Politics

Vivek Kundra. The CTO of the District of Columbia has been named the first US Chief Information Officer. Kundra has a proven track record and gets things implemented.

He wants to implement a “stock-market approach to IT project management”. He also looks for the “Adoption of consumer technologies in business”. This includes having a team that tracks IT so they can pownce on a trend.

This is the CIO role in the White house – NOT the CTO. That still is yet to be named. However, with Vivek Kundra working the internals of technology and the CTO working the Politics, this may be a great combination.

Vivek Kundra was a part of Obama’s transition team and designed Recovery.gov.

One thing you have to hand to the Obama campaign they knew how to use Social Media effectively during the campaign. The Republicans can learn some lessons from this and so can some companies.

Many of the things the Obama camp did cost them nothing but one of their staffers time to make sure they were engaged. One instance was the utilization of Ustream.tv

As many of you know I have been using Ustream for the live portion of my podcast and while I draw small crowd in the middle of the night. The Obama team would put a live Ustream Channel at ever speaking event he went to and thousands would tune in.

This is just the tip of  the iceberg, they used blog commenters and bloggers effectively to neutralize negative commentary. With a dedicated group of staffers watching blogs they would pounce on sites almost instantly when someone had a negative thing to say and used blogs to essentially blast the competition.

Very effective use of technology was key. It made the McCain campaign look weaker as they did not use the tools that many people of all ages use today to communicate. The next person to run for president is going to have to get their social media game on.

Oh and what both camps missed, political podcasters could have been running ads as well in their podcast as they could have had a new message each day.

I was watching the races unfold tonight, as I have done in the past elections. The thing that I found just as interesting as the race itself was all the cool tech the news sources had to cover the election. The computing power in each news room was phenomenal.

First, there was CNN. They had the big screen behind with a map of the US color coding each state. In fact the map only covered half of the “Wall”. I wonder how much that one cost.

Then there is the “Magic Wall” – a big touch screen in which John King would be able to pull up stats and charts. Four big buttons on the left to let him choose how to run the screen. A big yellow box with an “X” in it to close out any windows he had open. No minimize button or task bar though.

In NYC, Times Square had some pretty flashy tech. From the Big screens showing off the candidates, to the ticker marquee that wrapped around the overhang. It was all pretty impressive to see as the race unfolded.

I didn’t see the projection of the US on the Rockefeller ice rink that NBC was going to do. I am still always impressed what we can do with tech nowadays.

The big question I have though is – what happens to that tech after today? Is it still going to be used in day-to-day news reporting, or will it go into the basement?

I can see this change the face of news itself. We have already seen changes in what meteorologists use to display the weather maps. Gone will be the day of a hand held clicker that moves from screen to screen. Not to mention the pull down maps they used to use in the 70’s and 80’s and definitely no magnetic icons of clouds blowing or smiling suns.

Now, you can touch a couple spots on the screen and move around without being tethered to a controller. Zoom in on areas, push it all to the left or right and call up important data. No more green screens, here.

If news stations started using that for the general news, there is no need for someone in the control room to flip though the pictures. Just a touch of the screen and we see a picture or a Google map or whatever the newscaster wants.

At any rate, if CNN is going to put the Magic Wall away, I have a great place in my living room in which they can store it. I just hope it comes with a remote control so I don’t have to get up to touch the screen and change the channel. Of course, I could always train the dog to nuzzle the screen to do that…

Mike Masnick makes a plea on techdirt for a mobile phone vendor to step forward and offer truth in their advertisements and product descriptions. This was prompted by a JD Power report on the declining satisfaction with mobile phone providers in the US. Is there anyone responsible for ensuring that consumers aren’t ripped off in the US?

Here in Australia our competition watchdog also has a consumer protection brief. It has the power to make and enforce rulings, and to levy large fines on companies that do not act in the consumers interest. While they are not immune from political interest they have a good track record of championing the cause of the consumer, even in more complicated modern technology situations. Some of the rulings here that would help in the US are:

All DVD players must be region free.
If a product is advertised as {price}+delivery, then the delivery fee must be stated.
Mobile phone numbers must be portable.
Mobile phones must be unlocked at the request of the customer (although contract break fees are legal)
You cannot advertise ‘unlimited’ downloads unless they are.
All phone contracts must clearly state the minimum cost of the contract.

I know there are other countries like the UK that have similar consumer protection advocates, i.e. ones that can actually enforce. It seems from some of the news stories I see from the US that there is either no such entity there, or it has no teeth.

Political bloggers jailed, detained | Tech News on ZDNet

What happened to Freedom of Speech? I usually do not discuss politics, nor do I get involved in a lot of political talk. There are some things that I just stay away from, but in doing that, I don’t think anyone should have the right to shut down a blog for practicing their Freedom of Speech. Are blogs going to be ok, just as long as they are not political?

I realize this is not in the US, I just found this hard to believe.