Nick Carr's book-length version of the infamous HBR article is due out some time this month. Add it to your shopping cart when you pick up The Confusion.

On second thought, forget it -- don't waste your time.

IT doesn't matter.

In May 2003, I published the article "IT Doesn’t Matter" in the Harvard Business Review. Called "the rhetorical equivalent of a 50 megaton smart bomb," the article challenged the conventional wisdom that information technology has become increasingly important as a strategic weapon in business.

Since then the debate over my ideas has only intensified.

In this book, I offer a deeper analysis ...; I lay out a new framework ...; I examine other sources of advantage.

Does IT Matter?

From an article in the 3 April issue of The Economist:

For an even more troubling echo of the boom years [than "nano"], look at the growing ranks of VC-funded start-ups devoted to something called "social networking."

In so far as there is a "hot" VC sector, this is it.

It should worry investors that even the most experienced venture capitalists are showing such herd-like instincts today.

Moo?

European VC's ... more risk-averse ... more interested in [helping] established businesses than in market-changing innovations.

The Europeans are more likely to have a number of smaller "wins", rather than a big American-style "home run."

Look -- the middle does exist! It's not just blockbusters and dropouts, after all.

And unlike films, French drugs require no translation before they hit the freshly paved streets of exurban America.

Prolongation de la vie longtemps de phase!

Check out the artwork on his snowboard!

The Kerry plan looks dangerously complicated and dirigiste -- no small thing when the Republicans spend half their time claiming he is really French.

Absent, still, from Mr Kerry's economic thinking is any sense of an overarching, unifying theme.

This pudding has no theme.

The candidate's backers promise that, over the coming weeks, with more economic utterances, such a theme will somehow emerge.

For now, though, Mr Kerry is no Bill Clinton.

You can say that again.

For now, though, Mr Kerry is no Bill Clinton.

Is there a there, there?

"Get out of my namespace!"

Following is a transcript of the interview with President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan by Philip P. Pan, the Washington Post's Beijing bureau chief, and David E. Hoffman, foreign editor. The interview was conducted at the presidential palace in Taipei on March 29, 2004, with a government translator.

... the "one China" principle ... is totally unacceptable to our people.

I think the fundamental reason why I won ... is because there is a rising Taiwan identity and it has been solidified. I think the Beijing authorities should take heed of this fact and accept the reality.

I have observed a very interesting phenomenon. The Beijing authorities refuse to recognize the existence of the Republic of China. However, they dread that we may one day change our name. I see a great inconsistency in this phenomenon.

What's in a name, really?

The failure of "one country, two systems" in Hong Kong has contributed to the rise of Taiwan identity and the rise of Taiwan awareness.

As I have said, solidifying and deepening Taiwan's democracy is our best Theater Missile Defense.

The day before the election, I trod the fine line of death. And that had a great impact on my life philosophy and my attitude toward my political career.

A shot in the arm, a shot in the gut -- what's twelve inches between friends?

Interview with Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian

There are plenty of modern management techniques which the movement could employ to reinvigorate itself. Has, it, for instance, tried benchmarking itself against comparable movements? If street protest is too arduous for the membership, should it not think of outsourcing its more strenuous activities to the immigrants who already do most of Britain's tougher jobs? Taking that argument further, if domestic apathy is the problem, perhaps the answer is offshoring. A Mayday protest organised in, say, Libya or North Korea would really make a splash.

The finest in British wit, now available worldwide.

And it goes hand in hand with my recent suggestion that the Democrats hire a Bangalore call center to conduct a get-out-the-vote campaign.

From anarchy to apathy

The war on terror is really a war of ideas. And I'm not sure we are winning it.

The Best Ways to Beat Terror | Fareed Zakaria

If you peel back the arguments in favor of offshoring, what you finally end up with is an article of faith -- faith that history will repeat itself and the US economy will quickly generate enough new jobs in higher-paying industries to compensate for the ones lost to trade. What I've yet to see, however, is even a educated guess as to what those jobs might be.

To me, the 'debate' on the issue of 'offshoring' seems beside the point. It is an inevitable reality. The way ahead is to develop coping mechanisms -- strategies that enable economies worldwide to thrive in this new environment. Those who cast the challenge as a zero-sum game are expressing a defeatist attitude. "Slow down" is not a convincing strategy, either.

If the supposed utopia of the critics is a world in which all Americans simply keep the jobs they have today, indefinitely, while Indians, Chinese, and others are locked out of the information age, then I'm not interested. How is that progress? Do you think the Indians and the Chinese will settle for that?

I'm puzzled to think that anyone would both oppose offshoring and also disagree with Bill Joy. Does anyone agree with Bill Joy but have no trouble with offshoring?

But as Princeton University economist William Baumol and Ralph Gomory, IBM's former research director, point out in an intriguing new book, there are now many industries in which competition is imperfect because entry by new firms is virtually impossible.

Does anyone know what book he's talking about? The only thing I can find is a book from 2000/2001 entitled, "Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests," from MIT Press, which has been cited elsewhere in this debate. People seem to call it a 'new book' repeatedly, despite the publication date. Who refers to a four year old book (especially one on global trade) as "new"? Would you refer to George Bush as our "newly" elected president?

Realities Make 'Offshoring' Hard to Swallow

In 2003, the average debt of a medical student was nearly $110,000, double the figure in 1993. Many residents require 30 years to pay off the full amount.

A Job or More School? Young Doctors Take On 'The Match'

As old problems recede, new ones arise.

The Altered Human Is Already Here

Breakthroughs in genetics presents both the promise that physicians might be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases and the predicament that the newfound genetic knowledge might enable the people to manipulate human nature. Sandel discusses the issues regarding designer children, bionic athletes, and genetic engineering.

Michael J. Sandel, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, writes about genetic engineering in the April issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Subscription required for access to full text, or pick up a copy at a newsstand near you. A few excerpts:

The genomic revolution has induced a kind of moral vertigo. In order to grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view -- questions about the moral status of nature, and about the proper stance of human beings toward the given world.

The fundamental question is not how to ensure equal access to enhancement but whether we should aspire to it in the first place.

The problem is not the drift to mechanism but the drive to mastery. And what the drive to mastery misses and may even destroy is an appreciation of the gifted character of human powers and achievements.

The problem is not that parents usurp the autonomy of a child they design. The problem lies in the hubris of the designing parents, in their drive to master the mystery of birth.

We used to speak of nonmedical drug use as "recreational." That term no longer applies. The steroids and stimulants that figure in the enhancement debate are not a source of recreation but a bid for compliance -- a way of answering a competitive society's demand to improve our performance and perfect our nature.

What would be lost if biotechnology dissolved our sense of giftedness?

The Case Against Perfection | The Atlantic, April 2004