Posted by: Jock Gill

To do what? To help us get where?

A very long time ago, on the internet scale, 1992 to be exact, I serendipitously became the first ever presidential campaign staffer assigned to the internet — which meant, in those days, email. This led to my becoming the first White House staffer to be assigned to New Media. From 1993 – 1994, a small group of us were able to implement 1] public access email for the principals; 2] sophisticated electronic publishing. Killed by Andy Card in February 2001; and 3] the first White House web site in October 1994.

For some perspective, in 1993, White House business cards did not have email addresses on them. It took me three tries, and finally help from Janet Green, to get approval to have an email address on my business card — but only on the back side. So the cards cost me double. And that had to be an X.400 address, as IP addresses were not, at that time, street legal for government use. Remember X.400? I didn’t think so.

All of which is to say that I am not a technologist by any stretch of the imagination. I do, however, work with some very smart technologists who challenge me to think about technology. You might say that I am a consumer and distributor of technology. I have, from this perspective, a few thoughts on the concept of a National Chief Technology Officer, a position Mr. Obama is apparently thinking of creating.

The problem I see is that we are lacking a clear cut technology vision that is broadly understood. So how can we possibly hire a CTO to lead us to where we do not yet know we want to go?

On the one hand, we have the nitty gritty basics of information technology to look after — deep down in the weeds. For example, as a friend from MIT describes it, in the context of a cyber security crisis, the Federal CTO’s short to medium term job will be to coordinate best practices to reduce USG cyber vulnerabilities. The Obama policy on technology fails to mention this. It does, however, mention that Obama, if elected, will choose senior personnel with technical expertise, which means they better know something about information assurance and understand new directions in socio-technical systems.

The CTO job should also be, according to my MIT friend, to improve federal organizational process through the enlightened use of information technology. An important role would be to coordinate IT modernization to improve coordination, productivity, information assurance, respect for privacy, and transparency (including public access). The CTO should coordinate with the national cyber advisor and IT research arms of government to develop advanced technologies that enable government to work better and set an example for the private sector by pioneering new technologies, building beyond what was achieved during the Clinton Administration. Anybody here remember Al Gore’s “Re-inventing Government” initiative?

On the other hand, where, exactly, do we want to get to as a nation, and what role does technology have in helping us get there? What do we want it to mean to be a citizen in the 21st century: A simple one dimensional consumer? These are the deeper issue that we have to have a handle on before we hire a CTO. This is the conversation we are not having today.

Where ever we decide we want to go, it will require taking new paths and trying new actions. It will require changes that gore existing oxen. This will excite some but terrify others.

To be more specific, do we want to re-localize the production, distribution and marketing of: food; power; communications? Perhaps organized with a peer-to-peer paradigm? In general, re-localization will help us move to a post fossil fuel economy, increase our national security, and provide economic drivers at the local level. If we choose a re-localization strategy, which will redefine what it means to be a citizen, it will require very substantial new technology developments. Is this multi-dimensional challenge right for a single individual plucked from the existing corporate world? Or is this stuff of collaborating teams? Until we know at least first order approximations to the answers to these questions, it is premature to consider filling the National CTO job slot.

We clearly need a technology vision that re-establishes a trust in a reality based on science and statements that can be refuted. We need a reality that is for the people, not the power of government, not the profits of corporations, and not any one ideology. We have seen too painfully what an illusion of reality based upon fantastical tautologies, smoke and mirrors results in. It would be nice, for but one small example, for the FCC Technological Advisory Council, canceled by the Bush administration, to be restarted as a top level function within the FCC, not merely a group whose occasional meetings the Chairman rarely, if ever, attends.

In the end, it is not what we think we know. It is what we do not know that prevents us from exploring new paths and taking new actions. Betting on a single explorer to select our paths and guide our actions is not a bet I want to make.

If ever there was a time for new paths and new actions, we are living in it. The question is how best to discover them.

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