Win Prizes Playing CIO History Game

 What do you think was the biggest IT disaster of all time?

What do you think is the greatest IT gadget ever invented? (And please, please, please don’t say the iPhone. Aren’t you a bit iPhoned out? iKnow iAm.)

As part of CIO Magazine’s ongoing 20th Anniversary celebration, which will culminate in our Oct. 1 special 20th Anniversary Issue, 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.

Here at CIO, we’re busily thumbing through our back pages, but we could sure use your help. In fact, we’re going to choose the best of your suggestions and hand out special, fantastic, as-yet unnamed prizes to the people who come up with the most incisive or funniest responses (in 150 words or less) in each of the categories we’ve identified, and run the winning responses in the anniversary issue! Anyone can play, but if you want to be eligible for a prize (and as soon as we know, we’ll let you know what they are), we have to find you, silly. So you’ve got to register on our Advice & Opinion page (which is a good thing to do in any case).

So let the games begin. 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.