United Nations researchers had a sobering realization in 2010. For all of the official data and reports collected by the group's member nations and various UN programs and agencies, precious little of the data that supports the organization's operations was truly up to date.

How exactly do you make it to the data scientist big leagues? As it turns out, there is no one right path. Instead, it's largely a scramble out there on the big data field. Insider (registration required)

Fast-changing business processes, tight deadlines, customization demands and ever-growing regulations are complicating day-to-day operations. What's needed now is 'IT-plus' -- a combination of technical skills and business knowledge, plus deep industry expertise.

It started as a research project to explore how Steelcase's customers might benefit from products with built-in collaboration technologies. What emerged is Media:Scape, a line of high-tech multimedia office equipment that is now on the sales fast track at the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based office furniture manufacturer. Steelcase's IT department was front and center in the innovation effort, developing, building and managing the first prototypes of the products, which feature high-definition videoconferencing capabilities.

The days of building a lifelong IT career at a single company are long gone. And now, the days of building a lifelong IT career just within the IT department are dwindling, too.

Today's re-engineering is all about quickly and continually refining and enhancing the hundreds of end-to-end steps involved in developing new products, acquiring and retaining customers and making money. More often than not, it's now starting with IT.

A mother in Tanzania walks for three days with a sick child on her hip, only to arrive at a rural clinic whose inventory of malaria medicine is depleted.

First, a scary statistic: Gartner predicts that in less than three years, 35 per cent of enterprise IT expenditures will happen outside of the corporate IT budget. Employees will regularly subscribe to collaboration, analytic and other Cloud services they want, all with the press of a button. Others will simply build their own applications using readily available Cloud-based tools and development platforms.

Editor's note: Each year, Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders awards program honors the best and brightest IT executives. This year's class of 100 men and women are especially unique, in that many have made their marks by successfully executing on bold, high-risk decisions that are yielding big business benefits.

Sure, there are still some Cobol systems on their last legs in the deep recesses of just about every large IT organization. But they are most assuredly on their way out -- as are the programmers who coded them.

It's called the technology petting zoo. Stocked with the latest high-tech gadgets, games, systems and software that could potentially be of business value, it's a place where engineers and other IT users at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory can try out the steady stream of hot, new consumer technologies and imagine the possibilities.

At first glance, you might think Steve Kranson, who works at Comerica Bank in Auburn Hills, Mich., is your average IT manager. But he's been known to put in some time dressed as the Easter Bunny, to the delight of local kids.

Dan Herrington says his first inkling of a brewing IT talent war came early this spring, when he noticed that "college kids weren't accepting our offers on the spot."

"In my experience, the best creative work is never done when one is unhappy."

Customer relationship management applications are still the largest segment of the ballooning software-as-a-service market.