Mention technology and the symbol Y2K immediately comes to mind.

Call it what you may -- Y2K, the Y2K bug, the Y2K Time Bomb, the Millennium Monster or whatever -- it is real.

Austin Kiplinger, author of the "Kiplinger Washington Letter," said in a recent article that the bug will be a windfall for lawyers. "They're expecting legal lawsuits which could fuel legal fees to exceed asbestos, breast implants, Superfund and tobacco fees combined," said Kiplinger. He said contingency plans should be in place and documentation should be kept on everything you do to guard against the problem.

Y2K is expected to be among the topics discussed during a technology panel discussion next week sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce's University Relations Committee.

Representatives of Procter & Gamble and NationsBank will address emerging technology issues and how they will effect their industries during the panel discussion Wednesday in Glenn Auditorium of Dempster Hall at Southeast Missouri State University.

Included on the panel will be:

-- Charley Clampett, senior vice president of NationsBank/Bank of America.

-- Joseph Roman, diaper operations manager of site quality for P&G at Cape Girardeau.

-- Reginald D. Gipson, customer service operations manager of P&G at Cape Girardeau.

Dr. Gerald McDougall, dean of Southeast's Donald L. Harrison College of Business, will serve as moderator at the program, which is being held as part of the 125-year Southeast Missouri State University anniversary program.

"The panel will discuss a number of technology issues and how they will affect their business," said Dr. Bert Kellerman, a Southeast professor of marketing and a member of the chamber's University Relations Committee.

Kellerman and Don Fisher, manager of the Cape Girardeau JCPenney store and chairman of the chamber's University Relations Committee, have been working together to put the technology panel together.

"Panelists have been asked to look 10 to 20 years into the future and speculate how technology will affect their industry," said Fisher.

Members of the panel are directly involved with their organization's current responses to changing digital technologies, communications and the Internet, and the Y2K issues.

Gipson has been with Procter & Gamble since 1980, starting with the company at Jackson, Tenn., as a project engineer. He was at the Albany, Ga., diaper plant four years before moving to Cape Girardeau in 1989.

Roman joined P&G in 1982 as a Luvs process engineer at the Mehoopany, Pa., plant. He moved to Cape Girardeau in 1992, after working for the company in its headquarters at Cincinnati, Ohio.

The panel discussion will be held from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in Glenn Auditorium at Dempster Hall.

Each panelist will give a 20-minute presentation. The discussion will be opened to the audience.