Earlier this week President Obama announced his choice for the newly created position of the federal Chief Technology Officer. His appointee, Aneesh Chopra, is not a "techie," that is, a creator of technology. What he brings to the office of CTO is his experience as an investor who can identify promising technology and advise organizations, especially healthcare and education, on how to be more effective through technology. He has a track record as Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia for leveraging open source software and popular internet technology, such as iTunes and YouTube, as tools to deliver government programs less expensively and more quickly. He launched a fund for government departments to try new technology solutions before committing to them as a means of encouraging innovation.
Together with the White House's CIO, Vivek Kundra, and the Chief Performance Officer, Jeffrey Zients, the nation's CTO's main objective will be to apply technology to transform our government, our economy, our society. A tall order, to say the least, especially considering the current state of affairs. As Ed O'Keefe writes in his blog, the Federal Eye on washingtonpost.com, "Chopra faces a mind-boggling web of computer and data collection systems, few of which work in unison, several built or operated by government contractors."
Where should he start? Business Intelligence and data warehousing professionals attending The Data Warehousing Institute's World Conference in February of this year had some unambiguous advice for the new CTO on priorities for getting the government's data house in order: Focus on data quality and data privacy while being mindful of the significant challenge posed by having so many sources of non-integrated data. When asked what the most important aspect to consider when making improvements to data management was, 56.6% of the 134 attendees surveyed indicated "data quality."
Tim O'Reilly (founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc.) who has been involved with Obama's technical team during the campaign and the transition, quoted from the CTO's job description in his blog, "The CTO will develop national strategies for using advanced technologies to transform our economy and our society." The CTO's job description or Obama's announcement speech does not mention data quality or data integration, because these are just a means to an end. One way that transformative technology effects change is by brokering data in new ways resulting in deeper insight, broader perspectives, more precision, or simply providing more people with more access to information. Or, as President Obama stated in his weekly radio address on Saturday, -- from creating jobs and reducing health-care costs to keeping our nation secure." Washington Post, April 19.
To view the detailed results of the survey conducted at TDWI World Conference in February 2009, please visit www.dataupia.com/tdwisurvey
 |
 |
|
Next Article » Business Analytics for Troubled Times |
