Starting a new job is always a challenge. You have to learn where your office is, where the coffee machine is, and the best route from each to the bathroom. Now imagine how complicated it must be when an entirely new administration starts working in the White House! In addition to the normal challenges, President Obama and his staff suffered through a number of surprising headaches.
For example, many phone lines had been disconnected. Dialing numbers inside the building often resulted in a busy signal. Software installed on PCs left in the building was outdated. And worst of all, the folks so keen on their Facebooks and Twitters found that government regulations drastically curtail how they can communicate.
“It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.
Several staffers arrived to find that they had no computers or phones assigned to them. Others struggled with too many computers, each for specific tasks. Mac-users were forced to use Windows systems. Few people had laptops.
This wasn’t (apparently) a case of the previous administration intentionally creating problems for the new one. It’s just that past administrations haven’t been as technologically experienced as the current one, so things that many of us have learned to take for granted in the last 8 years — instant messaging, email, Facebook — weren’t utilized by the outgoing White House staff, and as such the White House infrastructure didn’t need to support them.
Will Barack Obama’s Twitter account get retired now? It hasn’t been updated since the 19th. Will we see a regularly updated blog at whitehouse.gov? Will new staffers be allowed to access all the social networking sites on which they’ve come to rely?
Initial indicators are positive: the White House counsel approved (at least temporary) use of GMail accounts for the press office so that information could continue to flow. If GMail, with it’s notorious “all your data are belong to us” policies, can get approval, hopefully other sites can get approval in order to bring the White House into 2009.
The lethargic beast that is the Federal Government certainly doesn’t instill in me a lot of confidence that they’re using the best technology available to them (remember, it wasn’t long ago when Senator Stevens described the Internet as a series of tubes!), or using whatever technology they do have to the best of its abilities. Hopefully President Obama gets that house in order.
Via MSNBC
The fact that the new prez seems to have won the battle to keep his BlackBerry is an encouraging sign. Balancing security and accessibility is always going to be a dominant driver of technology in any government – and especially within the White House – but early indications point to an administration that at least gets what it’s all about. Couldn’t say that about the previous tube-dwellers.
I can’t help but think that a McCain administration would have seen the current state of the White House as something of a step up. Everything’s relative when you’re a Luddite, I guess.
Being *physically unable* to type on a keyboard because you are a partially-disabled war veteran does not make you a Luddite.
Please not that refrain. Tons of people with disabilities use technology. If he can dial his cellphone, he can type on a keyboard. Maybe not for extended periods of time, but its not like he actually writes those reports his office produced, so he could have been fine. Besides the issue wasn’t so much about direct ability as opposed to willingness and interest in using technology. That’s what makes most people luddites—not their knowledge or ability, but their willingness and interest.
You’re right. You would know better than the person who has to live with it every day.
No twitter! Obama needs an outlet to his peeps.
You gotta have that stuff {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/prLcB2DPOV_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”You gotta have that stuff ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/vilnkuZ3lA”}}}
Twitter update: just got off the phone with Ahmadinejad… think I’ll start another war http://tinyurl.com/heinekn
“Mac users forced to use Windows.”
That’s nothing, I’m a conservative forced to endure 0.
I nominate this comment for Comment of the Year. If this were Slashdot, I would mod this Funny, Insightful, Sad But True and Flamebait all at once.
Payback for the last eight years I had to endure of W
John P. was talking about Oprah, not Obama
I think they are understanding the importance of security. God help us if they allow facebook in the whitehouse.
There’s a difference between allowing outgoing communications to a site like Facebook and permitting incoming connections to some White House hosted service. Blocking access to Facebook doesn’t make things much more secure: people can still smuggle out sensitive information the old fashioned way (in their underwear!).
I don’t envy the White House sysadmins. They will have a lot of headaches in the months ahead, regardless of what sites are permitted or blocked.
God help us is right. But not because of the technology they let in the white house.
Wait, what are you implying?
I reckon he thinks America was safer with W inside the cage rather than on the loose now. :)
Anyway, the problem is that we’ve had H(WW)WW screw up the country.
Now time for http://www to restore the place to pre-90 sanity and modern technology.
Like, ya know, W! W! W! dot barackobama dot comm… It ain’t gonna change the whole hog, men.
We shouldn’t let fear of what could happen dictate how we act…
there are risks in everything we do, it is what makes life interesting.
You can’t tell me they can’t make it secure to surf to Facebook from the whitehouse. How sad would that be that the most powerful nation in the world couldn’t make it secure to look at Facebook from the whitehouse..lol
Speaking of lol… you just don’t get it do ya…?
The biggest threat Facebook poses to the whitehouse is not the security issue… its the productivity issue!
http://www.wikihow.com/Avoid-Wasting-Time-on-Facebook
I think Obama could ask some small business/startup to make colorful PCs/laptops from which only casual web apps and Facebook can be used.
The rest stay *offline* – physically separate.
The red boxes for the white house work and the blue boxes for the internets – or wait, is it the other way ;-)
Oh and I hope he wont go with the “largest vendor” (read thousands of layoffs ;-) ) and follow the British Navy and the London Stock Exchange…
When did they stop using homing pigeons to transmit messages?
