Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: Obama CTO
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 20:33:47 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Dave CROCKER <dhc2 () dcrocker net> Date: January 6, 2009 4:43:57 PM EST To: dave () farber netCc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, Lee W McKnight <lmcknigh () syr edu>, "John Ryan" <john.conor.ryan () gmail com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Obama CTO Reply-To: dcrocker () bbiw net Dave,The direction this thread has gone underscores the need to distinguish between a role that is
"chief of government internal technologies" versus "chief of technology advice for government policy". The former has an internal focus, while the latter is external.Having the internal job be highly biased toward IT probably makes sense, as long as "IT" combines computing, networking and telecommunications.
Having the chief technical adviser for US policy development involving research, industry, trade, finance, etc., etc., be biased towards IT would be a rather serious mistake. It not sufficient, for example, to cover much of the work on 'green' or biotech.
Around high tech companies, this confusion of roles is common, since a company needs someone to run IT and someone to be insightful about product directions.
My own hope is that Obama chooses someone for advising on the development of government policies, rather than government IT. The latter is important, of course, but the pressing need for the country is intelligent technology advise about new, controversial and essential directions in policy.
It takes considerable skill to ferret out core issues and tradeoffs in these choices, and that requires someone with a broad understanding of complex systems issues that can combine multiple technical topics. IT is part of that. But only part.
d/ David Farber wrote:
From: Lee W McKnight <lmcknigh () syr edu>The IT assumption is reasonable. Since the Federal Government is (mainly) an information processing engine, the most broadly relevant tech expertise for a federal CTO is IT.
-----Original Message----- From: "John Ryan" <john.conor.ryan () gmail com> Dave: in everything (or nearly everything) I've read about the Obama CTO, it's assumed, as implicit, that the T stands for IT. Need it? Should not a cabinet-level or cabinet-advisory CTO also consider biotech, energy, transportation, ...
-- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- Re: Obama CTO David Farber (Jan 05)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Obama CTO David Farber (Jan 06)
- Re: Re: Obama CTO David Farber (Jan 06)
- Re: Obama CTO David Farber (Jan 06)