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US CTO Tries To Wean the White House Off Floppy Disks
schnell writes: MIT grad and former Google exec Megan J. Smith is the third Chief Technical Officer of the United States and the first woman to hold the position created five years ago by President Obama. But, as a New York Times profile points out, while she fights to wean the White House off BlackBerries and floppy disks, and has introduced the President to key technical voices like Tim Berners-Lee and Vint Cerf to weigh in on policy issues, her position is deliberately nebulous and lacking in real authority. The President's United States Digital Service initiative to improve technology government-wide is run by the Office of Management and Budget, and each cabinet department has its own CIO who mandates agency technical standards. Can a position with a direct access to the President but no real decision-making authority make a difference?
Remember all the fans adoring Candidate, President-elect, and even President Obama for his use of Blackberry? While mocking McCain for his inability to even use keyboard (because his hands were repeatedly broken by the People's Torturers in North Vietnam)?
In all likelihood, Megan J. Smith was one of the fans... Possibly, even with a special female twist to it...
Well, maybe, the job of running the Executive government's bureaucracy is just too difficult? TFA certainly suggests that... But that's exactly the job, Obama was hired for, darn it. There were people pointing out his shortage of executive experience — he never ran things (other than a failed charity — once), but this was countered, incredibly, by how he ran his election campaign...
Well, here we go — either he was never as advanced technologically as he and supporters portrayed him, or he has no ability to execute — to run things... Certainly not enough of it to affect the oft-promised change. Management is hard, let's go golfing.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.