"The majority of our time is spent on the little things that prevent the big things from happening," says Dan Yee, CIO of the California Independent System Operator Corp. (the not-for-profit organization that manages the state’s power grid established to prevent electricity shortages and blackouts). Yee says focusing on the "little things" means, for example, splitting end users into different classes (like executives and other workers), and using automated tools to monitor what software gets onto their PCs in an effort to head off problems before they occur.

CIOs could be excused for delegating these nuisance issues to their staff. It makes sense to divide and conquer, to quash each snafu as it comes up. Many IT executives interviewed for this story continue to follow that approach.

But it’s also not hard to see that CIOs who fail to treat these nuisances holistically, as a class of problems that deserve management’s attention and a plan of attack, do so at their peril.

Spam, for one, cost corporations $10 billion in 2003, according to Ferris Research. Look at viruses: Computer Economics estimates that in 2003 the endless parade of 7,064 new viruses, worms and Trojan horses cost companies more than $13 billion. Even seemingly benign problems like employee password changes add up. These requests account for up to half the help desk calls in a given year and cost a company about $38 per annoying reset, according to Gartner. Add password updates to never-ending nuisances such as the employee who never deletes a single e-mail in 10 years or the PC user who crashes his computer during massive MP3 downloading, and the road leads to one all-encompassing term that could use its own army: nuisance management.

The good news is that CIOs have plenty of weapons in their utility belts to fend off many of these recurring problems. Ideas as simple as enforcing a better written policy for e-mail and banning certain kinds of instant messaging applications from the company’s desktops can make a big difference. Ultimately, dealing with nuisances is about being proactive and learning from mistakes. The problems might never go away, but they can be controlled.

Engage EVERY Nuisance, But Avoid Big Brother

CIOs often walk a tightrope: Trusting employees is important. The staff shouldn’t be forced to play Big Brother, censoring every software download or website visit. But trusting too much can lead to big budget trouble.

Most any tech administrator knows that the sneakiest network bandwidth stealers are often music and video file-sharing programs such as Audiogalaxy, Kazaa, LimeWire, Morpheus and NeoModus’s Direct Connect. MP3 files, at only 3MB to 5MB per song, might seem trivial?until 100 people download dozens of them simultaneously. Universities that cap bandwidth use are finding that MP3 downloads can hog up to 40 percent of network bandwidth at peak times. And it’s not just kids doing it. A May 2003 Jupiter Research survey of 2,835 consumers found that 12.3 percent of all 18- to 24-year-olds (compared with 4.5 percent in all age groups in the survey) regularly download MP3s at work.