The economic times present us with unique opportunities to change people, processes, and technology. We thought we saw it all after the dot-com crash. The nuclear winter that persisted from 2000 to 2003 taught us some tough lessons about how volatile technology spending can be. When we emerged in 2004 from the "end of the world," we felt confident about the future of technology spending, that it would be more balanced and predictable going forward. We, of course, were wrong. By late 2008 all bets were off once again.