CIO — What happens when that legendary dividing line between IT and “the business” starts to blur—or, even better, vanishes entirely? What can companies accomplish when innovation really becomes everybody’s business?

This CIO 100 Awards issue is packed with answers to those questions. “Companies at their best have nothing to align,” as Senior Editor Kim S. Nash writes in our cover story (“Growth Curve,” Page 42), “and they set the pace for their competitors.”

They also break into new markets and rake in revenue. They crank out game-changing analytics or manage data in profitable new ways. They use simulation tools to turn a risky acquisition into a successful merger.

All of those stories and more emerged from our 24th annual CIO 100 Awards. Business transformation and corporate growth were the hallmarks of many of the winning projects this year. Many of these projects were also at the heart of evolving business strategies—often they were the latest in a series of significant IT milestones.

This year we saw a greater concentration of projects using business ­intelligence, mobility or cloud solutions, but the types technologies used were as diverse as the business drivers at each company. Dreamworks Animation, for example, hit its business goal of releasing three animated movies in 2010 by consolidating siloed operations into one converged IT infrastructure. The Gap deployed mobile point-of-sale systems on iPod Touches so clerks could snag sales from impatient customers anywhere in the store.

More than 300 organizations competed for a CIO 100 Award this year, submitting their most innovative, value-producing IT and business projects to be judged by our 42-member panel of industry experts, former CIOs and leading academics (listed on Page 49). A full list of the winning companies and their project details is also available online at CIO.com.

If you’d like the chance to talk firsthand with the people behind these impressive projects, there’s still time to join us at the CIO 100 Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., from Aug. 14th-16th. We’ve packed the conference with expert presentations, peer workshops and panels featuring best-selling business book authors alongside CIOs and senior IT executives from Pfizer, FedEx Services, Levi Strauss, State Street (STT), Toyota Motor Sales, and many more. (For agenda and registration information, go to www.cio100.com.)

Maryfran Johnson, Editor in Chief, CIO Magazine & Events

mfjohnson@cio.com