In looking at how companies use business technology, it's tempting to see a single, thundering herd. Everyone's virtualizing servers, shipping jobs to India, and buying smartphones by the crate, right?

One of the best things about researching the InformationWeek 500 every year is the chance to pick apart the herd. Ask 500 innovative users of business technology how they get results, and the data sends a message: There's no single path to innovation.

One example: We asked companies to consider 21 technology initiatives--things like deploying Wi-Fi, implementing CRM software, and replacing legacy apps--and check those that have been most effective in improving their productivity over the past 12 months. Not one cracked 50%. The most-cited area this year was improving network bandwidth or performance, considered effective by 47% of InformationWeek 500 companies. Next was deploying business intelligence tools, cited by 43%. A third cited new types of collaboration software.

And those smartphones? Just 10% consider "issuing smartphones beyond a few top executives" a most-effective strategy of the past 12 months, No. 20 on a list of 21. Deploying Wi-Fi in company buildings (22%), implementing CRM or similar front-office apps (29%), and replacing homegrown/legacy applications with packaged apps (29%) fell in the middle of the pack.

Companies can't even agree on whom the CIO should report to: 46% say to the CEO or president, 24% to the CFO, 13% to the COO, and the rest scattered. The average company spends 2.8% of revenue on IT, down from the average of 3.5% of the past six years. Spending varies considerably by industry. At the high end, banks spend an average of 6.3% of revenue on IT, while construction and engineering companies spend an average of 0.7%.

Still, there are lots of interesting trends to pull out of the data. Watching the InformationWeek 500's use of technology over time offers clues about when an emerging technology has tipped over to mass adoption or which ones might be headed that way. There are insights into the global nature of IT and IT's role in supporting global business and some curious--even suspect--research data about information security at InformationWeek 500 companies. Here's some of what we gleaned this year.