TALENT HUNT. They also gave a small upstart immediate scale and reach. Juno, for instance, boasts fewer than 300 direct employees yet has nearly 700 technicians in customer service alone because of its alliances. ''If we did all of this stuff ourselves, we would have to have at least 1,000 people to work on content alone,'' estimates Ardai.

Vast changes in technical and organizational structure, however, will only get leaders so far on their journey toward 21st century leadership. Nearly everyone agrees it still comes down to that most precious commodity: talented people. Attracting, cultivating, and retaining them will be the indispensable ingredient that will drive the ideas, products, and growth of all companies like never before. As management guru Gary Hamel puts it: ''We have moved from an economy of hands to an economy of heads. Therefore, the price of imagination, the premium for it, will go up.'' Increasingly, companies will need to scour the world for the best intellectual capital, then create the kinds of challenging environments that will allow stars to flourish.

Few organizations have worked harder at this or with greater creativity than Trilogy Software Inc., the Austin (Tex.) producer of economic-commerce software. A private company with more than $200 million in revenues, Trilogy devotes an extraordinary amount of attention to recruiting the best engineers directly from campus. The Trilogy proposition: Rather than work in a huge organization like Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) as product managers, they could have a major impact at Trilogy in driving the company to the next level of competition.

Once hired, candidates attend a three-month-long intensive training program that co-founder and President Joe Liemandt calls Trilogy University. All the top executives show up to teach. ''The same way people look at customers, we look at our jobs,'' says Liemandt. ''We ask how you make the job compelling for employees. If you don't get the steel into the factory, there is no product. If you don't get the best people into the company, there is no product.''