The Internet has the potential to transform people's lives and amplify the power of the human spirit, but we need to ask where human beings fit into the age of technology?

Mr Billy Glennon, group chief executive officer of Vision Consulting, has few regrets about pursuing the lifestyle of a corporate jetsetter.

Traversing the Atlantic at least once a fortnight to stay at his New York apartment, one of Mr Glennon's major concerns is that he doesn't have enough time to coach his local U-12 GAA team.

But a string of business successes in the past few years has propelled Vision Consulting to global prominence and eaten into Mr Glennon's free time.

The greatest coup was arguably the company's work on the acclaimed financial Internet site, www.thestreet.com.

"It was a seven-man outfit when we met with them and our only regret is that we didn't take up on the offer of an equity stake as a part of our fee. I think thestreet.com ended up as the fifth highest IPO of that time," says Mr Glennon.

Despite missing a lucrative stock pay-off, Vision Consulting's association with the Web venture brought it to prominence in the technology world.

The company has now gained heavyweight clients such as AOL/ Time Warner and the Halifax Building Society.

Vision now employs more than 400 people in Europe and the US and had revenues of more than £26 million (€33 million) in 1999. Somewhat surprisingly for a man who earns a tidy sum advising multinationals on e-commerce and Internet strategies, Mr Glennon is no slave to technology.

"The Internet has the potential to transform people's lives and amplify the power of the human spirit," he says. "But we need to ask where human beings fit into the age of technology.

"Advances in technology have not always been good for the human spirit," says Mr Glennon. "In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s technology was all about automation and efficiency.

"But if you totally automate everything, you build people who are disconnected from the world and each other which leads to an increasing sense of alienation."

In a world of web-based and wireless communications, human contact is increasingly becoming as important as technological progress, argues Mr Glennon.

As evidence of his commitment to a human-focused philosophy and in an attempt to retain key personnel, Mr Glennon, announced to employees earlier this week a comprehensive stockownership plan, which should see 30 per cent of the company transfer to staff within three years.

"We want to create a club of independently minded people who are committed to the company in the long term," he says. "This will enable Vision Consulting to achieve its global ambitions."

Despite its recent profile, Vision Consulting was no overnight success. Founded in Ireland in 1984 by two college friends of Mr Glennon, Mr Gerald Adams and Ms Janet Howard, the company has reinvented itself several times to stay ahead of the pack. Mr Glennon joined the board of Vision Consulting in 1988. Before this he worked for eight years with Andersen Consulting in Kuwait, the US and Europe.

"This time out of Ireland was a very formative period and gave me a lot of confidence," says Mr Glennon. He worked in the National Bank of Kuwait for two years and experienced a culture where white people are sometimes treated as second-class citizens. He believes this made him a stronger, more focused person.

"If you want to learn, sometimes you have to put yourself in a position of some discomfort," he says.

Running a multinational business for over a decade requires a lot of travelling and a lot of hard work, so why not sell his stake in the company and enjoy an early retirement?

"Entrepreneurs don't do it for the money," says Mr Glennon. "You get a buzz out of working. I couldn't do what I'm doing unless I enjoyed it. I expect that I'll be doing the same thing when I'm 75 year's old."

However, the pressure of running the company was put in context last year on a flight to Dublin, when, along with other passengers, Mr Glennon was informed by the pilot that the plane might have to ditch in the sea.

"My initial reaction was panic then I was angry that I had taken that flight. Originally I had been booked to return on a later flight," he says.

Luckily the plane landed safely. "I think this allowed me time to reflect on life," says Mr Glennon.

Mr Glennon places family and relationships at the top of a sliding scale of priorities now. This list includes a wish to create a new kind of business style that can be a metaphor of how business will be done in the 21st century and a growing commitment to the community and society.

Vision Consulting is currently sponsoring several projects involving charities and youth centres in Ireland and abroad.

"The philosophy we apply to working with the community is to have the same approach that we would have in business," says Mr Glennon. "We don't want to create a dependency and we make it clear we want a fair exchange, we are going to get something out of it."

One of the projects Mr Glennon and Vision Consulting is pursuing is providing Internet access, computer equipment and staff to marginalised young people in Kingston, Jamaica. The project is being co-ordinated with the local Mustard Seed Communities project .

Mr Glennon hopes that by providing education via the Internet through teachers from Ireland and people on the ground in Jamaica, an entrepreneurial culture may develop in an environment which he describes as "one of a deep sense of hopelessness".

"This is one way that the Internet may amplify the human spirit," says Mr Glennon.

E-mail is another good example of how the Internet has revolutionised communication between people and brought communities together, he says.

Mr Glennon recently installed e-mail for his aunt to enable her to contact her children when they are abroad.

"People in their fifties may not use the Internet much but parents with children abroad tend to stay in touch by e-mail nowadays. This is taking over the tradition of letter writing," he says.

But Mr Glennon has a stark warning for those who believe the Internet is a one-way ticket to financial reward.

"I'm not sure being a dot.com will be a competitive advantage in a year's time. Then if you say you are a dot.com, people will look at you as if you had a call centre."

To build a successful society or business in the Internet era it is essential to combine two things: pragmatic engineering and an ability for storytelling, says Mr Glennon.

"There is often a clear difference between the identity and image/advertising of a company. But the Internet exposes that immediately and shows companies for what they are," he says.

In today's world it is simply not good enough to say you can deliver; you have to be able to deliver, says Mr Glennon.