He was right. It was the Business Roundtable that, in 1997, declared that the CEO's only job is to maximize shareholder value.

That was a dumb, sloppy mistake. I should have caught it, and I apologize to The Conference Board for misstating its position.

Now here's the big question: Did youcatch it?

If you're like most IT people, probably not. After all, one big-deal organization for CEOs sounds pretty much like another. The fact that The Conference Board is the research outfit that releases the Consumer Confidence Index and other economic data, while the Business Roundtable is a lobbying group, goes right past us.

And that's a problem if we want to be able to make the business case for IT successfully.