Andrea Di MaioYesterday I was interviewed about the impact of the Obama administration on the IT industry after his first full year in office.This made me think about my first post during his administration, which welcomed his executive order on open government and was at the basis of the Open Government Directive issued on 8 December 2009.
I would argue that the story of the Open Government Directive symbolizes what is good and what needs improvement in how this administration deals with IT.
Obama and his IT staff have been great in establishing a compelling vision and in setting change in motion.
The very principles of Open Government have been around for quite some time, but Obama’s executive order was the first time a country leader would state it as an objective so clearly and loudly. Also, appointing young, tech-savvy executives with no prior federal experience to lead IT and IT-intensive change initiatives has been a bold move.
Moving fast, creating disruption to traditional approaches, engaging people more directly, dealing with vendors in less neutral way, and running initiatives in a sort of “perpetual beta” mode have been distinctive elements of this administration. Data.gov, Apps.gov, Recovery.gov, Federal IT Dashboard: these are tangible accomplishment of this first year.
However, the problem this administration is already facing is the ability to execute on such an aggressive change agenda.
Here is where it is worth reminding that the Open Government Directive was issued almost 11 months after Obama’s executive order, nine months after the appointment of the federal CIO, eight months after the appointment of the federal CTO, six months after the end of the open process to gather ideas from the public about the directive itself.
As people say, devil is in the details, and Obama’s IT staff did not have too much time to sort out details. As a consequence, there are ambiguities in the Open Government Directive, apps.gov does not provide yet any infrastructure-as-a-service service almost five months after issuing the Request For Information for the second time, Data.gov still has many fewer data sets than its UK counterpart which was launched yesterday, Recovery.gov is not yet up to expectations, and so forth.
The good thing is that these are bright people and they have the capabilities to pull it out. They just need to recognize that there are limits to the amount and speed of change that an organization as complex and regulated as the US federal government can absorb.
Their effort needs to shift from the high-level boundary-pushing vision statements, toward fighting the countless turf battles they need to fight to win the wholehearted support of agency heads and CIOs. To do so they must strike a delicate balance between diplomacy, moral suasion, budgetary and regulatory power.
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3 Tom Degan January 21, 2010 at 7:46 am
A year ago today I was looking forward with great anticipation to the presidency of Barack Obama. I thought that this may very well be the “new age” that I have been looking forward to for most of my life. What a difference a year makes. Thus far, as you might imagine, I have been let down by this president. That is why it is so funny to see him labeled by the Right a “radical socialist”. If Obama were half as radical as the Conservative media is trying to portray him, people like me wouldn’t be one tenth as disappointed in him as we are.
Don’t misunderstand, I am still grateful that he was elected last year. I thank God every day that John McCain will not be sleeping in the Executive Mansion tonight and that Fascist Barbi will not be a heartbeat away from the presidency. While it is true that he has not yet given us the “change we can believe in”, it is still too early in his term to make any final assessment. There is some time for optimism – although that time is dwindling rapidly. Still, the alternative to Obama’s election last year is just too weird to even contemplate. We should be grateful for that – I guess – and for the fact that Dick Cheney is no longer running the country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said of the American Plutocracy, “They hate me and I welcome their hatred.” Obama needs to take a cue from FDR. Instead of trying to “reach out” to the right wing, he needs to understand that they are not his friends; that their political fortunes rest on a single strategy: that his administration is a complete failure. They don’t care a thing for the welfare of the people they are supposed to represent. The only thing that concerns them is the corporate constituency they act as hand maidens for. You would think that after a year in office the president would have learned this lesson, wouldn’t you? Perhaps he has. We shall see.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
4 terry January 21, 2010 at 3:58 pm
@Tom
You make excellent points and I totally agree with you. Obama was a little bit(maybe very?) presumptuous to believe that Republicans wanted to work on any policies that didn’t help big business or billionaires but I think he has finally learned what they are really all about especially after the Mass. loss. I’m not concerned about him but the people who live in trailer parks that are convinced by Republicans that a tax cut for a billionaire will help their predicament are a definite cause for alarm.
5 Tom Degan February 1, 2010 at 5:03 am
No doubt about it, Terry, Obama has got to get down into the gutter with these clowns. He was crazy to believe he could “reach out” to them.