In an effort to benchmark progress (or lack thereof) in the areas of open innovation (and crowdsourcing) beyond some early anecdotes and cases, we have brought back the team that first discussed this phenomenon back in a 2007 issue of CBR (Vol. 7, No. 12). While the topic of open innovation first burst onto the scene in the earlier part of the 2000s, it only began to gather momentum toward the end of the decade with the addition of the crowdsourcing concept. Given the staying power of the open innovation trend, we thought it would be useful to revisit this topic with a new survey for CBR.

We're in the midst of another tough economic year. That's clear across the board for anyone who doesn't have his or her head in the sand, or in the clouds. Pick your metaphor here, but in either case it's a reality that almost all IT professionals and business managers are battling a continued tough slog through rough fiscal terrain. This issue of Cutter Benchmark Review is thus an especially important one in its relevance to the very real challenges that we all face these days. It is the sixth installment in our annual series on IT budgeting, and we are now beginning to amass enough critical year-over-year data to truly evaluate some longer-term trends. The insight that our expert contributors were able to glean from this data and present to you in this issue will undoubtedly prove both interesting and instructive as you compare these trends with the decisions made within your own organizations.

Our goal with this issue is to provide some benchmarking data on the state of the adoption and use of post-PC devices in an attempt to understand whether they have become pervasive and how organizations are approaching their integration in the firm's overall infrastructure. If you need ammunition to spur your action into better action when it comes to a tablet strategy, you can find it here -- we have done our job!

In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we consider the future of customer relationships, the management of those relationships, and the role that IT and the IT shop can play in the evolution of effective customer relationship management (CRM). Right off the bat it's important to ponder some questions that are fundamental to how we understand, on the most basic level, the dynamic and structure of the relationships we have with our customers. Think about the following for a moment: In today's world, is it really possible (or even desirable) to "own" a customer anymore? How is our present use of IT aiding our relationships with our customers? And in the current environment of data overload and incredible accessibility of information and services, is it possible (or even wise) to expect consumers to continue to relinquish control of what is truly theirs, namely, their own personal information?

There's a lot to think about when contemplating the value and use of the mass of data that is undoubtedly accumulating every day within your firm. In this issue of CBR, we provide you with a solid footing for understanding and moving forward with your own deliberations. In a manner of speaking, your data is the "bird in your hand" that you may not even know you hold -- or have not yet developed the skills to hold. Reading what our experts have to say on the subject will provide a mental framework for approaching the decisions necessary to take advantage of the wealth of information at your fingertips.

In this issue of CBR, we set out to examine the ways in which strategic IT planning influences the value that IT delivers to the organization, as well as the degree to which the planning process is perceived to affect organizational outcomes and results. With this focus, we can both benchmark the planning process itself and, at the same time, tackle the question of its relationship to IT value. Given the current and ongoing economic struggles facing businesses both large and small around the world, this seemed like an excellent time to discuss the value of strategic IT planning.

This issue of Cutter Benchmark Review is the sixth installment in our annual series forecasting technology trends. As faithful readers know, in this issue we examine the range of IT developments that have either surfaced or endured in the past year and look back across previous years to see how the technology landscape is evolving. We also reflect on the multitude of contributing factors that will influence your decision-making processes as you consider your options for change (or staying the course) in the near future. We believe the two sometimes-opposing viewpoints of our contributors will give you much to think about as you come to your own conclusions. We hope that you find this annual IT trends issue of CBR interesting and useful and that it gives you plenty of food for thought as you evaluate your technology use and priorities for this year.

In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we turn our attention to a topic that has been increasingly in the public eye: social media. What was originally only an interesting diversion for a small population of techies and college students has quickly and rather explosively become a major social phenomenon -- one with cultural, practical, and business implications that become more far-reaching in scope every day. So what does this all mean for us in the IT shop? How do we manage in this environment where so many of the contributing factors are not within our control? And how do we use the information we can gather from social media monitoring (SMM) to set ourselves up for success? Whether or not you have already jumped onto the social media bandwagon, you will find this installment of CBR helpful as you attempt to get a broad overall view of the potential benefits and pitfalls social media represents for your organization.

The adoption of a new project management methodology as part of our business practices is always somewhat of a gamble. Will it work? Will it be an improvement over the processes we currently have in place? Will the time, energy, and resources that we invest now in implementing it prove worthwhile in the long run? These are all questions each of us as IT and business professionals must consider as we make decisions to move our organizations forward. Keeping operations humming along in the face of change and (sometimes) major budget crunches and keeping business practices current and in line with industry practices and technology progress are perhaps the greatest ongoing challenges we face. In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we discuss one of the most recent methodologies to enter the spectrum of possible choices for systems development: Kanban.

