• Wall Street Journal, Friday, April 9, 2010 10:52 AM

Ann Zimmerman has the story behind the story of why the next Barbie will not only be an anchorwoman but also will be a computer engineer. Offered the opportunity to vote online for architect, anchorwoman, computer engineer, environmentalist or surgeon, girls overwhelmingly chose a Barbie in the image of Couric, Sawyer and Curry. But when female computer engineers got wind of the competition ... let's just say it was a game changer.

Society of Women Engineers president Nora Lin hopes the doll will inspire girls to become engineers; the organization alerted its 20,000 members about the election in a weekly email newsletter. Several popular technology Web sites also wrote about the election, creating a viral buzz.

All of which raises the question: Should "They Game Elections" be added to Susan Cramm's Eight Things We (Still) Hate About I.T.? If it helps to foster the dialogue between executives and IT that Cramm says is necessary to improve the effectiveness of the current system, why not?

Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »