Down To Business: The Death Of The CIO (And Other Cautionary Tales)

Remember the stock market experts who wrote books years ago predicting the Dow would surpass 30,000, 36,000, 40,000 in no time? Better for them that you don't remember. As a customer reviewer on Amazon.com recently remarked about one of those blowhards: "At least I'm reassured that this guy's probably now living in a cardboard box under an overpass, and sleeping in a polyester leisure suit that he ripped off from the Salvation Army."

If you're going to venture over the top with your predictions, it pays to stay within the same ZIP code of reality. Ask Nicholas Carr, whose "IT Doesn't Matter" article in the May 2003 issue of the Harvard Business Review took on the less muscular title Does IT Matter? when he expanded it for a book. Carr's still taken seriously as an author and keynote speaker because he's been willing to temper his controversial positions on a variety of technology subjects--from cloud computing to the digital enterprise--when evidence has suggested the underlying issues aren't so black and white

Information Week article