Obama Appoints Non-Tech Guy As CTO

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "President Barack Obama has named his chief technology officer, and the appointee is not a Silicon Valley name like so many predicted. He is Aneesh Chopra. As the Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, his job has been to 'leverage technology in government reform, promote Virginia's innovation agenda, and foster technology-related economic development with a special emphasis on entrepreneurship.' But Chopra's not a tech guy. Before he got his secretary job in 2005, he was a managing director at the Advisory Board Company, a public-market health care think tank, as well as an angel investor." O'Reilly Radar is running an article discussing why Chopra is a good choice for federal CTO.

Open Source Alternatives

What is his stance on the open source revolution? Linux/Open Office/Open Source solutions can contribute to massive savings for school districts but it's been beaten down/back by those with financial interests.

Re:Open Source Alternatives

From the linked article, I'd say he's onboard with Open Source
(easiest quote to find: Virginia having "the first officially-approved open source textbook in the country")

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that he's not a tech guy himself; he won't be expected to go out and do the techy work. What the job requires is an understanding of technology and government, and the ability to get stuff done by supporting the right things, managing people... in short he doesn't need to be a geek so long as he has the right geeks working for him.

Re:

he doesn't need to be a geek so long as he has the right geeks working for him

Is that really true? I'm a lawyer. No way on God's green earth would I work under the supervision of a non-lawyer.

Re:Open Source Alternatives

Don't you work for non-lawyers all the time? They defer to you because you -are- a lawyer, but I think you might have to rescind your comment :)

I do IT, and not everyone in the chain of command knows more than I do about IT. They do know more about other things, like management, or sales, or marketing. My job in IT is to enable them to do their jobs, and so I have to know a little bit about their job, and they have to know a little bit about mine, but that's all.

If we were to live in some upside down world where we demanded everyone paying us had to know more about what we're doing than we do, no one would get anything done. Why are they paying you if they know more than you?

And this applies to you too, Ray. Your clients pay you, or your firm, or however you have it set up, and they don't know nearly as much as you do. If they did, they wouldn't be paying you.

Re:Open Source Alternatives

Don't you work for non-lawyers all the time? They defer to you because you -are- a lawyer, but I think you might have to rescind your comment :) I do IT, and not everyone in the chain of command knows more than I do about IT. They do know more about other things, like management, or sales, or marketing. My job in IT is to enable them to do their jobs, and so I have to know a little bit about their job, and they have to know a little bit about mine, but that's all. If we were to live in some upside down world where we demanded everyone paying us had to know more about what we're doing than we do, no one would get anything done. Why are they paying you if they know more than you? And this applies to you too, Ray. Your clients pay you, or your firm, or however you have it set up, and they don't know nearly as much as you do. If they did, they wouldn't be paying you.

My clients pay me; they do not "supervise" me. When I did work under supervision (1974-1983) it was the supervision of people who did exactly what I did but had been doing it longer. That is the only kind of supervision I could accept. It was one of the main reasons I went into a "profession".

I consider information technology a profession, and entitled to the same level of respect and dignity. If you know what you are doing and have someone "supervising" who doesn't fully grasp what is going on, and doesn't understand where you are coming from, it is degrading, insulting, and counterproductive.

Re:

The purpose of a school is NOT to teach students how things work right now, but how they will work in the future. How do you know that OSS won't become more accepted, if not the norm, in tomorrow's industry? Your Linux conspiracy theories are just as bad as anti-MS ones.

FOAD AC.

Re:Open Source Alternatives

The purpose of school shouldn't be teach students to be drones that can't think for themselves. It should be "teach them how to learn". Everybody I grew up with learned on DOS, UNIX (icons ftw) and Apple. We had little trouble adapting to the changing computer world. Now if people learned on Linux right now, they would have a lot less catching up then we ever did, even if they had to switch to windows for a job. Tech concepts and not memorization and you will get a lot further.

Re:Open Source Alternatives

Oh thank you god! Finally someone who actually agrees with me on what the purpose of education is. Teaching should be about stimulating the kids to want to learn, to want to find out the whys and hows!...and give them the tools to do so. Off course it is an other matter in higher education, but that is besides the point here as people seems to be talking about creating mindless drones belonging to one camp or the other.

