In writing this book, we have drawn upon our experiences as professors, consultants, and technologists to provide a resource for executives, students, and other readers who have a desire to achieve a rapid understanding of a technology, a computer-related process methodology, or a technology-related law.

The book provides not only the definitions for over 200 terms, but also a concise overview of the term, the associated business value proposition, and a summary of the positive and negative aspects of the technology or processes underlying the term.

The book addresses a problem faced by many executives working in the twenty-first century organization, that of understanding technology without needing to become a technologist. Today's executives use or are responsible for technology in nearly every aspect of their organization's operations; however, the pace of change in technology, the misinformation provided from informal sources, and general opaqueness of the terminology can be off-putting for executives and managers. In order to help executives overcome these problems, we have drawn upon over twenty years of teaching at the executive level and our backgrounds as technologists to provide clear, understandable descriptions for the most important technology and terminology in use within today's organizations.

The executives' need to understand technology is undeniable, but their role dictates that they must understand technology at two levels. Firstly, they must understand what the technology actually is, and this is addressed in our text by the provision of an overview section for each term.