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Obama's search for a national CTO

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Stephanie Condon CNET News

Published: 07 Nov 2008 11:49 GMT

…people to more easily find and apply for federal grants, and USAJobs.gov, the federal online recruitment service.

Moreover, the appointment of a CTO in an Obama administration does not ensure any improvements.

"The idea of a CTO is a fine one, but I think it's more complex than that," said Ed Black, president and chief executive of the Computer & Communications Industry Association. "It's not enough to make an office; the use and understanding of technology needs to permeate every agency."

Yet someone with the right credentials and reputation could make that happen, Black said.

"It's going to take a person with a liberal background, with skills across the field," he said. "Somebody close to Obama certainly helps."

Looking to industry for help
Speculation has circulated that Obama could consider a well-known executive like Amazon chief executive Jeffrey Bezos or Google's Schmidt for the role of CTO; however, at least one Washington insider said it is highly unlikely Schmidt would leave his position at Google for the job.

Davidson noted that Schmidt has said he has no interest in the role. Davidson did not rule out the possibility of another Washington outsider taking the job, though.

"There's a balance that will need to be struck in looking for people who have real-world technology experience and can be effective in Washington," he said. "There are people in Washington who fit that role and people outside of Washington who fit that role."

Others, such as James Lewis, director and senior fellow in the technology and public policy programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cautioned against the idea.

"We've seen lots of times where people have brought in gurus from the hi-tech community, and they give up after a year because they're frustrated," Lewis said. "Knowing how the government works is important."

Even so, Lewis said, implementing technology policy cannot be left to Washington without industry advice.

"Innovation's the secret sauce of the year, but we need to figure out what exactly that means," he said. "Giving the Commerce Department more money will not do anything for innovation, yet that's one of the things we hear."

Defining the CTO's mission
The executive branch will probably have an onslaught of technology policy proposals to consider, Lewis said, which could range from a national broadband commitment to the establishment of a central office for R&D funds. Some may be good, but others could be a waste of time and money.

"The transition team needs to take a really hard look at the ideas that are going to be put forward because most of them aren't going to work," Lewis said.

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Those familiar with the transition process have said it will work "quickly, but not hastily". Before a CTO is chosen, Obama and his team will have to decide how to structure the White House.

The jurisdiction of a CTO could overlap with other agencies or executive positions in areas such as innovation policy, cybersecurity or intellectual-property enforcement. To avoid those overlaps, the Obama team will have to decide, for instance, whether the CTO would focus on goals like making agencies more efficient or take on a broader agenda, such as dictating policy.

Responsibility for innovation policy could encroach on the US Patent and Trademark Office's turf, many have noted, and responsibility for policy covering digital copyright law might conflict with another cabinet position Obama will have to fill: the position of intellectual-property enforcement co-ordinator, which was established by the recently signed Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act.

Foreseeing a battle in the copyright world between Hollywood and the technology industry, Black said it would be ideal for the Obama administration to include "somebody who can recognise there is significant collateral damage to other legitimate interests and industries" by some copyright positions taken by the entertainment industry.

"They don't have to be anti-Hollywood; they just have to be not blinded by an extreme position," he said. "I'd actually be very happy if we just had somebody who was very balanced and open."

Obama may also consider appointing a completely separate cybersecurity chief, as is likely to be recommended by the CSIS Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency.

"The commission said [cybersecurity] was a national-security issue, and that's kind of out of the orbit of the CTO," said Lewis, who chairs the commission. "There's some overlap, but I think the CTO's role is kind of orthogonal to the cyber mission."

Credit: Obama's search for a CTO from CNET News