It seems a cabinet member with any technological know-how would be more useful then Bush's proposed "copyright czar." Or do you really believe that FCC board members know what they're talking about?
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
I'm not a fan of a copyright czar, and I don't think that the FCC board members know what they're talking about, either.
Our government gave the FCC the mandate to create Universal Service. The FCC created this mangled plan to make it happen. There's more than enough blame to go around.
Sandi
· 1 year ago
Wow. Obama is talking about providing health care to dying children and your biggest problem is paying $1 to ensure rural America has phone service. I'm looking forward to your next post about how 911 (the FCC emergency phone call system) is a communist plot.
I can't wait until we have a Libertarian president so the FCC is dissolved and I can start my wireless spectum jamming service. Just $10,000/month, I'll unblock your cell phone, WiFi, TV signals, radio signals, and satellite! Maybe! We'll let the free market decide whether I actually unblock your technology or not. Probably not.
Mystral
· 1 year ago
Um... you don't appear to understand property rights. If you were to own the right to the frequencies you block in your hypothetical, so be it... otherwise, you'd just be a criminal ripe for a prison.
The FCC plays a necessary role in our current system: auctioning frequency/bandwidth. About everything else it does is arguable unnecessary. You *could* have a system where the first people to claim rights to a frequency in a geography wins. Prices would determine the market's access to wireless services. Set the price too high ($10k/month) and no one buys your product.
Get real. TRY to apply some intellectual rigor to your arguments.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
Wow, Sandi - what a way to muddle the issue.
If all the FCC did was keep people from jamming radio transmissions, I don't think there'd be much negative to say about them.
You and i both know that isn't the case.
brainpicker
· 1 year ago
Excellent point, Mark. I agreed with you when you first questioned the need for a CTO, but it's interesting to see the debate rage in BusinessWeek now. Looking at the history of technological evolution and progress, centralized regulatory systems and bodies have only hindered it. The government is hardly an early adopter of anything, so a CTO would be anything from moot to detrimental for the nation's rate of new technolology adoption. The government would be better served to just play TED talks in every White House conference room and Senate public space that has a TV, ha.
Besides, let's face it: Google IS the national (even global) CTO, has been for years and will always informally (or, if the FCC airwaves ordeal pans out right, formally) shape the way the nation relates to and uses technology.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
I appreciate your agreement with me. My political posts usually draw so much ire that I take my compliments where I can get them.
Not to let my libertarian colors show in such broad view, but I think unfettered innovation is what got us this internet in the first place. Yes, it was a government project at first, but once rampant commercialism took over, there's no denying that it exploded at logarithmic rates.
I'll never understand the desire by some to make everything a part of the government. Granted, I'm not exactly an old fart, but I'm no spring chicken either. Every single interaction I've had my entire life that involved the government has been a major headache at best, and a national disaster (no exaggeration) at worst. With those as my spectrum poles, I'm not sure where the appeal comes in that the government can just solve our problems by running everything for us.
brainpicker
· 1 year ago
Excellent point, Mark. I agreed with you when you first questioned the need for a CTO, but it's interesting to see the debate rage in BusinessWeek now. Looking at the history of technological evolution and progress, centralized regulatory systems and bodies have only hindered it. The government is hardly an early adopter of anything, so a CTO would be anything from moot to detrimental for the nation's rate of new technololgy adoption. The government would be better served to just play TED talks in every White House conference room and Senate public space that has a TV, ha.
Besides, let's face it: Google IS the national (even global) CTO, has been for years and will always informally (or, if the FCC airwaves ordeal pans out right, formally) shape the way the nation relates to and uses technology.
brainpicker
· 1 year ago
Excellent point again. Without getting too much into politics and societal infrastructure, let's just say this country is far (FAR!) too big to be governed by a single centralized entity seeking "the best for everyone." It's simply irrational, since this huge population has naturally segmented and sub-segmented and sub-sub-segmented (and so forth) itself that "the best" is no longer universal. (Dunbar number, anyone?) No wonder Vermont and others want to secede. And with regard to technology, particularly in the area of sustainability where I think it's most critical in this day and age, no wonder early adoption of anything from hybrid cars to wind farms to hydrogen cells is such a predominantly coastal phenomenon. And yet these early adopter states are still accountable -- economically, politically, legally -- to an overarching government which inevitably hinders their progress because it has to -- economically, politically, legally -- compensate for all the technological laggard states. On such a huge yet incredibly fragmented scale, a national CTO simply doesn't make sense. What's s/he going to tackle first -- regulating R&D for the next generation of buckypaper in Silicon Valley, or educating the Mid-West about something as basic as CFL's?
Dean Kerrigan
· 1 year ago
"Every single interaction I’ve had my entire life that involved the government has been a major headache at best, and a national disaster (no exaggeration) at worst."
Are you including public schooling, using the road system, the fire service? Or am I defining Government wrongly?
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
I'm including public schooling, DEFINITELY using the road system, and not the fire service.
Public schooling, but for a couple of classes, is not what I'd consider the most joyous period in my life.
Just last year, using the road system, for a period of three weeks (due to a series of inadvertently mis-filed paperwork), my insurance was not current on one of my cars. During that three weeks, we were stopped several times, and accrued over $7,000 in fines, fees and surcharges, all over some mis-filed paperwork. That's not exactly an example of governmental efficiency.
