Ideas for Developing Corporate History—From Inside

Ted Buswick

Many people work in business history from the business rather than the academic side. We ask such questions as: "How can business history be relevant to our company's success?" and "How can we ensure that the leaders and employees understand its relevance?" From my personal experience establishing and running an Oral History and Archiving program at The Boston Consulting Group, a leading international management consulting firm with 64 offices in 38 countries, I will explain what we have done to preserve and celebrate our history by focusing on four topics: 1) Oral history, its processes and uses; 2) Building internal support, especially through customer service and senior management involvement; 3) Cooperative research, working with our rivals and with academics; 4) Using technology, especially our "History at BCG" intranet site