I've received several requests recently for revised market forecasts, and I notice that one of the well-known analyst firms is in the process of preparing one on the e-commerce market. I've been in this business long enough to understand how important such forecasts are to venture capitalists, marketing people making projections, and to a lot of others trying to figure out the market.

In Canada, we have a federal tax called the GST (goods and services tax). From the looks of it, it was created without clear specifications or business rationale. It's like a bunch of folks hid out for a weekend and, over a few dozen drinks too many, penned the rules that make up the tax. What else could explain the fact that salted peanuts are GST-able and unsalted ones are not?

My career in the computer industry has involved a considerable amount of travel during the past 30 years, to every corner of the US and to some three dozen countries around the world. Almost as soon as I achieved my road-warrior status, one thing became evident: different cities, states, and countries have rather different concepts of what's "current" and "state of the art" in the field.

There are two types of work in every company: process work and project work (this model was first articulated to me by Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Rob Thomsett). Process work is the fundamental work of any company. Taking orders, delivering products, processing invoices, and collecting receivables are examples.

I had the pleasure of visiting New Zealand this week to attend the annual Software Developer's conference, which attracts some of the best IT gurus in the world. This is my fourth visit to New Zealand since 1990, and while I still haven't had a chance to drive around the country and see the spectacular scenery, I always come away with some new insights and perspectives on software development.

If you read the popular press, you might think the e-business trend has come to an end. Amazon.com and Cisco each warned analysts that they might not meet their numbers. At the same time, Nike complained that its new supply chain system had actually caused it to miss its numbers for the last quarter.

When the dirt is finally revealed on some political scandal, people often ask why the story did not emerge earlier. The answer is that the questioner did not get a revealing answer because he or she did not ask the right question.

"The 'gay index' is the leading predictor of a city's ability to attract and retain knowledge workers," claimed Richard Florida, founder and director of the Software Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University in the January 2001 issue of Fast Company magazine. High-technology, talented people want to work in organizational environments that are tolerant, open to diversity, and supportive of others from all walks of life.

The Object Management Group (OMG) has just ended another technical meeting. Usually, these meetings are devoted to committee work on various standards that the OMG is adopting. In this case, however, something rather momentous happened. The OMG has begun the formal process of changing its entire orientation.

Simply put, eXtreme Modeling (XM) is a collection of values, principles, and practices for modeling software. XM addresses the fundamental issue of how you model and document a system in the most effective manner possible. XM is an agile methodology built on the eXtreme Programming (XP) software process.