The Obama administration arrived. All is well. Hypothetically, anyway, apparently the level of technology the Obama team was used to during the campaign/transition period is just unavailable. I hashed this out in an earlier post, but it still astounds me that our leaders are so far behind our populace.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still people in the United States that think if they click the wrong button on their computer, it will explode. There are still people who just don’t want to use all the new-fangled stuff, and are perfectly happy with 10 year old cell phones. This doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be better off with a more technologically integrated lifestyle. Even those people who like their old cell phones will probably admit that having a GPS in their car could save them time (so they didn’t have to pull off the road to read a map).
Geeks have, for a while now, wondered why Washington seems to be so out of touch with technology concerns of the day. I don’t have an answer, and this does’t put new light on things, except that Washington really is in the dark ages. One Obama spokes person compared the experience as “going from an Xbox to an Atari”. The fact that this guy can even make the analogy speaks wonders about the current administration! We wouldn’t have heard anything of the sort from a Bush spokesperson (unless terrorism was thrown in 3 times. “going from a terrorist Xbox to a terrorist Atari, it’s like terrorism).
On top of all the challenges this new administration faces (global warming, the economy, two different wars, gay rights, abortion issues, etc. etc.), can they really pull off changing the system in Washington to allow for better implementation of technology? Rumors are saying Obama may be able to keep his blackberry for personal use, but has to use some ancient smartphone for business use. Granted, the dinosaurphone has been vetted by the NSA, but this was still 4 years ago!
Can we step back, chill out, and approach this problem from a new angle? Updating infrastructure won’t be fixed by going at it the same way Washington always has. Get some tech companies to submit products to the NSA to be vetted, keep the process moving along! This isn’t hard folks, you just have to step outside your little box.
There’s been steps taken, absolutely. The fact that Obama is even wanting a smartphone is a good thing. The fact that whitehouse.gov is all Creative Commons licensed is a good thing (as is this site, by the way). These are steps in the right direction, but these types of small steps won’t get you to the peak of the mountain that is the technology issue in Washington.
