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Should the United States' New CTO Really Be a CIO?
CurtMonash writes "Barack Obama promised to appoint the United States' first Chief Technology Officer. Naturally, the blogosphere is full of discussion as to who that should be. I favor American Management Systems founder and former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti. Richard Koman thinks it should be one of the better state CTOs. John Doerr, going in a different direction, thinks it should be his partner Bill Joy. We can bandy names back and forth all month, but first a more fundamental question needs to be answered: What do we need most — a get-things-done CIO (Chief Information Officer), or a more visionary true CTO? I think it's a CIO, and based on his campaign statements it appears Obama agrees. Management of government IT is a huge, generally unsolved problem, and we need somebody deeply experienced to have a fighting chance. Of course, that doesn't preclude recruiting a visionary CTO in addition, but the highest priority is a CIO. What do you think?"
Since this position is pretty much new territory for the government, and since there will likely only be a single position created, it will probably end up being a hybrid CIO/CTO position anyways. As for who it should be, the Rossotti suggestion seems fairly reasonable. My father has worked for AMS for the past 20+ years on a number of government contracts. The one thing he always comes back saying is how screwed up and redundant a lot of the setups are--it's layer upon layer of hackjobs just to get the various systems to talk to one another. Rossotti is well aware of the current state of technology affairs within the government. I'm sure there are plenty others like him, but he is definitely someone who would be in a position to help clean up some of the mess that's there.
This guy's the limit!
Everyone else will be a corporate shill more interested in funneling money back to their own products.
Which is exactly the kind of person who will be appointed. You don't really buy the 'new politics' crap do you? Lobbyists and high level corporate officers will remain the pool from which most appointments are drawn.
Linus doesn't line anyone's pockets in Washington.
I think it should be Bill Gates :)
...I obey the laws of physics....
Also remember that he has relatively little experience in Washington, and to get things done in Washington he is going to need people with contacts and context in that environment. Most good presidents are really good presidents because they know everything and know how to do everything, it's because they surrounded themselves with people who collectively knew all the things they needed to know. One of those things they need to know is how to get things done in Washington.
That's something that may be of particular importance depending on how the Democrats in Congress want to try and use him. They may be under the impression that he is their new young puppet. It will be interesting to see.
We already have a candidate.
I tried to walk into Target, but I missed. --Mitch Hedburg
Flame-on!
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
Although it'd be nice to believe that a socialist poltician got his money from the masses, it's not true. Obama's pockets were lined by George Soros's MoveOn.org, . Do some searches like 'obama campaign finance fraud' and 'obama foreign donations'.
Boy there are sooo many things wrong with this statement.
First, though I would like it if Obama really was a socialist he isn't. He isn't even close. Anyone who believes that a progressive income tax is socialism has no understanding of what socialism is.
Next, George Soros is a dyed in the wool capitalist. He would not support a real socialist candidate.
Next, Move On does not belong to George Soros. It is controlled by a small cabal of people that could be characterized as "progressive democrats." What is special about MoveOn, is that they were really the first organization that really leveraged some effective techniques for on-line organizing and on-line fund raising. They were in the right position to tap into the very deep current of disgust at the Bush policies. They are also not very democratically controlled, and often make dumb tactical mistakes.
Last, drinking the Fox news cool-aid that typically leads to the kinds of irrational thinking displayed above, also causes bigotry, irrational fears, and eventually permanent brain damage. You really ought to lay off that stuff and pick a safer recreational drug like sniffing gasoline or mainlining speedballs.
-- QED
I did a little research, and figured out the real reason for not doing fraud-checking on donations. It seems that, when criminals steal a credit card, they first test it by making a small donation to a charity, to find out whether or not the card works, before they start using it to buy stuff. This has been going on since long before the presidential race started, affects all charities, and is well known. If the credit card company rejects the test transaction, then the thief throws out that card and tries again with a different one. On the other hand, if the test transaction goes through but the next one gets flagged, then the bank finds out what address the thief tried to have stuff mailed to. What probably happened is that someone at the bank noticed that people were testing stolen cards by donating to the Obama campaign, and decided that it was best to always let the donation go through, but then apply extra scrutiny to the next transaction on that card. The Obama campaign doesn't care (they get a chargeback and no money either way), but the bank saves a lot of money that way.