As for the fire service - I've never had the opportunity to use them. For simple tasks they seem to be ok, but building a national information infrastructure is no simple task.
dominigan
· 1 year ago
Please tell me you're joking about public schooling! Most of my teachers are relatives, and yet (after a few years in public school), our kids asked to be home schooled.... and we agreed. Even my mom, who is a third grade teacher, finally agreed that was the best thing we could have done for them.
And for your other two examples...
Most highway projects run WAY over budget and are severely mismanaged. Fire... its better, although I do wonder why we keep getting hit with ever increasing votes to increase funding when our neighborhood hasn't expanded...
Jim
· 1 year ago
On the other hand, our 'unfettered innovation' has left the US near the bottom of the pile in terms of broadband availability and other technology issues surrounding the web. Not that this will be what the CTO position is all about. You kinda built up a straw man with the broadband argument, though you did do a nice job tearing it down.
I for one would like to hear what a CTO will do before I comment on it. If the position will be about helping the US catch up to the rest of the world, and we've got a lot of that to do, I think that might be a good thing.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
Did you not read my article? It isn't unfettered innovation, but governmental subsidy and government sanctioned duopoloy that's led us to this situation.
Sandi
· 1 year ago
Ummm. South Korea and Japan have the highest broadband usage rates in the world thanks to MASSIVE government investment in broadband infrastructure, and strict mandates and regulations that all rural areas and buildings have broadband that is faster than what almost any American consumer has available. In Western Europe and Canada, strict regulations require telecom companies to share bandwidth, provide equal access, and guarantee speeds.
The countries with fewer government regulations, mandates, and investment in consumer broadband? Western Africa, the Middle East, former Soviet republics. Oh, but they don't have a $1 Universal Access Fund either so I guess that's a plus.
Chris
· 1 year ago
You need to do an apples to apples comparison dude.
Okay, Broadband penetration is better in South Korea than here.
How big is South Korea? How many square miles? How dense is the population?
Hmmm?
The US is large, with dispersed population centers. It is of course going to be more difficult to network than a smaller more dense country.
If you want to compare apples find an area in the US the same size as South Korea with the same population and check broadband accessibility that way. Maybe the states of Massachusetts, Maryland, and NJ.
Spencer
· 1 year ago
The last thing "technology" needs is more government bureaucracy. What power will a CTO have, control of what budget? Obama likes to say things to appease his crowd, but this is just another bad idea.
chuck
· 1 year ago
The last thing I want is government intervention in technology. I have to agree with brainpicker that the U.S. is so unbelievably fragmented, that the idea of a single CTO frightens me to no end. What is good for Nebraskans is not good for us NYC area people, and vice-versa. Plus, calling it a CTO, we might as well take the final step and just call our government a Fascist Republic already, since the only thing the government seems to serve are corporations and their interests. I think government should be responsible for protecting the welfare of its citizens, providing services like fire, police, school, dare I say healthcare, etc. The last thing I want is to have government control of is the bits I send over the internet. I possess the technical ability to mask most of my doings via SSL tunnels, etc., but there are many that do not, and to have what I see as an office that can eventually be used for domestic spying (all in the name of security no less) just pushes this country further into the abyss, as if we haven't gone far enough already. I wouldn't mind, though, to have a regional technology officer that enforced competition, so I wasn't stuck with ONE choice for cable TV and internet, and by default, one of the 2 offering anything faster than 10mbit Internet (but we know how lobbyists line the pockets of politicians to get what they want...). And by default, since I am convinced Verizon is run by Beelzebub himself and I will never, ever use them, the only provider I can use.
joehall
· 1 year ago
Mark, when trying to build a large scaling project that involves dramatic changes to technological infrastructure (national broadband), governments usually go looking for a "fund-raising cheerleader". Its allot easier to convince appropriations committees and other financing boards that you need tax money when you have one spokesperson that has an office and staff that is able to research issues and write coherent policy proposals and recommendations. This will also make it easier for the expansion of research grants and other funding for public universities. Its a careful game that is played between politics and bureaucracy, but one that is vital to the expansion of publicly funded projects.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
I understand the concept of a fundraising cheerleader. My point is that we don't need to raise funds for a nationalized broadband infrastructure. Last time we did something like that, nothing was accomplished, because ultimately it's up to the telcos to accomplish, and they can't be trusted to follow through.
Anonymous
· 1 year ago
The use of private contracts that are easily abused is a Bush administration pro-free market policy. Shooting that down does nothing to undermine the argument for competent government infrastructure. When Russia has faster broadband than the US, you gotta call bullshit on your anti-government argument. Private companies aren't going to provide solid infrastructure. How has the past 8 years not proven than to you? You just can't shake your stupid libertarian ideas no matter how obvious it is that you are wrong, can you?
This argument is indeed a straw man. That's like saying we should disband that military because Bush Co. gives out cost plus contracts to Halliburton. No. It means that governing takes work and the Republicans aren't doing that work. It doesn't mean that government is fundamentally flawed. It means that allowing people who think government is fundamentally flawed to govern... is fundamentally flawed.
Boo to free market radical idiots. Luckily, the American people are over this mythology.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
You're right. I'm convinced.
