(FORTUNE Magazine) – Walter Wriston is one digital dude. Which is a little strange. After all, he is 79 years old, and as the former CEO of Citibank, he looks quintessentially old school. But don't let the banker's suit fool you. Talk to him for 30 seconds, and you realize this guy is as wired as Paul Saffo or Nicholas Negroponte. I don't even think Walter would mind that I'm calling him "dude." He might even prefer it!

If you're not that familiar with who Wriston is, you're showing your age. Wriston was one of the giants of the banking business a couple of decades back. After running Citi for 17 years, he passed the baton to John (or "Johnny," as he calls him) Reed in 1984. And then, instead of retiring to Florida to hit the links--or in his case, the tennis court--Wriston began phase two of his career.

It's hard to describe exactly what Wriston does, except to say that he's in high-powered, superactive, New Economy nonretirement. He gives speeches. He writes books, including one he's working on now that's tentatively called Rules for the Wired World. He does the think-tank thing--he's a trustee of the Manhattan Institute and, along with other futurists, a fellow of the Center for Business Innovation.

How about boards? He was a director of Tandem Computer until it sold out to Compaq, but he's had to step down from other boards because of his age. (He was on GE's board for 31 years, until he departed four years ago because of what he calls "statutory senility.") On the other hand, he's been recruited as a director at some hot new biotech companies, including Cygnus, which has a glucose watch for diabetics that measures blood sugar several times an hour. ("Better than pricking your finger seven times a day.") And he's on the board of ICOS, where he serves with Bill Gates, as well as Vion, which is using a strain of salmonella to fight cancer. Along with Esther Dyson, he's also on the advisory board of Teleglobe, a Canadian telecom giant that owns one of the largest long-distance services in the world. What does Wriston get out of all this? "Well, if I'm not awfully careful, I learn something."

But information technology is his real love. He has a 1400C Powerbook. ("Macs are clearly superior.") He uses Quicken. ("My checkbook usually didn't balance before.") And his stock portfolio includes AOL, Microsoft, and Intel. ("My AOL has split five times.") Wriston has long been a techno-buff: He was one of the first to realize how important technology would be in banking--we're talking almost 40 years ago!--which is why Citi was way out in front in offering ATMs back in 1977. "Going forward, I think cryptography for Internet transactions will be at the heart of bank technology," he says. "There's a company called TriStrata in Redwood Shores, Calif., that's doing some great work."

So how does Wriston keep up with this stuff? What made him such a crusader for the New Economy? "I just couldn't see living a life where how you played the dogleg on the sixth hole was all that mattered," he says. The world, Wriston says, now runs according to "an information standard," whereby value is derived by the quality of one's information. Looks as if he's holding himself accountable to it.

VIGNETTE'S STORY

Austin has long been an infotech mecca, but most of the companies with big operations there are headquartered someplace else (Dell being the mega-exception). Now, with Vignette, it looks as if Austin has a new homegrown highflier.

Vignette writes "relationship management software," which pulls people into Websites and then guides them into becoming paying customers. It's all the rage now because studies show that the average site's "looker-to-booker rate," or the percentage of Web visitors who actually buy, is only 2.7%! Preview Travel, an online travel agency for vacationers, uses Vignette's product to help customers decide where to go and to e-mail them updates and reminders. Its looker-to-booker is 7% to 8%.

Vignette, which went public in mid-February at $19, now trades for about $78. And why not, with heavies like George Colony, CEO of Forrester Research, singing its praises? Founded in '95 by a couple of Yankee transplants--Chairman Ross Garber and chief technology officer Neil Webber--Vignette lost $26 million on revenue of $16 million last year. But as they say in the Net world, it's all part of the biz plan. And besides, who cares? Right now this company is hotter than an habanero.