Editor's Note: IT alone can't unwind the financial mess

Computerworld - Well, I can't say I wasn't warned. After writing in a column last December about the destructive labels that are thwarting the closure of the racial divide, a reader in Maryland e-mailed me to say that I should "just stop with the racial discussion" or cancel his print subscription. He e-mailed me again on Feb. 19 to inform me he had called to cancel it himself after reading my interview in that week's issue with Earl Pace, founder of Black Data Processing Associates.

"I don't think this belongs in a technology publication," the reader wrote. His message was consistent with his December e-mail, in which he offered this rebuke: "Hey, let's rake up old hard feelings and waste a day talking instead of fixing computers. I'm sure you will solve the race issue with this discussion!"

The inference was that we should limit ourselves to writing about the technical information that IT professionals need to help them maintain their computer systems, and that dealing with people issues like race is a waste of time.

But there's a reason why our tagline is "The Voice of IT Management," and not "The Art of Fixing Computers." There's also a reason why the voice of some IT managers isn't adequately heard, and it has to do with a lack of appreciation for the nontechnology issues those managers are confronting.

The overarching issue is one I discussed in a column in December, when I noted that a common characteristic of this year's Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leaders is the strong appreciation they have for people. As Richard Wells, director of corporate IT at Syracuse Research Corp., put it, "Focusing on the right people first makes the technology come easy."

That point was underscored in a recent e-mail exchange I had with a group of IT executives from around the U.S. In discussing the economic situation, I asked them if any particular technology might springboard us out of the recession. What I gleaned from them is that if anything serves as a springboard, it won't be technology.

"It's going to take a lot more than technology to unwind this mess," said Stephen Byrne, a 2009 Premier 100 honoree and vice president of field and agency automation at Harleysville Insurance.

According to Thys Coetzee, an IT director in Eden Prairie, Minn., "Technology will assist in every recovery point, but it won't be the springboard." The catalyst, he said, will be services, "in the widest sense."

"Imagine cell phone services that actually help consumers; imagine airlines that make fliers feel welcome and assist them; imagine service contracts that people actually perceive as valuable, rather than as a threat from the vendor and a dangerous gamble," Coetzee wrote. "Technology can remove impediments," he added, "but services are what will draw people out and encourage the economic wheels to turn." It's worth noting that Coetzee's emphasis wasn't on services performed by any particular technology, but on services performed by people.