Make History; Win Prizes! What Was the Worst IT Disaster?

What was the biggest IT disaster of all time? We have prizes for the best answers!

As part of CIO magazine’s ongoing 20th Anniversary celebration, we’re trying to identify the high and low points of the last 20 years of IT thinking, IT practice, IT execution and IT innovation. Call it, if you will, IT history.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be asking for your input on the best and worst of IT in five different categories: the Worst IT Disaster; the Best IT Gadget; the Greatest IT Success; the Biggest IT News Story; the Most Influential IT Person. Then we’re going to choose the best of your suggestions and award HP Photosmart R967 Digital Cameras (brought to you by our sponsor, CompuCom) to the five (5) people who come up with the most incisive or funniest responses (in 150 words or less) in each of the categories we’ve identified. (Yes, that means one winner in each category.) We’ll also run the winning responses in our 20th Anniversary issue (coming out October 1)! Anyone can play, but if you want to be eligible for the camera, we have to find you. So you’ve got to register in our Advice & Opinion section and provide a real email address where we can reach you. Then post your entries as comments to this blog entry. (You should take a minute to read our contest rules, too.) So let the game begin with our first category:

What, in your opinion, was the Worst IT Disaster of all time? Was it the Northeast Blackout of 2003? The FBI going $170 million over budget on an automated fingerprint system that never got off the ground? Nike’s $400 million supply chain investment that turned into a $100 million loss? The great iPhone riots over dead battery replacement that brought the nation to its knees? (Oh. That hasn’t happened yet? Just wait.)

Tell us what you think and why. Think outside the box! Be controversial! Be thoughtful! Be funny! And check Making History often to read people’s responses, add new ones of your own (like Chicago voters, you can enter as many times as you want), and find out what other categories we’ll be asking you about.