accomplish whatever it was they were planning to accomplish. Another problem was that, except for in Japan, the Dallas presentations weren’t in the language of the land. In some instances those visiting couldn’t have purchased exports even if someone on the Dallas train had had something 10 sell; their national policies would have prevented it. The trip really was an industrial recruitment tour of the type Sunbelt cities used to run before their luster began to wear off. Those Dallasites on the tour seemed to be hoping to lure foreign businesses here to help reduce the office glut.

Now, before the folks at the chamber get angry and start sputtering about how suc-cessful the trip really was, let me add that industrial recruiting abroad is desirable, and the fact the trip took place at all is a credit to the city and to the chamber. People learn from experience, and no doubt future excursions will be far better. But with all due respect, this is not a job for a chamber of commerce. It is a job for a special entity whose purpose it is to do the painstaking research and the careful advance work. Trade missions are for exporters and are intended to match the providers of products and services with the buyers of products and services. Trade missions take months of exhaustive investigation and advance work. Each foreign market has to be examined to determine what is being produced there and carefully matched with what is being produced here. Then the matchmaking meeting must be carefully arranged. Above all, local trade missionaries must be carefully and fully briefed on the customs and ways of doing business of the country or city of destination, The cost of this should not be borne by Dallas alone; such a center for exporting should be a Metroplex-wide project, and it should be supported, in large part, with tax dollars. That’s right, tax dollars.

3. Develop more university-affiliated international study programs.

The University of Texas at Dallas currently is poised to become the contact between the United States and mainland China. No, this is no exaggeration. UTD’s China studies program has been bringing some of the top Chinese trade officials to this city. Properly funded, UTD can become the nation’s finest resource of information and contacts into China. Given Trammell Crow’s success in making inroads into the Chinese market, Dallas has an opportunity to establish itself as a doorway to one of the most exciting and massive marketplaces in the world today.

Over at Southern Methodist University you find the Amundsen Institute, brainchild of Dallas businessman and educator Bob Amundsen. He brings together, several times each year, fifteen younger Texas business, government, and educational leaders and fifteen Mexicans of similar accomplishment. These thirty people spend two days in a roundtable discussion of issues confronting the two countries. Four times a year, the Amundsen Fellows gather for a reunion and seminar, first in Texas, then in Mexico. Today there are 175 Fellows.

The program’s long-term existence is very much in doubt, because Amundsen has largely funded the program himself, and there is likely a limit to his generosity. But the program lays a firm foundation for both commercial and political interaction between Mexico and Texas, the state with the most to gain or lose from Mexico’s economic and political health. Again, the opportunity exists for Dallas to become the center of information and contacts with Mexico.

4. Encourage Dallas business leadership to participate in international policy making.

Recently a delegation of top Dallas business leaders traveled to the world’s premier business conference in Davos, Switzerland. Dozens of such conferences and dozens of organizations are dedicated to studying influencing world policies. The Atlantic Council of the United States, an organization founded by the leaders of Western democracies at the end of World War II to help direct Western policies, recently established its first chapter in Texas. Its president is a young Dallas businessman. Steve Van, who in that role has met scores of top policymakers and international business leaders. Having met a Dallasite, these world shapers become aware of Dallas. That is how the city will “network” on a global scale. Perhaps when the time comes for foreign businessmen to visit the U.S., they will add Dallas to their itinerary. If they do. they may want to do business here, or they may know someone | who will.



5. Bring every foreign person of consequence, from princes to popes, to Dallas and show them the best of Texas hospitality.



Dallas does a good job of providing hospitality to foreign dignitaries when they do come to town. But we don’t have a very active recruiting program. When foreign dignitaries come to Texas, they tend to want to go to Houston and visit the Johnson Space Center. We can’t really blame them, but if Dallas maintained a careful liaison with the U.S. Department of State and private international business and policy organizations, we would know when the world’s business and political elite were dropping in for a state visit. Then our representatives could pull every possible string to get Dallas on the schedule. The greater the awareness of Dallas among the top rung of world leaders, the easier it will be for Dallasites traveling abroad to get to the right person.



6. Create a Metroplex InternationalSports Committee.



Would you believe the Olympics in Dallas in 2000 A.D.? Why not? The Metroplex has almost alt the facilities required to host the Games. A suitable main events stadium would set us back $50 million or so, but the publicity would be worth a hundred times what the GOP national convention was worth. And there is every reason to believe we could make a profit. If Los Angeles can make a profit, can’t the capital of capitalism? Aclually, the idea is not far-fetched. Dallas would be seriously considered, and even a bid for the Olympics helps to create that “international” image.

7. Develop a cross-cultural, multilingual workforce through our public schools.

You might say that teaching students to read and write English is challenge enough without trying to get them to speak a foreign language. And there are other problems. Certainly a serious language program, one intended to make, say, the top one-fifth of area high school graduates conversant in a second language, would cost money, maybe upwards of $10 million. But we have to realize that one-half of all Japanese school children today are learning our language and using; it to defeat us on the commercial battlefield. Indeed, more Japanese students study Spanish than do Anglo Texan students.

If international companies are to establish themselves in Dallas, if Dallas companies are to enter the international marketplace, they will require employees conversant in the languages of the world and knowledgeable in the cultures of the market countries. The Dallas public schools must rise to the challenge. But special schools for intensive cross-cultural education, perhaps associated with universities, will have to be established as well. Most of all, tomorrow’s students will have to be convinced that learning about others will be an essential ingredient of financial success.

8. Create a Dallas Award.

There’s probably a belter name for it, but Dallas should establish a prize or prizes to recognize world-class accomplishment. No, the prize shouldn’t ape the Nobel awards; Dallas doesn’t have a king like Sweden does. But certainly an award for “pioneering” spirits in a variety of fields would, in time, capture world attention. The award program would have to be well endowed, and it would require a few years to get off the ground. Perhaps the city’s recent Winston Churchill award recipient, H. Ross Perot, would like to take this on as his next project.

9. Import more cultural events andexhibits from throughout the world.

A proper appreciation of a world so different from Texas and Dallas isn’t always easy to come by. New England has its Yankee Clipper tradition; Texas doesn’t. Having never been a port city and a gateway to the country, Texas has never had much appreciation for things “foreign.” We have been a bastion of chauvinism. A truly “international” city can’t afford such attitudes. When a foreign national travels to New York, he finds a vast, eclectic collection of peoples. Dallas tends to be quite homogeneous. If Dallasites take an arrogant and rude attitude toward foreign visitors, the visitors are hardly likely to want to do business here. But, if they find a general public open and appreciative of their culture, they will come back- with dollars.

10. Keep “Dallas” on the air for another ten years.

It’s the show we all love to hate. We say, “That’s not us!” and of course it isn’t. But for gosh sakes don’t tell anyone. That show and J.R. and all the big cowboy hats have made Dallas-the city-a household name around the world. Ask anyone from here who has traveled abroad lately. Check into an Amsterdam hotel and tell them you’re an American and they yawn. Tell them you’re from Texas and they take note. Then tell them you’re from Dallas and stand back as the celebration begins. “Dallas” has been great for Dallas, and we need to make hay while J.R. is still plotting away. The next time the chamber wants to put together a trade mission, they should try to get Larry Hagman to go along.