Here in the Silicon Valley offices of IBM Data Management magazine, we are no strangers to the IBM Information Champions program. With only one exception (who I’ll come back to in a moment), all of our regular columnists are long-standing members: Roger E. Sanders, Stuart Litel, Lester Knutsen, Robert Catterall, David Beulke, and Bonnie Baker. Information Champions do more than make their day-to-day living as data management professionals; they lead the way for the rest of us. They teach; give seminars; lead user groups; moderate forums; advise their colleagues; and write books, blogs, columns, and just about anything else you can think of that would share their knowledge. These are leaders in the community and some of the brightest lights in the IBM Information Management sky.