Because it was the government, not private companies, that built out all of the world's infrastructure and, y'know, invented the concept of broadband in the first place.
Oh wait. Strike that and reverse it.
ZRoach
· 1 year ago
I agree with you Anonymous; we need a big controlling government to handle this with as few people running it as possible. We should run it like the CIA or the Social Security Admin. No, we should combine the two and have a committee oversee it. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd types could run it like they oversaw Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. We'll nationalize the cable companies and rebuild their infrastructure, like Russia. Wait... Russia didn't have much of an infrastructure to deal with. Damn it! We need to raise cable rates to pay for it. Wait... that's what happens now... but at least we'll have one controlling, efficient government making sure my online gaming experience is as good as Russia's. You free market idiots should be "dealt" with. ;)
Dan Philpott
· 1 year ago
Finished reading the post, looked for the argument or a case against the idea of a CTO. Didn't find it. The post started with a massive supposition based on what BusinessWeek thought the CTO role would focus on then went off on a wild tangent vaguely related to that supposition. When it finally returned to the neighborhood of discussing the national CTO role it seemed to press the unsupported notion that because telco's screw customers, government and otherwise, that the CTO role was pointless.
It would have been lovely to see a logical argument, maybe a nifty syllogism with warrants and inferences, supported by a bit of evidence from Obama statements and policy papers. What was presented was a screed against telco's and government with a very tenuous connection to the topic under consideration.
Personally I don't know enough to be pro or anti national CTO and this post has contributed greatly to my continued ignorance.
The last link is fubar'd, points to a WordPress login page.
I really do wish I could have been more positive about this post. I agree with the contention that telco's are not to be trusted. I am sympathetic with the argument that a national CTO may be a superfluous position. Bu
PS. I hope you realize the irony of issuing a blanket statement on how government screws up when they try technology stuff using the Internet.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
I'm wondering which article you read.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't this one.
Dan Philpott
· 1 year ago
What I am saying is in this post you failed to make an argument for the position you are advocating. Or more to the point, you made a messy hash of supposition and opinion promoting a position I'd probably agree with you on. And your rejoinder is that I read the wrong article? Classy.
Adam
· 1 year ago
Interesting point, but this is only one faction of what the job would entail. A major goal of the CTO position is to provide transparency and government accountability. If that accountability is provided we should be able to limit subsidies to provide for a better solution, but simply ending gov. subsidies for telecoms completely is not the answer. It's pretty obvious the government is not going to be "running our internet access"... that is basically a conspiracy theory playing into a GOP stance calling Obama's policies socialist...
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
It's not just about Obama. The case studies for Obama's plans were passed under President Clinton under a Republican congress. Clearly, a national CTO is a nebulous position, and I covered more of the problems with it in my original August article with a direct focus on Obama's vision for it.
But the idea of tech subsidies to telcos is just a bad idea altogether, as it's been proven to fail in the not too decent past.
EP
· 1 year ago
I suspect the CTO would be akin to the Surgeon General. Having an expert lead national discussions about technology and technology strategy could be a very good thing.
Now if you distrust the President, you are going to distrust his cabinet. The fact that Obama would consider someone like Google's Eric Schmidt for the post is reassuring to me.
I don't see Obama having an agenda other than doing good. Doing the bidding of large corporations, telecoms or otherwise, seems more like Bush. Obama seems to very earnestly want to do good, and clearly he is intelligent, intelligent enough to seek true experts and thoughts leaders out.
My comment does not answer your question of what a US CTO might do, but progress is always going to involve uncertainty. Lets keep our critical thinking sharp and both eyes open, but be brave enough to embrace change.
Dan Philpott
· 1 year ago
I think you are exactly right about the analogy being to Surgeon General. The Surgeon General has no real power, barely has a budget but can be quite powerful in a advocacy and coordination roles. That's what most 'czar' positions are.
Czar's have essentially no power. The Drug Czar does not run the DEA, does not fund the military's interdiction efforts, does not make drug laws and isn't a socialist despot bent on bankrupting the United States. He's in a role where he can coordinate between agencies, advise on national drug policy and advocate on behalf of those policies. That's about it.
Lorenzaccio de Paris
· 1 year ago
I don't know what a CTO is.
Steven W.
· 1 year ago
During the 1980's -> 1990's there was a lot of hyperbole from the government masses about how terrible that it was the Japanese were moving faster towards broadband than the U.S. It was in reaction to that the tax was established. Ultimately, though, the free market proved itself once again - the Japanese, with all that overblown government "investment", built an analog system.
WelcomeToTheFold
· 1 year ago
Welcome to the fold. You dare criticize the Messiah, and the wrath of the heavens is unleashed upon you.
jack
· 1 year ago
Title and first two pages of text NEVER DEFINE WHAT CTO MEANS!!!!
So, as an experiment, I read the article and most of the comments - and still do not know what CTO means!
dan
· 1 year ago
A chief technical officer or chief technology officer (abbreviated as CTO) is an executive position whose holder is focused on scientific and technical issues within an organization. via wikipedia
I think that its important to note that while the tech community is only concerned with the tech side of this issue, I would argue that a broader picture of the role a CTO would play within an administration is in order.
