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White House Wants To Borrow Tech Workers From Google and Amazon, Says Report (cnet.com)
"According to CNET, TechCrunch and others, the Trump administration reportedly wants tech giants to make it easy for workers to take leaves of absence to help the government modernize," writes Slashdot reader kimanaw. From a report: White House officials on Monday planned to meet with tech giants including Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM, to discuss ways to make it easier for employees to take leaves of absence to help with government projects, according to The Washington Post. The administration reportedly hopes tech industry workers will be able to help modernize state and federal agencies and tackle challenges such as upgrading the veterans' health care system. Attracting tech talent may prove difficult for the Trump administration, which hasn't always seen eye to eye with Silicon Valley on issues such as the president's ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries. However, White House officials believe tech workers are willing to "put politics aside." "This event on Monday is not just about our efforts, it's about our successor, and their successor after that," said one unnamed official, according to the Post. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment.
>> administration reportedly hopes tech industry workers will be able to help modernize state and federal agencies and tackle challenges such as upgrading the veterans' health care system
The point of government IT contracts isn't to fix or improve anything, but to extract hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from government coffers without providing anything tangible or useful. See also: IBM, Oracle and/or Epic.
You know a few technical guys and a decent manager and want to bid on a contract? Not so fast!
1. First you must figure out what contract vehicle it's on.
2. Then you must spend money getting onto that vehicle by bidding.
3. Then you must bid to get that contract.
All the while going up against incumbents that have better contacts and decades of experience wording things just right, with the particular jargon needed to win in the government space.
Oh and as a small company, you will also need to find some way to game the 8A system so that you aren't overlooked as a small business for purely political reasons beyond the agency's control.
Simple suggestion:
1. Abolish these processes and replace with a bond.
2. If your bid is unrealistic and plain bullshit, you get sent to arbitration to decide on whether the contract office sends the bond to the Treasury or not.
3. If you appeal for bullshit reasons, see #2.
This is only for the election. After the election, the White House will just go back to getting their tech workers from Russia, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Loving one's country is rabid nationalism now? Well I never.
Number of wars started by Trump: 0. How many did Obama start? Was it more than seven?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
which isn't low cost, technically acceptable, and which lowers some of the corporate requirements to allow for smaller companies to bid. As for patriotism, I did my years in a windowless building, where I had no contact with the outside world while on duty, where I settled for 40% under market pay in the name of service to my country, where my personal life was monitored 24 hours a day, where I had restrictions placed on where I could travel for vacation, who I could talk with, what sites I could visit online, and my level of political involvement. If the government fixed some of these issues, maybe they would be able to fill those vacant cyber spots. Seriously though, let a realistic RFP that targets smalls for the work, and you will get your workers.