Needed: Presidential IT IQ
By Allan Holmes | Monday, December 03, 2007 | 11:37 AM
By Allan Holmes | Monday, December 03, 2007 | 11:37 AM
For years, information technology has been trying to break into the corporate board room or the high-level government management meetings where it can help inform strategies to accomplish an organization’s goals, be it making more profit or serving the public interest. Despite assertions that state otherwise, IT still, by a long shot, has yet to really become a driver in helping government deliver public services and fundamentally transform how agencies do business. IT has tinkered at the edges.
The reason may be that most of our political leaders are so disinterested in IT. We were reminded of that last week during the Republican presidential debates. As Garrett Graff, an editor at large at Washingtonian magazine, reminded us in the Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook section, presidential hopeful “Sen. John McCain let slip a fairly stunning admission,” when he said he “might ‘rely on a vice president’ for help on less important issues such as ‘information technology, which is the future of this nation's economy.’”
The problem, as Graff points out, is the odd allowance we as a nation give presidential candidates to admit that they know so little about an industry that is vitally important to the national economy – and for that matter, to national security. Such admissions happen with surprising regularly. We’ve written about Defense Secretary Robert Gates – who oversees the world’s largest military complex, which has pursued network-centric warfare as its primary strategic objective – that he is “a very low-tech person.” President Bush also has made statements about his ignorance of IT, as my colleague Tom Shoop pointed out in his FedBlog this past summer.
Graff does tip his hat to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for issuing last month an “innovation agenda,” which lays out an IT agenda for government. Yes, the agenda represents “an exception to the rule” in the presidential race, as Graff says, but almost all Obama’s ideas are vague and warmed, and only advance the introductory Bush IT agenda, which accomplished little of what it set out to do, in just small ways.
The nation and government need something more. Something bolder that shows an understanding of how important IT is to the U.S. economy, how it can transform government and truly improve public services.
Comments
I'm not quite as upset about this as you appear to be, Mr. Holmes. One could argue that we already tried this model once before -- when Al Gore led the reinventing Government effort under President Clinton, with a strong technology and transformational element, to quite a positive outcome. Many of the current e-gov initiatives have their roots in the work of the National Preformance Review and the studies that Greg Woods and Jim Flyzik guided. So delegating in this fashion may not be such a terrible thing after all.
But I'm not sure how seriously to even take this even as a "suggestion" from Senator McCain. I had the chance to work with Senator McCain while at the Department of Commerce;he had a leadership role on the Senate Commerce Committee as ranking Minority Member and as Chair. I found then that the Senator and his staff had both a knowledge and appreciation of technology issues better than many, if not most, Hill leaders. So I wouldn't put too much stock in a short statement when placed against a backdrop of years in public life that suggests a different view on IT and its importance.
I think it is important that we learn the candidates position on making government work better -- not only through technology, but also in terms of their vision for a 21st century government, how they plan to deal with the imminent retirement tsunami, and how we can better manage a blended workforce of civel servants overseeing a contract workforce three to four times as large.
Alan Balutis | Thursday, December 06, 2007 | 11:17 AMWhen management people using the IT products for things like meetings, that are about security of IT and security of the nation, etc... Wouldn't you want them to know how to use it. I see and have seen People who manage IT that make broad based descions that impacted operations and nearly shutdown everything in there organizaton, because they didn't know what they were doing. Would you want a Politician that did not know how to use paper and pen? Because that is what IT has become and so much more.
Not Knowing | Wednesday, December 05, 2007 | 01:42 PMI work in IT. I have for most of my career, since starting out as a C.S. major at Georgia Tech in 1976. The IT career field has been good to me and I'm not one to downplay its importance to a s smoothly-functioning organization...because I don't want to sell cars for a living. As the saying goes, "if it were not for computers, I would not be working with computers today."
But, seriously...the future of our nation's economy? The linchpin of government transformation and public service improvement?
Leadership--true leadership--doesn't sweat the small stuff...like IT. IT is just one more tool to get the job done. If you inspire your people to perform and you give clear goals that require them to be innovative, IT will "fall into place" as one more necessary component of an overall improvement plan.
Do I really want a geek as President? (Do I even want "The Man Who Invented the Internet" in there?) I think not. I want my leaders to lead...and I went the techies (like me and my staff) taking care of the tech.
Any other arrangement is just asking for trouble.
TRCIII | Tuesday, December 04, 2007 | 03:02 PMThe inferrence in this article centers on the commonly held misconception about many of our Nation's so-called "leaders." Leadership, real genuine leadership cannot and does not exist without at least a modest amount of technical knowledge and demonstrated competency, and a mastery of the common English language and public speaking. If one cannot see the arrogance and incompetence that has emanated from and continues to represent this administration, then you are surely blind. No, real leaders (as opposed to charlatons) gain and earn respect by example and deed, not by mere words. It was Ross Perot who once said that "words are plentiful and cheap. It's the deeds that are precious and defining."
Michael J. Smith, M.P.A. | Monday, December 03, 2007 | 06:42 PMABOUT THIS BLOG
Allan Holmes on what's happening and what's being discussed in the world of federal information technology.
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