The Chief Technology Outreacher

It's not exactly clear exactly what the responsibilities will be for Obama's new chief technology officer, but Carolyn Brubaker, head of business development for civilian agencies at Microsoft Federal, has some general thoughts. Brubaker, who last month was assigned the extra duty as the company's new chief transition officer (the first of its kind as far as we can tell), told Nextgov on Friday in a sit-down interview that the CTO might focus less on government operations and more on outreach to the public. According to talks she and her team at Microsoft have had with Obama's transition team, it's likely social networking technologies are going to be the CTO's main responsibility.

An excerpt from the interview, which will be posted in its entirety on Monday:

From some of the thoughts that have been shared [with us], it seems like the CTO would really focus on citizen engagement and participation in government. And I speculate that there will be a fairly structured group [in the Office of Management and Budget] that's really going to pay close attention on the inner workings of government and technology to guide that. The CTO will really have more of a national perspective on goals.