If you look at the broader picture, the world is in the middle of multiple revolutions - biological, cognitive, robotics, nanotechnology etc.. - and the fact is that there will be legislative and ethical issues surrounding all of these that will need to be addressed and currently, most of the population is completely unprepared for the world that is quickly approaching.
like it or not, the government will need to play a role in this because there are many areas of life that the private sector does not impact in the way that it does most of the people reading mashable.
on a final note, I think that the issue of broadband is actually a infrastructure issue and not a technical one - and we have a long history of government development of infrastructure - and infrastructure has often had a secondary function of helping the country through difficult economic times such as we face right now
Moonage
· 1 year ago
Best comment of the lot Dan. I completely agree with you on this.
The problem as I see it is very close to how Dan sees it. The biggest problem we have with the internet is not the technology, that's being resolved rapidly by the private sector. Additionally, it's being done by telcos, and non-telcos as well. So, yo single out telcos isn't really part ofthe equation. If they do a bad job now, the cable companies and private ISP's are more than willing to step in. Additionally, the advent of 3G will allow almost any provider to jump in. So, I don't see the technology issue that overwhelming. The bandwidth issue is already being addressed by the FCC, like them or not. There is no logical argument that a federal CTO would do any different of a job in that aspect. The problem we do have is figuring out what to do with ethical issues on the internet. Hackers, spammers, porn, hate crimes, pirating, child molestors and uncolntrolled discussion boards lend to a threat against our society that is not being addressed in any organized fashion. Each incident is treated as an individual crime, but there is no organized effort to address the problem as a whole. Now, the problem as Gates illustrated is it not normal for a CTO to address those issues. So, I think a cabinet position to address internet issues as a whole would be a swell idea, but the title of CTO is inappropriate and inadequate.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
Moonage: I think this quote from you says it all: "Hackers, spammers, porn, hate crimes, pirating, child molestors and uncolntrolled discussion boards lend to a threat against our society that is not being addressed in any organized fashion."
The fact that you think these issues bear a serious threat to society shows me that you've got a real superficial understanding of what these problems are. Some of these "issues" aren't even illegal activities (and are covered by the first amendment), some of these aren't crimes that relate to technology at all, and the none are systemic threats to the fabric of society!
Dan Philpott
· 1 year ago
CTO is Chief Technology/Technical Officer. The CTO is a senior executive role which usually focuses on technology the organization produces, sells or develops. It is primarily an outward facing role.
For comparison the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is a senior executive role usually focuses on internal technology concerns such as corporate networks, servers, service provision and support.
However there is quite a bit of crossover between these two positions and no cast in stone definition for either. It really depends on the individual who inhabits each position and what they negotiate the role to be.
in_awe
· 1 year ago
The government has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to choose the right horse in any number of areas. Or perhaps it is just too suseptible to political influences that bend decision-making processes to incorporate earmarks, porkbarrel spending, etc. to be trusted to "do the right thing".
Here in CA the taxpayers are saddled with a $1.5B state funded albatross to do only embryonic stem cell research. All the advocates of this proposition in 2006 argued forcefully (and untruthfully) that all advances in stem cell research will come as a result of embryonic stem cell efforts. They clearly were pursuing a political agenda. In the 2 years since then the major news in the stem area has come from other areas of research and study. But the proposition was cast in ironclad language that prohibited any deviation from the exclusive use of the money for embryonic stem cell work. Wha makes us think that the Barney Franks, and Chris Dodds and Maxine Waters, et al won't leverage a CTO to accomplish their own vision of what is "necessary" and appropriate?
How effective has government been in the applying multiple alternatives in champion-challenger form before funding an initiative? I am hard pressed to enumerate examples of this approach being used. Yet, the free market is based on competing approaches being assessed and the best alternative winning. Instead we will wind up with some bureacracy processing white paper bids before selecting the winner that will be funded with huge contracts.
I am not impressed with the advisors Obama has relied upon to this point in his career and campaign, and wonder why we should expect the quality of his choices to markedly imrove once he occupies the Oval Office.
tm
· 1 year ago
Eric Schmidt thought he was going to get a cabinet position in 2000 there was just one problem, Gore lost. I remember because Eric Schmidt was CEO of the company I worked for at the time. That company being Novell. He's been waiting a long time.
Mannning
· 1 year ago
We do have quite a number of organizations in this nation whose main focus is on advising the government on technology matters, doing basic research, and fostering implementations onto the private sector. These include National Science Foundation, FCC, NIH, NIST, DARPA, DEA, NOAA and NASA, to name a few that come to mind. In addition, each major Department has a Technology focal center, sometimes named Undersecretary for Technology, or Science and Technology, or sometimes something more ambiguous. The Congress has a bunch of committees that "oversee, more or less" a myriad of government-funded technical projects. There are, in addition, over 1,100 other Agencies, Committees, Commissions or the like that "serve more or less" to regulate the hell out of some few areas that they are in charge of in our existence. No one has ever been able to really reduce these organizations to a sensible level, although Reagan managed to dent the thousand a bit.