Re:Open Source Alternatives

Has went? I guess Grandpa took all the grammar books with him, too.

Re:Open Source Alternatives

You grew into OS office software and can go back any time, if needed. Those kids won't be able to do that. You'd effectively be crippling them.

Are kids dumber now that they ever were? The first computer I had contact with through school was an Apple IIe, did this crush my ability to learn to use Windows when it finally came out? Really, that is one of the most innane arguments I have heard. If we expose our children to many different computers/OSs/software suites, it leaves them with adaptability.

Hell, it wasn't until rather late in high school that I actually found a computer, in school, using Windows, with Office on it, and all the other "standard" stuff, before that there was some nice DOS boxes, a few early Macs, a TON of Apple IIes, and I even think a lowly C64 and Amiga in there. All of these with their seporate and very different OSs, different "productivity" software, and different ways of interacting with the computer. I, for some reason, doubt that this hindered my ability to exist in society much, much less... you know... use a computer. It probably helped greatly with the second bit, since it kept me from getting locked in to any particular scheme of computing.

Children are adaptive by nature, and the more we make them experience novel situations, the smarter they get. It forces them out of the rote "click x in menu y to do z", and into the the actual basis of the experience itself into a "I want to do z, now what?" mindframe.

I know several people who can't use the GUI in Ubuntu/Gnome, just because it doesn't look exactly like Windows, even though it almost exactly the same mechanically. I would rather our children don't become this.

Re:Open Source Alternatives

I think the argument is more that the schools should be spending their money on, say, teacher's salaries instead of Microsoft Windows.

Before exploding in fury

Please read the last article linked in the summary. It definitely makes the appointment sound intelligent.

Re:Before exploding in fury

But.. but.. he isn't one of us!

I mean, did Obama even consider the CowboyNeal option?

I'm really curious....

about this. My first reaction was that it was wrong not to appoint a technologist as CTO. Then I read O'Reilly's article, which argues cogently that the appointment makes a lot of sense.

O'Reilly is someone for whom I have respect.

I'm really really curious about what the Slashdot community has to say on this.

Usually I'm writing on legal issues, which I know something about.

But I am not a technologist, and I have no expertise in government or in policy.

Re:I'm really curious....

taking someone who is not very tech-oriented/aligned and putting them as CTO is just like taking politicians and lawyers and asking them to draft bills on technology.

See how well that's been working for us?

Re:I'm really curious....

While his post was insightful and deserves some moderation to that effect, I am going to have to disagree. Lawyers and politicians absolutely should be legislating technology because legislation is their job. I couldn't do it. I think our problem has been that they are doing it wrong, for a variety of reasons.

I find a great deal of irony in your original post and this reply, because while you are obviously a lawyer, your original post demonstrates *exactly* the behaviors I believe are the full requirements I would expect from a great tech executive or politician.

First, you obviously read a tech article on your own, in your free time, displaying interest. Second, you formed an opinion. Third, you reformed your opinion based on a respected expert. Fourth, and most importantly, you went to a large community of experts (to varying degrees) in order to modify your opinion with the input of people with a greater professional interest in the subject than your own.

In all seriousness, Mr. Beckerman, despite being a lawyer and not a professional technologist, you would make a better CTO (or politician) than the vast majority of the rest of us. I would even venture to say that technologists shouldn't be forming large policies for as diverse and large an organization as the federal government. They are more likely to have biases and pay less attention to technologies they are less familiar with through professional experience.

As a side note, if you could chair the FCC or hop on in some tech position at the FTC, I would really appreciate it.

Re:

about this. My first reaction was that it was wrong not to appoint a technologist as CTO. Then I read O'Reilly's article, which argues cogently that the appointment makes a lot of sense.

This guy is a sensible choice, but perhaps not the best one. On one hand, he clearly is a technophile; he's had some nifty ideas and isn't afraid to hear new ones.

On the other hand, he seems to very much be a politician first and a technologist second. The video [oreilly.com] embedded in O'Reilly's commentary is telling: in the first four minutes, he uses the word "humbled", passively, five times. He can't resist buzzwords: "begin a conversation for dialogue" indeed. And if I hear him say "long-term strategic roadmap"

Re:

Up front, let me say that my response will be colored by the fact that I was in running for a CTO position of a fairly large company. I do not have any government background also.

