CTO Chatter Begins

A few technology and mainstream media outlets have published or aired pieces on Barack Obama's idea to appoint a federal chief technology officer.

National Public Radio aired a short piece this morning, outlining the basics of what the CTO would do but didn’t give more details than what appeared in Obama's government reform plan.

Patrick Thibodeau with ComputerWorld posted an article on Friday, writing that the "position doesn't sound exciting, based on the job description, which may well have been copied from an IT Management 101 textbook. It says the job of the CTO will be to lead IT initiatives at federal agencies and ‘ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.’”

And Curt Monash, writing for NetworkWorld, writes that the CTO position should be a chief information officer position. The reason? The top tech person in government also will have to deal with issues more suitable to a CIO, Monash writes, such as recommend major changes in government IT contracting, establish best practices in a broad range of IT areas, interact with the private sector, and improve training, recruiting and retention.

Whom does Monash recommend as the federal CIO? Charles Rossotti, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service from 1997 to 2002.