Responses to Carr
Letters
Does IT Matter?
An HBR Debate
to
the
Editor
1 Introduction by Thomas A. Stewart
2
5
7
6
Letters from:
John Seely Brown and John Hagel III
F Warren McFarlan and Richard L. Nolan
.
Paul A. Strassmann
Other readers
17 Reply from Nicholas G. Carr
Order the article,“IT Doesn’t Matter”
E-mail us at hbr_letters@hbsp.harvard.edu
Every magazine has an ideal, or an idealized, reader. For Harvard Business Review, he or she is an executive of uncommon intelligence and curiosity: the brightest
CEO you know or can imagine, perhaps.
We like to pretend that our ideal reader has chartered us to prepare a briefing every month. On the agenda, we’ve been told, should be three kinds of items.
First, our reader says, bring me important new ideas, research, or insights:
“Boss, here’s something you should know.” Second, bring me important eternal truths, rediscovered and refreshed: “Boss, here’s something you shouldn’t forget.”
Third, bring me into the picture about important issues and arguments:
“Boss, here’s something you will want to know about.”
New ideas, truths, and disputes: When we do our job well, HBR is a forum where you get some of each, and all of it is important. Nicholas G. Carr’s “IT
Doesn’t Matter,” published in the May
2003 issue, falls into the third category.
It takes one side of an argument that’s undeniably urgent and important to business leaders.
In 2000, nearly half of U.S. corporate capital spending went to information harvard business review • june 2003
technology. Then the spending collapsed and the Nasdaq with it, and in every boardroom–and in every technology company–people began to wonder:
What happened? What was that spending about? What’s changed? What has not? And what do we do now? What is our technology strategy, and how does it affect our corporate strategy?
Forcefully, Carr argues that investments in IT, while profoundly important, are less and less likely to deliver
a
Does IT Matter?
An HBR Debate
to
the
Editor
1 Introduction by Thomas A. Stewart
2
5
7
6
Letters from:
John Seely Brown and John Hagel III
F Warren McFarlan and Richard L. Nolan
.
Paul A. Strassmann
Other readers
17 Reply from Nicholas G. Carr
Order the article,“IT Doesn’t Matter”
E-mail us at hbr_letters@hbsp.harvard.edu
Every magazine has an ideal, or an idealized, reader. For Harvard Business Review, he or she is an executive of uncommon intelligence and curiosity: the brightest
CEO you know or can imagine, perhaps.
We like to pretend that our ideal reader has chartered us to prepare a briefing every month. On the agenda, we’ve been told, should be three kinds of items.
First, our reader says, bring me important new ideas, research, or insights:
“Boss, here’s something you should know.” Second, bring me important eternal truths, rediscovered and refreshed: “Boss, here’s something you shouldn’t forget.”
Third, bring me into the picture about important issues and arguments:
“Boss, here’s something you will want to know about.”
New ideas, truths, and disputes: When we do our job well, HBR is a forum where you get some of each, and all of it is important. Nicholas G. Carr’s “IT
Doesn’t Matter,” published in the May
2003 issue, falls into the third category.
It takes one side of an argument that’s undeniably urgent and important to business leaders.
In 2000, nearly half of U.S. corporate capital spending went to information harvard business review • june 2003
technology. Then the spending collapsed and the Nasdaq with it, and in every boardroom–and in every technology company–people began to wonder:
What happened? What was that spending about? What’s changed? What has not? And what do we do now? What is our technology strategy, and how does it affect our corporate strategy?
Forcefully, Carr argues that investments in IT, while profoundly important, are less and less likely to deliver
a