Over the past 12 months, I have been teaching a series of public object technology courses across the US. To my continuing surprise, most of the participants were from sophisticated organizations that I would have believed had undertaken and completed the migration to object technology years ago.

A headline in a recent issue of Internet Week caught my attention.

When most of us think of the Object Management Group (OMG), we think of an 800-member standards body that defines abstract specifications for middleware architectures like CORBA and its recently announced Model Driven Architecture. It certainly does those things, but it also provides a meeting ground for many industry and domain groups that are developing their own frameworks and standards.

Traditional project management was driven by technically oriented project managers who worked in the traditional hierarchical culture of the broader organization.

Although commonly accepted by many organizations as just an additional route to market, e-business builds heavily on an enterprise's technical infrastructure, directly affects PR and marketing strategies, and is subject to a number of cultural, legislative, and environmental constraints.

If you read the popular business magazines, you'll find a lot of discussion about the "new economy" and whether corporate investments in IT over the course of the last five years have really led to significantly higher levels of productivity.

Many miles away Something crawls to the surface Of a dark Scottish lake -- The Police, "Synchronicity II"

When we examine the assumptions underlying approaches to project management or nearly any other business process, it is clear that quite a number of people confuse formality and discipline.

I'm hearing everywhere about how IT spending is shrinking. Major IT software and hardware vendors are cutting back, citing a slowing in spending. Oracle, Intel, and even everyone's favorite, Cisco, have announced cutbacks. What's going on? Is this the end of an era?

I have read a lot of articles on component reuse lately. Some have argued that component reuse is more problematic than others have claimed. Others are very optimistic. I'm somewhere in between. I've been writing about components for years, and have talked about the possibilities, advantages, and disadvantages of component reuse for almost a decade.

When a head of state unexpectedly dies -- in a monarchy or republic -- the citizenry is understandably shocked. They are not shocked, however, when a successor is immediately named. After all, most governments have a clear succession plan based on law, tradition, or both. If the president or CEO of a major corporation meets an untimely death, retires, or simply moves on, there is often a succession plan already in place.