The practice of the IT profession has changed in a big way. It's no longer about the technology; it's about what we do with the technology. Companies can acquire just about anything they want, and the price of stuff keeps dropping, so there's not much advantage in merely having stuff. Opportunities come from bold and imaginative use of information -- not from increasingly commoditized technology. Now I get to apply this insight to myself. Oh, great -- it's a good thing I have the rent imperative to push me.

In the spirit of thinking out loud, here are a couple of things I've figured out so far. First, since most business activities are completely intertwined with and utterly dependent on technology, there's no meaningful distinction left between technology and business operations. Second, a place where experienced IT folks can create enormous value is in business operations that make intensive use of IT. We've seen business people put in charge of IT; what about IT people in charge of operations? Who better to imagine what could be done and how to do it?

OK, if that's true, then it leads me to the next question: Does this mean that we need to reinvent ourselves as new hybrid IT/business operations people whose mission is to deliver agility and competitive advantage?

-- Michael H. Hugos is an IT executive currently in transition. He is the author of Essentials of Supply Chain Management and Building the Real-Time Enterprise: An Executive Briefing (both published by John Wiley & Sons). He can be reached at mhugos@yahoo.com.