Now someone wants to make a Cabinet position (or yet another Agency!) out of Technology? Sounds positively centralization-driven, and perhaps a ploy ultimately to gather greater control of the massive budgets and directions that these more than a thousand organizations command and pursue each year into the hands of one person (plus an enormous staff worthy of an important job, and a budget in the 10's of billions) to "coordinate, advise and advocate" on technology? Or much worse, to actually effect technology efforts directly, as in commanding changes, controlling budgets, and approving plans, staffing and contracts? Add yet another killer step to the 23 different agency steps of approval needed to build a nuclear powerplant.
This is out of sight the worst idea I have heard this season. Worse that Obama's plans. What, pray tell, would this additional burocracy gain us? What fountain of wisdom would it have that doesn't already exist in profusion in the nation? We need less government, not more.
Mannning
· 1 year ago
Did my imasge take?
Obsydian
· 1 year ago
Totally agree with Dan. This post has nothing to do with a national CTO. If you would like to call it An Argument Against Government Subsidies of Telcos that would be a more apt title. But like Dan said, you don't focus on the topic of a national CTO, you don't present any evidence relevant to the argument and you most certainly don't do anything to further my knowledge of the issue or contribute to the overall discourse of technological r&d in this country. Quite honestly you sound like an uneducated, uninformed, out-of-touch, right wing republican. You wonder why people bash you on your posts? It's because you sound more like an amateur writer rather than (@ the very least) a journalism student much less an actual journalist with an informed and objective piece of writing.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
No, Obsydian. People bash me because they're unable to come up with legitimate gripes, like you seem unable to do, and simply want to express the anger they feel when confronted with a well reasoned disagreement.
More to the point of your comment, Barack Obama and Businessweek both have made this more about national broadband than they've made it about "R&D and discourse" and such.
Let me quote myself: "I’m uncertain if that’s simply the spin that BusinessWeek is putting on the story, or if that’s the actual intention of Obama’s promised cabinet appointment. Assuming that it’s not for broadband, for a moment, I repeat my original query as to why we’d need a CTO in the first place, since even the best qualified individuals for defining the position can’t seem to do so...."
If you read the article, you'd know that. It's much easier to hurl ad hominem, so I'll let you continue to do that. Your turn!
Bill C
· 1 year ago
Stupid post. No mention of net neutrality, and Obama's support of it? No mention of the fact that the CTO position is well defined and in place within most state governments, state agencies, federal agencies, and major military commands, as well as in private enterprise? You spend most of this piece whining about telco subsidies - what does any of this have to do with having a national CTO?
CIO's in larger enterprises typically guide the tech strategy and partner with the business/operational leaders. CTO's typically manage the implementation and day to day operations of the IT org. It would have been far more interesting and beneficial to your readership had you focused on Obama's broader tech policy goals, his decision to opt for a CTO as opposed to a CIO, and how his tech policy proposals differ from that of Bush and McCain (not implying that McCain will be a carbon copy of Bush, but historical perspective re: broad tech policy, other than telco subsidies, would have been nice).
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
Stupid comment.
Why are we always meeting like this, Bill? You write trollish comments, and I'm stuck making you look silly.
Here's the problem with your assumption - and I verified this by combing through all existing Obama policy statements on the topic last night - Obama doesn't have a clue what a CTO does. The position he describes on his website sounds more like a national SysAdmin: "The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks..."
Besides, you're not exactly a newb troll around the hallowed halls of Mashable. You already know my position on Network Neutrality legislation. If not, I'll give you some links so you can go troll those articles, too.
Bill C
· 1 year ago
Manning - you're a dolt. The Army has many platoons, companies, battalions, brigades, divisions, and corps. The Army also has a secretary and a chief of staff. By your logic, there's no reason to have a cabinet level position advising the president on how to implement sound national security policy and how to make the best use of the Army - it's just more guvmint! More guvmint BAD! Ditto for intel - we already have the FBI, NSA, CIA, DIA, etc. Why do we need a NIA? Because of stovepipes, and everyone is running around doing their own thing. Money is wasted, critical information falls through the cracks, and it's hard for the electorate to track and hold a singular agency accountable for an intel phuk up. Now when something goes bad we can blame the admin, and the admin will get to exercise more control over how policy is implemented at the agency level.
With technology, we've already been down this road at the state level. Michigan was the first state to centralize IT and appoint a state level CIO and CTO. With support from their governor they centralized IT, cut budgetary fat and eliminated unnecessary duplication (consolidation of data centers, shared services). Centralization does wonders for asset management, budget control, and policy implementation. All of the tech advisory bodies you mentioned will still have a place, aren't going anywhere soon. But just like national defense, intel, and the economy - IT is too important a resource to squander and take a hands-off, completely decentralized approach to.
JohnFLob
· 1 year ago
I found this article and the discussion in the comments quite interesting. Interesting, because I live in a rural area approximately 30 miles south of Raleigh NC. None of the cable telecommunication companies provide service in my area. None of the local telephone companies can provide DSL type service.
However, in spite of these 'stone walls' I have had high-speed Internet access, typically at T1 levels or higher, for nearly two years. My ISP utilizes a series of microwave links to provide this high speed access. The only physical limitation is that users need line of sight access to the ISP's towers. Failures are very rare.
This would seem to substantiate the arguments to keep the Federal government out of the picture. A local business has solved the problem for me and my neighbors without government help.
Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
· 1 year ago
This was similar to my situation in South Florida. We had line of site wireless Internet access for my office for about the price of a regular broadband connection, and the speed of a T3.
The connection *never* went down, through every hurricane that hit during the time we were there (something like seven or so?).
The technology is there, and I think in many places, we're starting to see the return of the mom-and-pop ISP like this. Of course, if the US Gov't provides a susbsidized version, this eliminates the ability for private business to compete... and if the US Gov't gives more subsidies to the big boys, it makes it even harder for small business to pose a threat.
Mannning
· 1 year ago
Dear Billyboy
Why of course there are stovepipes! 2Dolt! Whoever said there weren't? But to add another layer on top of the stovepipes and guess what? This chokes them off, and no smoke gets through. What one needs to do is to foster responsibility from the bottom up, and reward those who integrate, fuse, and cooperate, not play god of the pipe. The President already has an NSF, which is a subdepartment. I suppose you want to subordinate them to your National Technology Advisor. You are simply adding yet another layer and another checkpoint to the pot. Do more with less, why don't you? Find the right management approaches to get more out of what is there, promote cross-Department and Agency teamwork, and appoint incisive managers. Shuffle things around internally, not add to the top.
Security is entirely another matter, simply because it deals with national survival threats on a potentially very, very short time constant, whereas technology in general poses little short term threat to the nation that is not already covered by one or more agencies with sufficient expertise and clout. Thus there is far more time available to sort out problems in the technology sphere, and plentiful resources for the President and his staff to use to get advice and council. If you have ever been to a Presidential staff meeting, you should know that adding yet another player to that table is add an exponential factor to the cacophony already there. The issues you are groaning about should be handled by the Chief of Staff directing the right palyers to staff the problems and report back.
smithee
· 1 year ago
The only people who would oppose this are Comcast and other companies who stand to lose from universal broadband.
It's time we caught up with the rest of the civilized world.
All Comments
Our government gave the FCC the mandate to create Universal Service. The FCC created this mangled plan to make it happen. There's more than enough blame to go around.
I can't wait until we have a Libertarian president so the FCC is dissolved and I can start my wireless spectum jamming service. Just $10,000/month, I'll unblock your cell phone, WiFi, TV signals, radio signals, and satellite! Maybe! We'll let the free market decide whether I actually unblock your technology or not. Probably not.
The FCC plays a necessary role in our current system: auctioning frequency/bandwidth. About everything else it does is arguable unnecessary. You *could* have a system where the first people to claim rights to a frequency in a geography wins. Prices would determine the market's access to wireless services. Set the price too high ($10k/month) and no one buys your product.
Get real. TRY to apply some intellectual rigor to your arguments.
If all the FCC did was keep people from jamming radio transmissions, I don't think there'd be much negative to say about them.
You and i both know that isn't the case.
Besides, let's face it: Google IS the national (even global) CTO, has been for years and will always informally (or, if the FCC airwaves ordeal pans out right, formally) shape the way the nation relates to and uses technology.
Not to let my libertarian colors show in such broad view, but I think unfettered innovation is what got us this internet in the first place. Yes, it was a government project at first, but once rampant commercialism took over, there's no denying that it exploded at logarithmic rates.
I'll never understand the desire by some to make everything a part of the government. Granted, I'm not exactly an old fart, but I'm no spring chicken either. Every single interaction I've had my entire life that involved the government has been a major headache at best, and a national disaster (no exaggeration) at worst. With those as my spectrum poles, I'm not sure where the appeal comes in that the government can just solve our problems by running everything for us.
Besides, let's face it: Google IS the national (even global) CTO, has been for years and will always informally (or, if the FCC airwaves ordeal pans out right, formally) shape the way the nation relates to and uses technology.
Are you including public schooling, using the road system, the fire service? Or am I defining Government wrongly?
Public schooling, but for a couple of classes, is not what I'd consider the most joyous period in my life.
Just last year, using the road system, for a period of three weeks (due to a series of inadvertently mis-filed paperwork), my insurance was not current on one of my cars. During that three weeks, we were stopped several times, and accrued over $7,000 in fines, fees and surcharges, all over some mis-filed paperwork. That's not exactly an example of governmental efficiency.
As for the fire service - I've never had the opportunity to use them. For simple tasks they seem to be ok, but building a national information infrastructure is no simple task.
And for your other two examples...
Most highway projects run WAY over budget and are severely mismanaged. Fire... its better, although I do wonder why we keep getting hit with ever increasing votes to increase funding when our neighborhood hasn't expanded...
I for one would like to hear what a CTO will do before I comment on it. If the position will be about helping the US catch up to the rest of the world, and we've got a lot of that to do, I think that might be a good thing.
The countries with fewer government regulations, mandates, and investment in consumer broadband? Western Africa, the Middle East, former Soviet republics. Oh, but they don't have a $1 Universal Access Fund either so I guess that's a plus.
Okay, Broadband penetration is better in South Korea than here.
How big is South Korea? How many square miles? How dense is the population?
Hmmm?
The US is large, with dispersed population centers. It is of course going to be more difficult to network than a smaller more dense country.
If you want to compare apples find an area in the US the same size as South Korea with the same population and check broadband accessibility that way. Maybe the states of Massachusetts, Maryland, and NJ.