CTO jobs generally mean different things in different companies. In situations where there is a CIO and CTO, generally CTO works within guidelines and strategies visualized by CIO and other C-level executives. CTO is concerned primarily with operational parameters like capacity building, capability building, and even confidence bui

His ways are of a higher purpose

Let us not forget we must not question His actions for His ways are impenetrable.

non-tech Chief Technology Officer

I've seen this at a lot of organizations, the CIO is invariable a non-techie hired on for his skills at schmoozing management than any tech knowledge. Management find real techies a threat as they might get found out. They mostly spend their time quoting the tech press and spouting phrases like 'integrated innovation' and 'empowerment'. The top man specifically hires people dumber then him, else they could be as threat to his job. In turn the CTO hires someone even dumber than he is, and so on down the line. If something 'technical' comes along they hire in a 'consultant', fire him and take credit for his work. Of course any real in-house techies have to be transferred before they figure out just how stupid the CIO really is. So you end up with a business where the longest serving employee has been there less then ten months. Eventually the company goes down the tubes ...

Bag of Air Says What

I'm gonna reform copyright. The laws are faulty.
- Let me fill the DOJ with RIAA lawyers.
The current tech laws need reform.
- Let me appoint another windbag politician to do it instead of someone who actually knows what the hell bittorrent is.

Re:

I'm gonna reform copyright. The laws are faulty.

- Let me fill the DOJ with RIAA lawyers.

The current tech laws need reform.

- Let me appoint another windbag politician to do it instead of someone who actually knows what the hell bittorrent is.

That was my initial reaction. But O'Reilly makes a cogent contrary argument. What is flawed in what O'Reilly is saying?

Good Choice

I worked with Aneesh earlier this year on an open government project here in Virginia. He asked me to function in a very small role in developing stimulus.virginia.gov, basically to serve as a programmer/open government guy to advocate from the inside for increased openness and strong adherence to public, open data exchange standards on the website and its API. Aneesh isn't a geek, but he "gets it," if I may return to that old chestnut that we all employed round about 2000. He might not know Unicode from Latin 1, but he surrounds himself with people who do know the difference, he gets the gist of it from them, and chooses the path that provides the most accessibility for the most data to the most people.

The guy is, incidentally, utterly exhausting to try to keep up with. I'm somebody to whom people say constantly "when do you sleep?", and even I find Aneesh an absolutely whirlwind of activity.

The only downside for me here is that Aneesh had expressed interested in me joining Governor Kaine's cabinet as "Senior Advisor for Open Government" (or something like that). I'd been in talks with my employer about taking a leave of absence. Now, of course, that won't happen. But since the (apparent) tradeoff is having Aneesh as the nation's CTO, that's A-OK by me.

I smell astroturf

you know, I've been noticing a lot of similiar posts whenever Obama is mentioned... Stuff like:

"both parties suck, don't bother"
"Obama lied to us"
and lots of just little slams. Nothing concrete. Just little jabs here and there.

I look... and a lot of these are from ACs, or people who seem to have just registered and have very few comments on their record. I smell viral marketing at work....

Lets face it, Obama didn't run as a left wing ideologue. He's been in 100 days, and although many here are peeved at the appointment of RIAA folks to the DOJ, and everyone is pissed at the bailouts (although I suspect they'd be more pissed if it all tanked and they lost their jobs/houses/etc).... for the most part, Obama has been careful and pretty center of the road. He didn't yank us out of Iraq (which would have been pretty irresponsible IMO). He is yanking funding for stupid military projects that were money sinks. Good for him. He has pushed at teachers unions... Not a very socialist thing to do. He has pushed for healthcare. People get pissed at this, but I suspect they don't realize that when someone without healthcare goes to the ER, we foot the bill anyway. He has scruitinized his appointments more than anyone else.... You think tax problems for political appointees JUST NOW became a problem?

bah, this is just my opinion. Feel free to have your own....

The point is, he's been pretty calm, politically centered for a Dem, and careful in his actions. I think he's doing fairly well given the situation. If there is an attempt to influence public opinion... I Hate Viral Marketing.

Turn your internal virus detectors on folks.

-T

Re:Say it ain't so, Obama

McCain would have been superior because of his ideology that is actually backed up with a lifetime record of achievement supporting those beliefs.