Comments on: Federal CTO Wishlist

By: Philip Ashlock

Philip Ashlock — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:44:36 +0000

I’m surprised this post doesn’t make mention of http://ideas.obamacto.org/ a website which aims to gauge how the public sees the role of Obama’s CTO. I think the first priority of the CTO should be to see how many parts of government IT infrastructure are developed redundantly and outsourced to be developed as a proprietary system rather than developed once as the publicly-funded public-domain open-source software that they should be. This goes hand in hand with, and furthers, the efforts that have been made to standardize datatypes and api interoperability. The CTO could also likely learn a lot from the Estonian government, possibly the most adeptly wired government in the world: everyone in the country has access to free wifi, they had online voting in 2007, and will have voting by mobile phone in 2011. You can see some of their accomplishments at http://www.epractice.eu/document/3327 and a presentation of their governments IT infrastructure at http://www.valitsus.ee/?id=5450

By: Silona

Silona — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:35:29 +0000

I would like to add in the Political savvy to get things done.

I’m not sure how many business style CTO’s are used to the level of Political savvy that is required to get different arenas of govt and the public to work together.

I also think it is important that the leader is open in regards to technology based ideologies such as not an MS, Mac or Linux zealot.

Of course you know me John – I am sure hoping the CTO is really into open data standards as I think that will greatly help in the transparency realm :-)

Cheers,
Silona

By: David Farrar

David Farrar — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:30:59 +0000

I don’t think there is anything more important than undertaking a Manhattan-like online project to give the People a voice, allow them to speak, and most importunately, to be accurately be heard.

The project must be run separately from the major political parties although closely identified with the left, independent, and right political parties.

Transparency would be a must requiring all polling results to be verifiable. Under such a project, effective two-way communication between each participant and their elected representatives at the local, state and national levels would be imperative.

Of course, the devil would be in the details, but the result would be a strengthening of our democracy in the new era of the Age of the Internet.

ex animo
davidfarrar

By: claude coker

claude coker — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:40:27 +0000

here we go again…..thanks Ronnie R. The instant, nay, the nano-instant there is a hint of a new department in the federal government, the wimps bring out the crying towels and the doomsday thinking…….for what?

The people who SHOULD know about these things should be brought to a meeting and after a few hours, decide what the country needs in the way of technology handling. The girley men in Washington will do what THEY think we need and stall all attempts to START a program WITH conditions and controls. But, START SOMETHING!!!

The American public is so sick of congress fiighting with each other across the aisle that we want to vomit right in their collective faces.

START SOMETHING with rules in place to make changes as needed, but, START SOMETHING!!!

By: Joshua Gay

Joshua Gay — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:58:55 +0000

I also think that a CTO should understand technology from the point of view of the individual citizen. If technology is going to play a bigger role in our government and in our lives, then who, what, why, when, and how people can use a given technology is a matter of liberty. I hope that our next CTO understands and values technology that carries more freedoms than restrictions to its users.

By: Gregory Miller

Gregory Miller — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:39:55 +0000

Interesting view of what the nation’s CTO role should be, except that I wonder if we’re at nomenclature odds here. What’s been described is a very important role, but not precisely that of a CTO but rather a CIO or perhaps CITO (Chief Information Technology Officer).

Maybe there is some need for clarification on purpose. If it is more a Chief Policy role for the Administration, that’s one thing. If the role is intended to be a working position, actually over-seeing the impact of technology on government, then it certainly is more likely a CITO role.

Said differently, if what we’re after (or more correctly, the Obama Administration is looking for) is a a true Chief TECHNOLOGY Officer to over-see the impact of and policy for all technological impac ton government, then this would seem to have to be more of an “office” with someone sufficiently versed across a spectrum of domains — a generalist at best. This CTO’s office would then likely have to include a number of Technology Specialists addressing all aspects of “technology” as it applies, and that seem to me to include a wide range of domains and not limited to information.

I suspect the role is intended to be more directed at the application, impact, and opportunity of technology on governing the country. And for that, by and large, the largest impact will come in the form of information technology – hardware, software, telecommunications, and the like. This is probably a CIO and not a CTO per se.

By: Adam Nelson

Adam Nelson — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:13:39 +0000

I think, being that this is a new post, that the candidate must have ’star power’. At some point in the future, when the department is well regarded, there will be more time for technocrats.

What is needed now is somebody that bureaucrats want to know.

I would nominate Tim Berners-Lee. He doesn’t have the industry experience to really do a solid job, but he can start the process for the next person. He is a luminary and we need one of those first.