This argument is indeed a straw man. That's like saying we should disband that military because Bush Co. gives out cost plus contracts to Halliburton. No. It means that governing takes work and the Republicans aren't doing that work. It doesn't mean that government is fundamentally flawed. It means that allowing people who think government is fundamentally flawed to govern... is fundamentally flawed.
Boo to free market radical idiots. Luckily, the American people are over this mythology.
Because it was the government, not private companies, that built out all of the world's infrastructure and, y'know, invented the concept of broadband in the first place.
Oh wait. Strike that and reverse it.
It would have been lovely to see a logical argument, maybe a nifty syllogism with warrants and inferences, supported by a bit of evidence from Obama statements and policy papers. What was presented was a screed against telco's and government with a very tenuous connection to the topic under consideration.
Personally I don't know enough to be pro or anti national CTO and this post has contributed greatly to my continued ignorance.
The last link is fubar'd, points to a WordPress login page.
I really do wish I could have been more positive about this post. I agree with the contention that telco's are not to be trusted. I am sympathetic with the argument that a national CTO may be a superfluous position. Bu
PS. I hope you realize the irony of issuing a blanket statement on how government screws up when they try technology stuff using the Internet.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't this one.
But the idea of tech subsidies to telcos is just a bad idea altogether, as it's been proven to fail in the not too decent past.
Now if you distrust the President, you are going to distrust his cabinet. The fact that Obama would consider someone like Google's Eric Schmidt for the post is reassuring to me.
I don't see Obama having an agenda other than doing good. Doing the bidding of large corporations, telecoms or otherwise, seems more like Bush. Obama seems to very earnestly want to do good, and clearly he is intelligent, intelligent enough to seek true experts and thoughts leaders out.
My comment does not answer your question of what a US CTO might do, but progress is always going to involve uncertainty. Lets keep our critical thinking sharp and both eyes open, but be brave enough to embrace change.
Czar's have essentially no power. The Drug Czar does not run the DEA, does not fund the military's interdiction efforts, does not make drug laws and isn't a socialist despot bent on bankrupting the United States. He's in a role where he can coordinate between agencies, advise on national drug policy and advocate on behalf of those policies. That's about it.
So, as an experiment, I read the article and most of the comments - and still do not know what CTO means!
I think that its important to note that while the tech community is only concerned with the tech side of this issue, I would argue that a broader picture of the role a CTO would play within an administration is in order.
If you look at the broader picture, the world is in the middle of multiple revolutions - biological, cognitive, robotics, nanotechnology etc.. - and the fact is that there will be legislative and ethical issues surrounding all of these that will need to be addressed and currently, most of the population is completely unprepared for the world that is quickly approaching.
like it or not, the government will need to play a role in this because there are many areas of life that the private sector does not impact in the way that it does most of the people reading mashable.
on a final note, I think that the issue of broadband is actually a infrastructure issue and not a technical one - and we have a long history of government development of infrastructure - and infrastructure has often had a secondary function of helping the country through difficult economic times such as we face right now
The problem as I see it is very close to how Dan sees it. The biggest problem we have with the internet is not the technology, that's being resolved rapidly by the private sector. Additionally, it's being done by telcos, and non-telcos as well. So, yo single out telcos isn't really part ofthe equation. If they do a bad job now, the cable companies and private ISP's are more than willing to step in. Additionally, the advent of 3G will allow almost any provider to jump in. So, I don't see the technology issue that overwhelming. The bandwidth issue is already being addressed by the FCC, like them or not. There is no logical argument that a federal CTO would do any different of a job in that aspect. The problem we do have is figuring out what to do with ethical issues on the internet. Hackers, spammers, porn, hate crimes, pirating, child molestors and uncolntrolled discussion boards lend to a threat against our society that is not being addressed in any organized fashion. Each incident is treated as an individual crime, but there is no organized effort to address the problem as a whole. Now, the problem as Gates illustrated is it not normal for a CTO to address those issues. So, I think a cabinet position to address internet issues as a whole would be a swell idea, but the title of CTO is inappropriate and inadequate.
The fact that you think these issues bear a serious threat to society shows me that you've got a real superficial understanding of what these problems are. Some of these "issues" aren't even illegal activities (and are covered by the first amendment), some of these aren't crimes that relate to technology at all, and the none are systemic threats to the fabric of society!
For comparison the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is a senior executive role usually focuses on internal technology concerns such as corporate networks, servers, service provision and support.
However there is quite a bit of crossover between these two positions and no cast in stone definition for either. It really depends on the individual who inhabits each position and what they negotiate the role to be.
Here in CA the taxpayers are saddled with a $1.5B state funded albatross to do only embryonic stem cell research. All the advocates of this proposition in 2006 argued forcefully (and untruthfully) that all advances in stem cell research will come as a result of embryonic stem cell efforts. They clearly were pursuing a political agenda. In the 2 years since then the major news in the stem area has come from other areas of research and study. But the proposition was cast in ironclad language that prohibited any deviation from the exclusive use of the money for embryonic stem cell work. Wha makes us think that the Barney Franks, and Chris Dodds and Maxine Waters, et al won't leverage a CTO to accomplish their own vision of what is "necessary" and appropriate?
