SourceForge community manager Ross Turk believes business professionals are starting to realize they need to meet the geeks halfway. "Most businesses are about technology these days," he says. "Being technologically competent is a differentiator in way it hasn't been in the past."

But while the suits control budgets, salaries, and the overall direction of the company, the geeks hold the keys to the economic engine. Without IT, there is no business. The question is whether unhappy IT pros will use that power toward their own ends.

"I don't think techies ever doubted they had the keys to car," says Pfleging. "Now the suits are starting to realize it. Back in the '90s, I talked to techs who were fully aware of the Y2K problem, but they were content to sit back and wait for it to all go to Hell. Watching a suit go down in flames is entertainment for geeks."

Rewards and Recognition

Organizations face a double challenge: How do they keep their IT staff from going off the reservation, while gradually regaining control over the technology they need to run the business? It's not easy.

As the Terry Childs case demonstrated, in many organizations a single person holds the keys to the kingdom—and may be unwilling to hand them over to someone they deem less competent.

Organizations need to move from a trust-based approach—where sys admins are expected to wield their enormous powers with restraint—to a process-based one, says Jeff Nielsen, product manager for Symark, which makes software that enables businesses to document procedures, limit access to sensitive systems and data, and create audit trails.

If IT admins have business reasons to access sensitive data, they can fill out requests stating their business reasons, Nielsen says. "Depending on the organization's approval process, the admins can get the password immediately or wait for approval from a supervisor, then do the work."

Nielsen admits this may be seen by IT personnel as adding delays and unnecessary bureaucracy to an already arduous process. Worse, job security in IT is often tied directly to a geek's intimate knowledge of what makes the systems tick. Once the processes are well documented, the company may decide that position is no longer essential. It's a catch-22 that's not going away soon.

Another way to keep your geeks from wreaking havoc is to stop treating them like a commodity, says Roy Saunderson, president of the Recognition Management Institute.

"Look at how most companies recruit," he says. "They need to understand they're not just hiring a body; they're getting significant expertise and talent for a job that can't be done by just anybody. They need to do a better job of coming up with rewards packages that are unique to the qualifications and expertise they're hiring."