Stories by Kathleen Melymuka

Why women quit technology careers

What if half the men in science, engineering and technology roles dropped out at midcareer? That would surely be perceived as a national crisis. Yet more than half the women in those fields leave -- most of them during their mid- to late 30s.

Revenge of the gamers: World of Warcraft is honing tomorrow's leaders

MMORPGs -- massively multiplayer online role-playing games -- like World of Warcraft, Eve and EverQuest may be the best simulators of tomorrow's business environment. So say Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone and Tony O'Driscoll in this month's Harvard Business Review. The authors found that these games closely mirror the evolving world of business: distributed decision-making, rapid response, ad hoc teams, and leadership through collaboration rather than authority.

A Google 'stalker' deconstructs the secrets to its success

Educators used to follow the auto industry because that's where all the lessons came from, says Bala Iyer. Then it was Microsoft. Now it's Google. In this month's Harvard Business Review, Iyer, an associate professor of technology operations and information management at Babson College, looked deep into Google's DNA to discern what makes it an innovation machine. Iyer talked with Kathleen Melymuka about what he and co-author Thomas H. Davenport discovered.

Step away from the keyboard

If you're under pressure to get more done, the worst thing you can do is work longer hours. That's the message in this month's Harvard Business Review, where Tony Schwartz says the key to productivity is managing your energy, not your time.

How IT makes Johnny more productive

In the past decade, studies have shown that IT leads to increased corporate productivity, but until recently, no one had measured how it affects work at the individual desktop level.

On message: communication for CIOs

"Most leaders are unaware of how bad they are," says John Hamm. "If they were doctors, people would die. If they were chefs, no one would eat the food."

The real value in Sarbanes-Oxley

Fear can be a powerful generator of upstanding conduct, say Stephen Wagner and Lee Dittmar. But business runs on discovering and creating value. In this month's Harvard Business Review, the authors discuss how smart companies are finding unexpected value in Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance. Wagner, who is the managing partner of the US Centre for Corporate Governance at Deloitte & Touche, and Dittmar, who leads the enterprise governance consulting practice at Deloitte Consulting, talked with Computerworld about how companies can use compliance to their advantage.

From traveling t-shirts to Google

Many of the top business books of the year have focused on the role of IT in the global economy. Two of those -- The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli, and The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, by John Battelle -- approach the issues from distinct viewpoints. Both are finalists for The Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year, to be awarded next week. The authors talked with Kathleen Melymuka by e-mail about IT and its place in this emerging world.

IT and the board

Boards of directors are growing increasingly nervous about their companies' dependence on IT, and with good reason. IT accounts for more than 50 percent of capital spending in some companies. But there are no standards for IT governance as there are for areas such as accounting and compensation. In a comprehensive article in this month's Harvard Business Review, Richard Nolan and F. Warren McFarlan lay out an IT governance plan. McFarlan, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, told Kathleen Melymuka how boards can get a grip on IT.

How a coach can assist an IT project

When IT project manager Destiny Moneysmith found out last year that she was about to get a personal coach, she was less than enthusiastic. "I was very skeptical," she recalls.

The end of corporate IT? Not quite

When Nicholas G. Carr famously asserted that "IT doesn't matter" in 2003, he backed up his thesis with data gathered by IDC and Orlando-based consulting firm Alinean. However, Alinean CEO Tom Pisello told Computerworld's Kathleen Melymuka that continued research has raised some very interesting findings about the relationship of IT spending and business success.

What Great Managers Do

Managers are not leader wannabes, says Marcus Buckingham. Their job is totally different and crucially important.

Keep the Core? No More!

Keep the core: That has been the conventional wisdom about outsourcing, but it's being challenged by Mark Gottfredson and his co-authors in this month's Harvard Business Review. The Bain & Co partner told Kathleen Melymuka that in the new global economy, when it comes to outsourcing, virtually nothing is sacred.

Girls in IT

Women in Technology (WIT) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the professional development of women in IT. Its biggest committee, Girls in Technology, supports academic and community programs that engage girls in technology- and computer-related learning.

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