Where in the World Is America’s CTO?
by Kara Swisher
Posted on February 11, 2009 at 5:30 AM PT
With the naming of Oracle (ORCL) President Charles Phillips to President Barack Obama’s 16-Member Economic Recovery Advisory Board a few days ago, another Silicon Valley tech mandarin fell off the list to become America’s first chief technology officer.
The job–which was promised by President Barack Obama during his campaign and underscored when he released a memorandum on transparency and open government that outlined some of the CTO duties the day after he was sworn in–remains unfilled.
In fact, so does the Federal Communications Commission chairman’s post, which insiders said a month ago would go to former IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) exec Julius Genachowski. But he has not been nominated yet.
Both Genachowski and Phillips were on a short list floated in November by The Wall Street Journal for CTO. The third name on it, Level 3 (LVLT) exec Don Gips, has since been named to a high-level White House job.
While the continuing economic crisis has sucked all the oxygen from the room, the Obama administration has still made a lot of promises about tech issues, from improving broadband to making the government more transparent and digital.
So, who is getting the job as head geek?
Could it be well-known entrepreneur Mitch Kapor? Google (GOOG) guru-in-resident and Internet father Vint Cerf? Or some other tech-savvy Silicon Valley figure?
BoomTown is, of course, rooting for Steve “Woz” Wozniak. Once he wins “Dancing With the Stars” this season, he will be the only nerd capable of the two-stepping one needs to survive in Washington.
Post new guesses in comments below.
And, until someone is appointed to fix the nation’s computers, here is the Jan. 21 memo Obama released about some of the tasks ahead for America’s CTO:
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.
Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.
Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.
Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector. Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.
I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.
This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.
BARACK OBAMA
[Photo of the t-shirt from ThinkGeek.]
Comments
Richard Stallman.
Just kidding.
But seriously, it would be nice to have someone with real technical cajones, as opposed to someone who used a soldering iron 20 years ago.
Woz is comfortable in his retirement, let him rest.
And some of these various “father of the Internet” types seem a bit like deadbeat dads to me. Off playing golf while the kids are left to fend for themselves.
First order of business is to clean house within the government, look at the hodgepodge of stovepipe systems that not only don’t work together but in some cases don’t work at all.
How many important (new) government systems are being maintained in languages that have been around for a long time and will contue to be widely used? I’d guess close to zero. How many of these systems have been independently audited? How many of these systems include code for which the source has never been submitted, or has long ago been lost? In some cases the cleanest and best maintained code the government has is still written in Cobol and running on mainframes. The rest being managed by the same people who weren’t allowed in the computer room 20 years ago.
Maybe more important as a PR issue, why do we continue to read almost weekely of break-ins to government systems, or laptops lost with sensitive data?
Most importaantly the government needs to focus on DATA standards and not look for every oportunity to be further locked into Microsoft products. This lock-in nature of the company’s products have made them more of a liability than an asset. Here is one case where some of the European countries (among others) are ahead of us.
Why would any industry sector want to get mandates from an organization so clearly unable to get its own act together?
Posted by Mac Beach at February 11th, 2009 at 12:00 pmThere are many of us anxiously awaiting the appointment of America’s “head geek.” I work for Intel and about a month ago, Intel’s CTO blogged about a letter he wrote to the incoming Obama CTO on what Intel and other tech folks think the priority of the new CTO should be. The areas focused on how tech can help improve education, the environment, broadband and healthcare. Check it out here: http://blogs.intel.com/researc.....try_le.php.
Though Obama clearly has more pressing matters on his hands these days, I hope the CTO appointment doesn’t get lost in the shuffle for too long!
Posted by Kari Aakre at February 11th, 2009 at 3:38 pmThe new CTO needs to be a pragmatist – someone who can get stuff done and not get embroiled in turf and standards wars. Someone with a philosophical belief that open is good; someone with *current* geek cred and an understanding of how to translate this to the market in terms of value. In other words – part geek, part diplomat, part businessman, part translator, part evangelist. They can hire staff of experts they need to have a vision to bring it all together.
Posted by deb schultz at February 11th, 2009 at 3:47 pmUnfortunately, as much as we are all hopeful for a CTO with vision and influence, the reality of it is that without a budget and line authority, the role will have very little influence to effect change in the federal system. Unless President Obama is willing to walk with is arm around the CTO and tell all his agency heads to “do whatever my CTO says”, we shouldn’t get too excited.
Obama himself may get “it” about how technology is not just a slice of the pie, but is actually the pan that has the potential to change outcomes at every level in redesigning our government and our economy on competitive 21st century platforms, but he is so distracted worrying about the mess we handed him , that he has had no choice but to delegate designation of the CTO position to old school political operatives who are still living in the 20th century.
The fact that one hasn’t been chosen by now speaks volumes in itself.
Posted by Andrew Rasiej at February 11th, 2009 at 8:50 pmBased on how some in and around the administration have described the function, I wouldn’t be surprised if the CTO comes from an academic background.
Posted by sean garrett at February 11th, 2009 at 8:59 pmI nominate Tim O’Reilly!
Posted by ian kennedy at February 12th, 2009 at 12:10 am