Technosailor.com

During the run up to last years landmark election, then-candidate Barack Obama made a promise to appoint a federal Chief Technology Officer to oversee the federal IT infrastructure and data. In our primary endorsement of Obama, we said:

In the wake of 9/11, a glaring weakness was revealed in the FBI’s technology infrastructure. That has not been addressed. As one with first hand experience working for both the Department of the Navy and Health and Human Services, I can attest to technology tone-deafness. One candidate is proposing the creation of a CTO position to ensure that all government agencies are moving forward into the 21st century with modern technology at their fingertips. As a sidenote, how is it we don’t have a CTO already”

Today President Obama announced the creation of a White House cybersecurity coordinator position and discussed the 60-day Cyberspace Police Review conducted by Melissa Hathaway. He repeated his mantra regarding transparency and accountability, and touched on the many aspects of cybersecurity that impact America- economy, infrastructure, military, open and efficient government operations. He certainly displayed his tech-saavy and awareness of information security terms. Yet, what changes is he really talking about? What practical actions can we expect to see?

From the Department of Irony’s Press Secretary, we at Technosailor.com World Headquarters were forwarded this email from the White House announcing it’s new Open Government Website. Clearly, a new era has arrived.
We look forward to more transparency of this sort. ;-)

From: White House Press Office
Date: 2009/5/21
Subject: White House Announces Open Government Website, Initiative
To: [...]

In the early days of this blog, I wrote a lot about political issues. Frankly, when I was getting going in the blogging world almost five years ago, it was about the only thing I knew to do. Political blogging was huge and it was about the only kind of blogging that registered on the [...]

This past week, we witnessed history with the election of President Barack Obama. He is certainly America’s first black president, but unfortunately, that’s where the highlighted differences seem to end. Little coverage is given to the fact that he is also the first Gen-X president. He is the first tech savvy president. And of course, he is the first “internet president”, having used social media and the netroots effectively.

Even WhiteHouse.gov is seeping with Web 2.0 goodness (though admittedly, it is not quite as savvy as Change.gov, the official transition team site of the Obama administration).

Conventional wisdom says that in the federal sector is about to change dramatically. That the adoption of a national Chief Technology Officer, and the pledge to open up the doors and windows of government to the public, will bring about new opportunities for an online world that thrives on transparency and open dialogue. There is no reason to believe that this will not be the case.

Today was a legendary day in Washington, D.C. as President Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Though the ceremony itself was largely successful with only a hiccup in the delivery of the 35 word Oath of Office – a snafu that was as much President Barack Obamas fault as it was Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

The inaugural speech was well postured and delivered, worded well in fine Obama fashion, but was not reminiscent, as some expected, of John F. Kennedy who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask what you can do for your country” or FDRs famous words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” as he took office in 1933 amidst strong economic concerns in the midst of the Great Depression.