John McCain doesn’t know how to send an email. Barack Obama has set up change.gov, an interactive site where citizens are let into the inner workings of the transition team and are encouraged to submit their ideas for change. For anyone who is interested in technology (this is a blog, you know), we seem to have made the right choice for president.
Liberal elite's will undoubtedly notice the Mac.
The website is a great step in the direction of connecting the people with the government, though it has yet to be seen whether it will have any real effect on the new administration. Still, it’s cool. There’s a blog, there’s Obama’s own version of the “fireside chat” — YouTube style, of course (they can also be downloaded via iTunes to your iPod or iPhone, as any true elitist would have it).
And then there is the new position of Chief Tech Officer, whose job it will be to “ensure the safety of our networks” and with other tech officers, “to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.” It’s still a question of who Obama will choose for this post, though names being tossed around are Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google Vice President Vint Cerf, and former FCC chairman Reed Hundt (Did you see that? We linked to Fox News!).
Whoever is chosen, this is a great step in the direction of bringing our government into the 21st century (we’ve only had seven years here). I’m excited to see what comes of these changes. Yes, hurrah! “Change” the almighty buzzword is actually being implemented! Will we have a more transparent government? Will the fireside e-chats become more PR than they are citizens connecting with their President? We’ll have yet to see, but I am optimistic.