In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we do our part in unlocking the mystery of Gen-Yers/Net-Geners. We examine the powerful trend toward further integration of technology into everyday productivity and the creative processes of this highly innovative generation. Plus, we discuss ways in which we can successfully integrate these individuals into our organizations to the benefit of all involved.

This month's installment of Cutter Benchmark Review is our fifth in the yearly series on IT budgets and the budgeting process. The budgeting process is of critical importance to the IT and business professionals in our subscriber base. Moreover, budgets represent plans for investing resources in the areas that the organization's leadership deems most critical to its success. Budgets are based on explicit or implicit forecasts of what is going to happen. Thus, we can use budgets as an indicator of aggregate organizational sentiment of what the firm's leadership perceives is going to happen.

In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we focus at the intersection of three topics discussed previously: mobile technology (Vol. 9, No. 3) on the one hand and privacy (Vol. 6, No. 1) and security (Vol. 5, No. 12) on the other. We do so because we feel that these topics, interesting each on its own, take on renewed relevance when combined. It is undeniable that mobile form factors, from the laptop to the smartphone to the iPad and who knows what next, will continue to gain prominence in the personal and organizational technology arsenal. As they do so, the importance of securing the mobile platform while ensuring the privacy of its users will continue to increase commensurably. In short, given the unabated trends toward continued miniaturization, connectivity, and battery longevity, it is undeniable that mobile security and privacy are only going to grow in importance.

This month, we have tapped into the expertise and knowledge of two contributors with significant backgrounds in e-learning. On the academic side is Aurelio Ravarini, Senior Assistant Professor of IS at Università Carlo Cattaneo (LIUC, Italy) and Director with LIUC's CETIC, Research Center on Information Systems. Many of you will recall Aurelio as a past contributor to CBR; he was our academic expert on the issues on content management systems (Vol. 6, No. 4) and software as a service (Vol. 9, No. 4 ). Our practitioner author is Gianni Maria Strada, a former HR executive of several US corporations and current Managing Partner of PeoplePoint, a boutique HR consulting firm focused on major organizational change processes. Both contributors have considerable experience with the organizational implementation of software applications and their consequential organizational change processes.

In this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we turn to a topic discussed previously in November 2008 (Vol. 8, No. 11) and July 2007 (Vol. 7, No. 7): project management. As readers of CBR know, we get our inspiration and ideas for topics from two sources. First, we get inspiration from current events, new trends, new technologies, and generally from being aware and plugged into what is going on in the world of IT. At the same time, we maintain a constant ear to the ground and stick with a reality check by being attentive and responsive to the Cutter Consortium client base. We pay close attention to the kinds of jobs that Cutter Consortium Senior Consultants are bidding for and working on. We also monitor the types of requests that Cutter clients make and we apply firsthand research at Cutter Summits held across the globe.

With this month's CBR we crafted one such issue on a topic that is losing some of the buzz surrounding it -- and for that very reason may be moving into its most productive phase! Let me take a tangent here. Have you ever noticed how there are largely two broad sets of people: those who talk and those who do? OK, that may be an oversimplification (how uncharacteristic for an academic you may say), as there are plenty of variations between these two extremes, but go with me here for a minute. I'm sure you remember the many people you have met in your life who have told you how good they are, how much they have achieved, how close they were to getting that new position, and so on. Very often this façade of certainty and bravado hides a relatively thin record of real accomplishments; conversely, there is a broad group of extremely accomplished people who let the facts speak for themselves.

This month's Cutter Benchmark Review, taking its inspiration from the current economic situation, termed by many the "great recession," tackles management in a crisis. Amidst all the turmoil, IT shops within firms and governmental institutions have to keep the operations humming while contributing to the survival of the organization. Setting the course for the IT function in a financial and economic storm is a subject that requires insight from some special contributors. We have assembled one of the best duos of CBR contributors since I took over editing of the publication in 2006. On the academic side we have Dorothy Leidner, the Randall W. and Sandra Ferguson Professor of Information Systems and Director of the Center for Knowledge Management at Baylor University (USA). On the practitioner side, we have one of my favorite IT leaders: Tom Murphy, Senior VP and CIO of AmerisourceBergen, a US $54 billion wholesale distributor of pharmaceuticals and related healthcare products.

This month's installment of Cutter Benchmark Review is the fifth effort in our yearly series on IT trends and technologies for the coming year. As you know if you have been following CBR, at the beginning of every year we ask our practicing and academic contributors to take stock of current trends. Based on our benchmarking survey of investment priorities, we ask them to explain the results and extrapolate some guidelines for our readers on how to tackle the new year in the IT shop.