Studying IBM's History When You Are Part of It

James W. Cortada is an unusual computing historian in that he was academically trained in history and has written extensively about computing history, but his primary career was spent working within the computing industry at IBM. Here, Cortada describes a slowly evolving 40-year effort to write an appropriate history of IBM. His connections within IBM gave him unusual access while also giving him constraints an outside historian might ignore. Some of Cortada's issues are relevant to anyone writing computing history. In addition, this piece may provide inspiration and guidance to other people working within the computing industry and thinking they might one day write about their company.