[IP] Re: Obama CTO

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dave CROCKER <dhc2@dcrocker.net>
Date: January 6, 2009 4:43:57 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: 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




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