We are about to have the first ever US Chief Technology Officer (CTO) appointed in the US government.  Apparently technology is actually an important part of our country now.  Not to be cynical, I admire the move and hope it is precedent setting for future administrations.

As of this past weekend, most rumors point to Vivek Kundra, the CTO for the District of Columbia.  Your guess is as good as mine whether some of the initial names that surfaced may still be in the running.  This list included the CEO’s of Microsoft, Amazon and Google as likely candidates.   The identity of the appointee may also drive to whom they report; it is still uncertain whether they will report directly to the president or some other office.  Do you suppose the new CTO could get FHA to go paperless finally?   Hey, maybe that is what we needed take to make socialized medicine work—a US CTO to ensure there is supporting federal technology rich enough to shoulder claims management.

While it seems the role of this office will include things like ensuring network security and making cross-governmental agencies’ CIO’s play nicely together, I wonder if we could concoct over time a “socialized technology” practice. Perhaps all bodies which define standards in technology, such as the MISMO standards body for mortgages, would eventually report to the US CTO.  But on the other hand, this new role in our government will be bogged down for several lifetimes trying to “. . . ensure that (all government agencies) use best-in-class technologies and share best practices” – this must sound like fun for someone.

From our nation’s CTO, I am looking forward to some new technology like: Live Chat with the President or how about a Whitehouse Texas Hold ‘Em site?   The on-line gamblers in our country could fund the TARP burden for those taxpayers who do not gamble.

As for us mere mortal technology executives, I hope we all continue enjoying the satisfaction one feels when an elegant software, hardware or communications solution improves the experience of our consumers.  It is really great to solve problems that are tricky, yet reasonably contained; these solutions tend to be launched more frequently and make it to the user community well before they are outdated.  Tackling the government’s technology issues will be broad, far from trivial and may require a TARP-sized training budget for government employees.