March 2nd, 2009
White House 2.0: Working through tech challenges
It’s only been a little over a month since the tech-savvy Obama administration moved in the White House, so it’s no surprise that WH staffers might still be experiencing some growing pains on the tech front.
Here you have this group of people that were using Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, as well as text messages and e-mail blasts, to stay connected with supporters during the election. As a private individual in a political campaign, Obama and his staffers were able to use any tool available to reach voters. But as the President of the United States, there are government rules and policies in place that dictate how and when the Office of the President communicates with the public at-large.
Ah, bureaucracy. Sure, the Obama staffers likely had heard the red-tape nightmares but there’s nothing like experiencing it first-hand. Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post colleague, has a great read about those lessons in today’s Post. In it, he writes:
Beyond the technological upgrades needed to enable text broadcasts, there are security and privacy rules to sort out involving the collection of cellphone numbers, according to Obama aides, who acknowledge being caught off guard by the strictures of government bureaucracy.
There are plenty of groups that are watching the Obama administration, largely because of the president’s repeated statements about his commitment to transparency and accountability in government. And that’s sure to lead to some pressure on aides to deliver.
We’ve already seen one example where the commitment to transparency has clashed with government bureaucracy - the President’s weekly video address to the public. The videos initially had been hosted on YouTube but privacy advocates expressed concerns about the use of cookies by YouTube parent Google. According to a CNET report, the White House is now using a Flash-based video system using Akamai’s content delivery network.
Also see: Whitehouse.gov’s YouTube cookies: The wrong privacy fight
Video: Can Obama bring tech respect to Washington?
The shift away from YouTube does say one thing about the tech team over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They’ve only been in Washington for a little over a month and managed, in that time, to listen to their critics, study the issue, explore alternatives and pull the trigger on a new system.
By Washington standards, that’s warp-speed action. For the rest of the nation, it serves as hope that the administration might be able to cut through Old School bureaucracy when it comes to the use of Web 2.0 tools.
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to Between the Lines via Email alerts or RSS.
