JUST WHAT WE NEED? Dave Duffield, the founder and former chief executive of PeopleSoft, who dropped out of sight after he lost his company to Oracle in a much-publicized hostile takeover last year, has resurfaced. Last week saw the debut of www.davesnextmove.com, a Web site that appears to be a promotion for a new enterprise-resource-planning project from Duffield. The site is long on philosophy but short on details about a "revolutionary approach to technology" that will represent "the next generation of enterprise applications to address a fundamental paradigm shift in how enterprise applications serve the extended enterprise." It covers all the technology hot buttons: "open source, object-oriented techniques, XML, and Web services," resulting in "applications that are highly adaptable, easy to use, and less expensive to deploy and manage" than the status quo. The site lists other executives involved in the project, such as Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and chief vision officer, who's currently a partner at venture-capital firm Greylock Partners, as well as a group of former PeopleSoft people. Java developers, please note: The unnamed company is advertising six developer or designer positions at its Walnut Creek, Calif., office.

FILE UNDER: LAST LAUGH. Former Vice President and unsuccessful presidential candidate Al Gore took considerable ribbing from just about everybody over his much-quoted (and probably misquoted) claim to have invented the Internet. So it was something of a surprise to see Gore scheduled to receive a lifetime achievement award at this year's ninth annual Webby Awards, which honor innovation on the Web and are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Vint Cerf, who probably has a legitimate claim to having invented the Internet, is scheduled to present the award to Gore at a June 6 ceremony in New York, the first time outside its San Francisco birthplace. This year's Webby Awards will be held at Gotham Hall and hosted by TV comedian Rob Corddry of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS. Steve Cooper, recently departed as the first CIO of the Department of Homeland Security, took a new post last week as CIO and senior VP at the American Red Cross. Cooper's experience running IT at a large public institution and responding to emergencies makes him well qualified, a Red Cross spokeswoman says. Cooper reports to Red Cross CEO Marsha Evans, and his first responsibility will be to complete an enterprise-architecture effort aimed at optimizing the use of technology at the $3 billion charity.

UP IN SMOKE. According to researchers at the University of London Institute of Psychiatry, there's a serious "info-mania" problem among British workers that's affecting their mental capacity. Obsessively checking E-mail and text messages during meetings, in the evenings, and on weekends results in mental fatigue that affects IQ scores by as much as 10 points. That's more than double the four-point loss seen in studies done on the impact of smoking marijuana, and equal to the effect of missing a night's sleep.

So what if you miss a night's sleep, smoke a joint, and then check your E-mail--do you go back to some infantile state? And is that a bad thing? Just kidding! But I obsessively check E-mail for industry tips, at [email protected] or phone 516-562-5326. If you want to talk about new software paradigms or info-mania, meet me at InformationWeek.com's Listening Post: informationweek.com/forum/johnsoat.

To discuss this column with other readers, please visit John Soat's forum on the Listening Post.

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