How effective has government been in the applying multiple alternatives in champion-challenger form before funding an initiative? I am hard pressed to enumerate examples of this approach being used. Yet, the free market is based on competing approaches being assessed and the best alternative winning. Instead we will wind up with some bureacracy processing white paper bids before selecting the winner that will be funded with huge contracts.
I am not impressed with the advisors Obama has relied upon to this point in his career and campaign, and wonder why we should expect the quality of his choices to markedly imrove once he occupies the Oval Office.
Now someone wants to make a Cabinet position (or yet another Agency!) out of Technology? Sounds positively centralization-driven, and perhaps a ploy ultimately to gather greater control of the massive budgets and directions that these more than a thousand organizations command and pursue each year into the hands of one person (plus an enormous staff worthy of an important job, and a budget in the 10's of billions) to "coordinate, advise and advocate" on technology? Or much worse, to actually effect technology efforts directly, as in commanding changes, controlling budgets, and approving plans, staffing and contracts? Add yet another killer step to the 23 different agency steps of approval needed to build a nuclear powerplant.
This is out of sight the worst idea I have heard this season. Worse that Obama's plans. What, pray tell, would this additional burocracy gain us? What fountain of wisdom would it have that doesn't already exist in profusion in the nation? We need less government, not more.
More to the point of your comment, Barack Obama and Businessweek both have made this more about national broadband than they've made it about "R&D and discourse" and such.
Let me quote myself: "I’m uncertain if that’s simply the spin that BusinessWeek is putting on the story, or if that’s the actual intention of Obama’s promised cabinet appointment. Assuming that it’s not for broadband, for a moment, I repeat my original query as to why we’d need a CTO in the first place, since even the best qualified individuals for defining the position can’t seem to do so...."
If you read the article, you'd know that. It's much easier to hurl ad hominem, so I'll let you continue to do that. Your turn!
CIO's in larger enterprises typically guide the tech strategy and partner with the business/operational leaders. CTO's typically manage the implementation and day to day operations of the IT org. It would have been far more interesting and beneficial to your readership had you focused on Obama's broader tech policy goals, his decision to opt for a CTO as opposed to a CIO, and how his tech policy proposals differ from that of Bush and McCain (not implying that McCain will be a carbon copy of Bush, but historical perspective re: broad tech policy, other than telco subsidies, would have been nice).
Why are we always meeting like this, Bill? You write trollish comments, and I'm stuck making you look silly.
Here's the problem with your assumption - and I verified this by combing through all existing Obama policy statements on the topic last night - Obama doesn't have a clue what a CTO does. The position he describes on his website sounds more like a national SysAdmin: "The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks..."
Besides, you're not exactly a newb troll around the hallowed halls of Mashable. You already know my position on Network Neutrality legislation. If not, I'll give you some links so you can go troll those articles, too.
With technology, we've already been down this road at the state level. Michigan was the first state to centralize IT and appoint a state level CIO and CTO. With support from their governor they centralized IT, cut budgetary fat and eliminated unnecessary duplication (consolidation of data centers, shared services). Centralization does wonders for asset management, budget control, and policy implementation. All of the tech advisory bodies you mentioned will still have a place, aren't going anywhere soon. But just like national defense, intel, and the economy - IT is too important a resource to squander and take a hands-off, completely decentralized approach to.
However, in spite of these 'stone walls' I have had high-speed Internet access, typically at T1 levels or higher, for nearly two years. My ISP utilizes a series of microwave links to provide this high speed access. The only physical limitation is that users need line of sight access to the ISP's towers. Failures are very rare.
This would seem to substantiate the arguments to keep the Federal government out of the picture. A local business has solved the problem for me and my neighbors without government help.
The connection *never* went down, through every hurricane that hit during the time we were there (something like seven or so?).
The technology is there, and I think in many places, we're starting to see the return of the mom-and-pop ISP like this. Of course, if the US Gov't provides a susbsidized version, this eliminates the ability for private business to compete... and if the US Gov't gives more subsidies to the big boys, it makes it even harder for small business to pose a threat.
Why of course there are stovepipes! 2Dolt! Whoever said there weren't? But to add another layer on top of the stovepipes and guess what? This chokes them off, and no smoke gets through. What one needs to do is to foster responsibility from the bottom up, and reward those who integrate, fuse, and cooperate, not play god of the pipe. The President already has an NSF, which is a subdepartment. I suppose you want to subordinate them to your National Technology Advisor. You are simply adding yet another layer and another checkpoint to the pot. Do more with less, why don't you? Find the right management approaches to get more out of what is there, promote cross-Department and Agency teamwork, and appoint incisive managers. Shuffle things around internally, not add to the top.
Security is entirely another matter, simply because it deals with national survival threats on a potentially very, very short time constant, whereas technology in general poses little short term threat to the nation that is not already covered by one or more agencies with sufficient expertise and clout. Thus there is far more time available to sort out problems in the technology sphere, and plentiful resources for the President and his staff to use to get advice and council. If you have ever been to a Presidential staff meeting, you should know that adding yet another player to that table is add an exponential factor to the cacophony already there. The issues you are groaning about should be handled by the Chief of Staff directing the right palyers to staff the problems and report back.
It's time we caught up with the rest of the civilized world.