William F. Garrity

Here, on CNET's News.com, is one of multiple reports about a new "Information Overload Research Group" whose mission is "We work together to build awareness of the world's greatest challenge to productivity, conduct research, help define best practices, contribute to the creation of solutions, share information and resources, offer guidance and facilitation, and help make the business case for fighting information overload." 

From CNET: 

The term "information overload" has floated around for years and been the topic of much analysis, but the situation remains. According to recent research by enterprise research firm Basex, these distractions are now costing the American economy more than $650 billion in lost productivity, and taking up 28 percent of workers' time.

Such numbers led Intel engineer Nathan Zeldes and other tech industry insiders to form the new Information Overload Research Group. The nonprofit consortium--whose members include Microsoft Research, IBM, and Google employees--held its first conference this week in New York, with members meeting at sessions with titles like "No Time to Think" and "Visionary Vendors."

Now that the group has had its inaugural gathering, Zeldes, its president, said IORG will continue to recruit members and financial sponsors from a scope of business sectors. With more minds applied to finding a solution to what IORG calls "the world's greatest challenge to productivity," Zeldes hopes to generate innovative ideas that can benefit both businesses and individuals.

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Michael Fitzgerald in the June 25, 2008, The New York Times writes about "cloud computing:" 

May 25, 2008

Prototype

Cloud Computing: So You Don’t Have to Stand Still

By MICHAEL FITZGERALD

CLOUD computing is the jargon of the moment in the technology industry. Google, I.B.M., Microsoft and Yahoo are just some of the big companies talking up the cloud, and a bunch of smaller ones are, too.

What, you may be thinking, is cloud computing? Basically, it means obtaining computing resources — processing, storage, messaging, databases and so on — from someplace outside your own four walls, and paying only for what you use.

It’s a mushy term that is being applied loosely to many things on the Web. Salesforce.com is now called a cloud application — after all, companies let it store their sales data, rather than running it on their own systems. Facebook, too, is a cloud platform, because software developers write applications for it and distribute them on it.

Then there’s the infrastructure cloud, where companies offer up their servers, storage and other technology to anyone who can pay. Previously, that was called grid or utility computing, because you tap into it as you need it, as you would with the power grid, and pay only for what you use. In the early days of computing, it was called time-sharing.

EDUCAUSE is the association for higher education ICT.  It's an outstanding organization to track, and (I think) a model for a higher ed advocacy group.  (Were the Association of Research Libraries to be such!) 

Every year, EDUCAUSE publishes a list of the top issues of attention by campus ICT leaders.  Here's this year's list. 

1. Security
2. Administrative/ERP/Information Systems
3. Funding IT
4. Infrastructure
5. Identity/Access Management
6. Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity
7. Governance, Organization, and Leadership
8. Change Management
9. E-Learning / Distributed Teaching and Learning
10. Staffing / HR Management / Training

Peter Burrows in the May 12, 2008 BusinessWeek: "The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit:" 

More office workers infatuated with iPods and iPhones are demanding Macs. Is business ready? Is Apple?

Soon after Michele Goins became chief information officer at Juniper Networks (JNPR) in February, she decided to respond to the growing chorus of Mac lovers among the networking company's 6,100 employees. For years, many had used Apple's (AAPL) computers at home and clamored for them in the office as well. So she launched a test, letting 600 Juniper staffers use Macs instead of the standard-issue PCs that run Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows operating system. As long as the extra support costs aren't too high, she plans to open the floodgates. "If we opened it up today, I think 25% of our employees would choose Macs," she says.

Funny thing is, she has never received a single sales call from Apple. While thousands of other companies scratch and claw for the tiniest sliver of the corporate computing market, Apple treats this vast market with utter indifference. After a series of failed offensives by the company in the 1980s and 1990s, Chief Executive Steve Jobs decided to focus squarely on consumers and education customers when he returned to Apple in 1997. As a result, the company doesn't have ranks of corporate salespeople or armies of repairmen waiting to respond every time a hard drive fails. Nothing that could divert his minions from staying focused on Apple's core calling: creating the next cool thing for the world's consumers.

... 

The O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo just concluded.  Here are some links to information about it. 

Tim O'Reilly's welcome, as reported by Computerworld. 

April 23, 2008 (Computerworld) SAN FRANCISCO — While Web 2.0 technologies may have struggled in the past against criticism that they are self-indulgent time-wasters, Web 2.0 is now being touted as a collection of ground-breaking applications that can harness the collective intelligence of a multitude of users.

That was the message here at the opening of the O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo, where Tim O'Reilly, president of O'Reilly Media, noted that the Internet's emergence as a platform itself marks an "amazing revolution in human augmentation" akin to the advent of literacy. He highlighted Web 2.0 applications that use Google Earth to track global deforestation and those aiming to shed light on how congressional legislation is written and passed as examples of this revolution.

Here is CNET's extensive, consolidated reporting on the expo. 

On a related note, CNET's Webware ("Cool Web 2.0 Apps for Everyone") published its list of 2008 Webware 100.  "These are the 100 top Web apps, 10 each in 10 categories, according to Webware users and the fans of the products that were finalists in the awards."