To:Michael Dell | Dell Technologies, Jeff Immelt | General Electric Co.

From:Scott Kirsner

RE: Welcome to Boston

Hi, Gents:

It’s that time of year when about a quarter-million students return to Boston and create chaos by either ramming U-Haul trucks into overpasses or raiding the shelves of the local IKEA.

But we’re not used to also welcoming two chief executives of globally recognized companies. While Dell has acquired tech startups around Boston before, and GE has had operations in the state for decades, it’s kind of a big deal for us to have corporate leaders here whose names are actually known outside of the state’s borders. (Ernie Herrman, anyone?)

So I wanted to tell you about the two business communities that exist here, describe how your two companies are perceived, and offer some thoughts on how you could help us and maybe how we could help you.

I think of the two business communities in Boston as the Suits and the Kicks. In one world, a snazzy Hermès tie gets you compliments; in the other, a custom-designed pair of Converse.

Suits here are not that different from Suits anywhere else — they tend to advocate for fewer taxes, less regulation, fewer benefits for employees. But in Boston, the track record of the past 15 years has been Suits selling out. In financial services, tech, and biotech, they miss major industry shifts, fail to anoint a successor, and then claim that the only thing they could’ve done was cave to inevitable consolidation.

The Kicks, on the other hand, are not just about more relaxed dress codes or offices with foosball tables. A lot of them talk about building companies for the long haul, rather than building to sell. They realize they’re in a war for talent, and so they offer not just microbrews on tap, but unlimited vacation policies or paid family leave. They’re voluntarily setting goals to source renewable energy, such as Akamai Technologies of Cambridge.

Instead of being insular and security-obsessed, they regularly open their doors for student visits, open houses, or pizza-and-beer meetups on a particular topic. And rather than griping, like some of the Suits do, about why Boston is no longer the center of this industry or that industry, they’re focused on pioneering new ones, whether home robots or custom-crafted microbes.

It’s easy for big companies to instinctively align with the Suits, and all their trade organizations and lobbying groups. But is that the only choice, given how both of you want to position your companies going forward?

How your companies are perceived

Dell’s $63 billion acquisition of data storage biggie EMC is expected to be finalized next week. EMC is viewed by many (me included) as a company that talked trash about cloud computing for as long as it could and then underinvested in it. Also, EMC has stuck primarily to its suburban campus; its employees are not regular participants in the more vibrant Boston and Cambridge tech scenes.

GE has, to some Massachusetts residents, the longer rap sheet: corporate tax avoider, river polluter, and a manufacturer that no longer employs nearly as many factory workers in the state as it once did. But you’ve said you’re moving the HQ here to tap into the city’s energy and brainpower — flattering — and the new building you’ve designed hits all the right notes, from historic preservation to solar panels to “shack-up space’’ for entrepreneurs and startups. Plenty of people will welcome GE’s participation in the innovation economy here; some are in wait-and-see-mode; others are probably already planning protests for the pedestrian plaza outside the new HQ.

But just like the students who surge into town every September, I think your presence here can be a good thing — for us and for you.

How to fit in

Judging a hackathon on a local campus would be a big deal for either of you. As would showing up to interview a few promising candidates when spring semester rolls around, or helping teach a business school case at Babson or Boston University. (Those are schools to the west and south of MIT.) All would help Boston, and your companies, retain more of the top grads.

“Boston has this massive ability to get large numbers of people working together on hard problems,’’ says Bill Warner, an angel investor and entrepreneur who founded Avid Technology, a publicly traded digital media tools company in Burlington. “Both GE and Dell could take advantage of that and deliver challenges to Boston.’’

One example is a robotics competition, the Amazon Picking Challenge, that emanated from Amazon’s warehouse robotics division here in North Reading. It got startups and university researchers focused on building more dextrous robots, with small amounts of prize money for the top performers. GE or Dell could create similar challenges around tidal power, cheaper approaches to medical imaging, or ways to keep sensitive data safe from hackers.

Jean Donnelly is a former GE executive who is now executive director of FinTech Sandbox, an organization that supports financial services startups. She writes via e-mail that both companies could open the door to startups, who always can benefit from partners willing to test prototype technologies and supply early feedback.

Another issue, Donnelly acknowledges, is “a sticky one, but both could contribute by coming out in favor of non-compete reform. EMC has traditionally worked against the interests of the innovation community (and the Commonwealth) on this issue.’’

Both your companies know the importance of developing a workforce with new skills, whether it’s an in-depth knowledge of data compression or the way jet engines are assembled. If we combined your own personal platforms, your companies’ marketing abilities, the online learning platform edX, and the state’s educational institutions, could we find a way to make it free for workers around the country to develop those kinds of skills, and climb the ladder to higher-paying jobs?

Venture capitalist Todd Dagres, founder of Spark Capital in Boston, says it’s time to move “from PR to PU,’’ meaning from “public relations’’ to “put up.’’

Welcome to town. Now, let’s get to work.

Scott Kirsner can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottKirsner and on betaboston.com.