Edward H. Baker

In 2004, renowned economist Jagdish Bhagwati published his highly acclaimed book, In Defense of Globalization (Oxford University Press). As the title suggests, Bhagwati argues strongly for globalization, but he also seeks to balance his viewpoint by considering the social implications of the phenomenon. Bhagwati, who is University Professor of Economics at Columbia University and a […]

Jeanne Ross likes to tell a story about an enterprise architect at an investment bank. “He proudly told me that despite the bank’s propensity for building siloed applications, the IT people were able to wire things together so that every single transaction was end-to-end. No human being ever touched a transaction. Then he paused and […]

CIO Insight’s third annual vendor value survey raises all kinds of fascinating questions about the IT industry and its customers. Does Apple Computer’s rise to the No. 2 spot on this year’s survey have something to do with its old-fashioned, vertically integrated hardware/software model? Does SBC Communications’ slump from No. 29 to No. 41 have […]

You’re holding in your hands cio Insight’s fourth annual Special Issue on IT alignment. The first three editions focused on the alignment gap between IT and business, the role of money in fostering IT/business alignment, and the various ways in which corporate culture can derail alignment, or aid and abet it. In putting together this […]

Kay Lewis Redditt’s reasons for getting into the business of measuring IT alignment were directly connected with her frustration with misaligned information technology. “I’ve been in the private sector most of my career,” she says (she held positions at both American Express Co. and Macmillan Publishing). “I figured out early on that my business success […]

The business automation revolution marches on—and after a bit of a lull brought on by the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the speed of change appears to be picking up again. It can be seen in the movement toward business process outsourcing, a growing business which is itself becoming increasingly automated by BPO service providers, […]

A confession: I am a knowledge worker. That means, according to Babson College professor Thomas Davenport, whom we interview in this issue, that I “create, package, distribute and apply knowledge.” That puts me among a growing army of workers Davenport estimates is already between a quarter and a third of the U.S. workforce. Like most […]

John Wilson is the executive director of the National Education Association, the 2.7 million-strong teachers union based in Washington, D.C. And as of Sept. 1, he will become the chairman of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a consortium of technology companies working to create methods of teaching the skills needed by the American workforce […]

Why would a professional political scientist be interested in the open-source movement? For Steven Weber, a professor of political science and director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, it was the chance to investigate a technological issue that had what he saw as political ramifications. “In the political […]

It will come as no surprise to readers that the Web seems finally to have come into its own. As a point of contact with customers, the Web is now used by 88 percent of companies, beating out the next three—the phone, personal contact and direct mail—by large margins, according to this month’s research on […]

Contributing Editor Jeffrey Rothfeder recently traveled to Seoul, South Korea, to attend a conference and give a speech on RFID technology. It was his first visit to Asia. His reaction: “Consumer technology is so much more advanced than it is in the U.S. WiFi hotspots are everywhere, everyone’s got 3G phones, and they’re chock-full of […]

Readers’ reaction to our March issue on outsourcing and globalization was swift. On the one hand, many readers wrote in complimenting us on a job well done. As one letter-writer put it, “I can’t agree more with [author Thomas] Friedman. The IT labor shortage taught us that not every company can afford to be its […]