OH HEY. Mark L. Just got your pigeon. Looks like a cat got a chunk of it though unfortunately. What was that last part again?
Yes. That is exactly what they need in the white house! Facebook, Myspace, and all the online, unsecure technologies that are constantly being updated and patched because of holes in their security. I really do want to start receiving messages from Obama on Facebook asking me to view a video or donate my computer resources to send out hugs and kisses. I also wonder if one of the Obama girls will be on the cutest baby contest so that I can see how insignificant my kid is.
Give me a break! His job is to fix this country and all the issues that we have and that task has nothing to do with Twitter, Facebook, or any other social network. I want to hear how Twitter will help with the economy. Actually, if they start taxing Twitter for each message, it might… :-)
Jim, you are obviously painfully unaware how important the internet and its many brainchildren (like Twitter) are to the future of our economy.
But… if you need a concrete example of how Twitter helped fix the economy, try this one on for size: It helped get Obama elected, which might arguably be the most important and significant first step to improving this economy.
If that doesn’t work for you, consider the underlying principle: Twitter could be a mode of communication, a way for Obama and his administration to get their messages to people. Now, you might retort ‘Well, they have tv and the newspapers for that…’ well my friend, if thats your thinking than you havent been paying mucch attention to what is happening to media, and where the younger generations are going. What is so effective about twitter is the fact that it enables two way communication. That in turn, encourages people (which is why it was such an effective campaign strategy) to get on board and do the right thing. While these may seem like trivial things in the context of lowering the interest rate, providing stimulus packages, etc… they are necessary for the morale of the country, which, since our founding has been our strongest asset.
it’s redundant, but appreciated:
“It helped get Obama elected”
+1
“Twitter could be a mode of communication, a way for Obama and his administration to get their messages to people. ”
+1
“That in turn, encourages people (which is why it was such an effective campaign strategy) to get on board and do the right thing.”
PLUS ONE!
Helped him get elected? He had 144,000 followers – what’s the population of the US?
Funny how people will blame Bush for this.
Obama’s crew should have been better prepared.
in all the stories i’ve read about this nobody is blaming BushCo. paranoid much are we?
“This wasn’t (apparently) a case of the previous administration intentionally creating problems for the new one.”
Poor Them, Give me and everyone else a break from these pathetic pieces of information. They don’t have macs, what a damn shame. They are probably just going to take a million out of the Stimulus Package to update the White House Technology. Hey be sure to send me a new MacBook Pro, I would love to ditch my PC at work.
Welcome to the new generation gap…
The internet *IS* a series of tubes. Dontchaknow? I read it here: http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2007/07/30/actually-the-internet-is-a-series-of-tubes.aspx
Of course it is a series of tubes—polyethylene tubes lined with reflective surfaces through which laser light transmits, generally installed inside long PVC or light steel tubes called conduit.
I know this comes from Fox, but I find this more believable : http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481647,00.html
Twits stop dickering, no one could know about the lack of technology in the White House unless you worked there before. I doubt that many former staffers remain on borard. As far as using many of the existing social networks, software applications, mail services, etv – nothing is secure when it comes to the internet – NOTHING!!!
This really does not surprise me. Anyone see that 30rock episode where they didn’t even have pens.
Some research into the Federal Records Act and Presidential Records Act would do many people some good. The White House staff has a lot to comply with from a regulations stand point, making common technology assumptions/desires not as straight-forward as people think. I’d love to hear how using Facebook in the White House complies with the PRA. Facebook isn’t even an enterprise app… so why that was even suggested seems humorous. There are other enterrprise solutions that can be hosted on premise, monitored, logged, etc that would be much more secure… and legal.
Imagine a democracy of the people, by the people, for the people. Information that should be public flows freely through all outlets – traditional and new media. And it flows in both directions. Let me vote on a model of universal health care – and let me cast this vote on whitehouse.gov, Twitter or Facebook – or all three. Imagine WH communications internally including a secure wiki powered by the licensed version of SocialText, and a Yammer-like “enterprise twitter” that’s hosted inside the WH firewall, and so on.
I’m much more interested in imagining a representative republic of/by/for the people, since that’s what we signed on for 200 years ago.
Do we vote for leaders or puppets vis a vis online polls? If it’s the latter, maybe we should save the infrastructure costs and just run legislative proposals through the Everybody Votes Channel on the Wii, since just about everyone has one these days.
… or better still, Nancy Pelosi could one-up her rickroll performance, and post a video of herself playing Wii Fit in her underwear.
That’s a pretty funny logistical problem. Please tell me it didn’t completely take them by surprise. Wait, as I type this, it’s sinking in and getting less and less funny……
They might need new regulations on the limitations of White House staffers using Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 stuffs given that those are data belonging to someone else and can be hacked.
someone should post the apple 1984 superbowl commercial cause “we are all one”.
why do we need anything ever again when its going to provided to us… so much for individualism….
i dont want things decided for me or universal anything… be careful what we wish for…
Yeah they need to update their twitter accounts regulary :D
visit
หางาน
สมัครงาน