InformationWeek

May 25, 1998

Secret CIO:
What To Do? Just Sue!

Don't look at year 2000 as a potential disaster. Think of it as an opportunity.

By Herbert W. Lovelace

ust as the bull scraping at the dirt in the bullring is paying attention to the wrong thing by fixating on the matador's cape, we're missing the point on the year 2000 problem. We're all worrying about mending our computer programs and becoming increasingly paranoid about what might happen when the clock strikes the big triple zero. Granted, this concern seems ra tional. The latest articles are even forecasting a serious worldwide fiscal downturn at the turn of the century. One leading business publication even says the United States could face a major depression.

Maybe all these people are correct and we should be building the IT equivalent of bomb shelters--taking our money out of banks, making paper copies of all our records, and so forth. On the other hand, no adversity has ever occurred that someone has not turned into an opportunity. Opportunity? I'm talking about lawsuits with a capital "L." Yes, lawsuits are the wave of the future. It's the saving grace, the way for those of us who might lose our jobs because we messed up the millennium conversion to redeem ourselves and maintain our justly deserved lifestyles.

The first lawsuit has already been filed. The owners of Produce Palace in Warren, Mich., were offended by the fact that their entire computer system (scanners, scales, and cash registers) would barf and retreat into catatonia whenever presented with a credit card that had the audacity to have a "00" expiration date. In the true American way, the aggrieved food merchants sued the implementers of the system. And who can blame them? I've read that the United States has no fewer than 900,000 lawyers, more than twice the number of the rest of the civilized (or noncivilized--whatever) world combined. We can expect a lot more lawsuits.

Lawsuits mean expert witnesses, and who is more expert than those of us who have contributed to the mess in the first place? No one can do it better. We can testify with compassion, with emotion, but most of all with billable hours for whomever pays us most. I see a great future for former CIOs who are willing to spend their days in court explaining how this fiasco happened in the first place.

But there is another opportunity for economic gain from the forthcoming calamity. You may be able to save your job--if you so choose--or even take an entrepreneurial position that may be far more remunerativ e than your present employment. I'm talking about building the best combination database and case-management system in the world for all of the lawsuits. Your own company needs one. It has the opportunity to Y2K-sue based on the aggrievement it has suffered, which has no doubt caused the decline in profits that so annoys the stockholders. After all, any lack of profits could have resulted only from an evil outside source, not the ineptitude of management. Who to sue? You can sue your vendors, your banks, your pension advisers--almost anyone.

On the other hand, the complete database will also catalog the people who might sue you. These ungrateful louts attempting to clothe their incompetence by blaming you for their own failures are legion. They include everyone: your customers, your suppliers--even your own stockholders.

If you're smart, you'll build a system to keep track of all the lawsuits. If you don't, I might. And then I'll get all the revenue that rightfully belongs to you. I will giv e you just one hint about this killer application--the first real winning computer program of the 21st century: Make sure you use four digits for the year field.

Herbert W. Lovelace is the CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty. Send him E-mail at lovelace@home.com . He'll provide real answers--and whimsical comments--to your questions on InformationWeek Online at www.InformationWeek.com.