A CIO can, too, have a sense of humor. This joke's not about CIOs, but it's funny just the same.As you know, I've taken it as my duty to report every CIO joke I hear -- and that includes every joke told by a CIO. Because every CIO who gets up to give a speech feels obligated to tell a joke at the start, this could be a long, painful process.

However, sometimes a CIO gets off a good one. And that's the case with this joke, told by Steve Edmonson, CIO of the state of Ohio, at the start of his keynote speech at the CIOhio 2007 conference in Columbus this week.

A cab driver is picking up passengers at the airport and delivering them to the convention center. He can't help but notice they all have cats. Finally, the cab driver asks one of them, "What's with the cat?" There's a cat show at the convention center, the rider responds, a pedigree show. After dropping his ride off at the convention center with this cat, the cab driver goes home and starts grooming his own cat. His wife asks him what he's doing. "There's a cat show at the convention center, I'm going to take him there." But our cat is just an ordinary cat, the wife says. "I know," the cab driver replies, "But I think he could benefit from the exposure."