Mon 19 Jan 2009
Dawn of a New Era – and the Road Ahead
Posted by ejhoffer under connecting , interoperability , mashup , vna1 Comment
Image by gabirro via Flickr
I’m not generally one to comment on political matters (ok, I never do, other than this this month, for some reason) at least not for political purposes. The linkage here to my typical areas of discussion should soon be readily aparrent. Feel free to comment or email me if not, and I’d be glad to elaborate.
We are at an amazing point in history – and not just because Barack Obama is about to become the first African American president. He is, thanks to his charisma, drive, eloquence, perspective… representative of the transition point we’ve reached. This period of change has been brewing since 2000, and was set in motion in earnest in 2004. His success in getting to this point has been both a catalyst for, and the result of, Americans being ready for what Obama has called “The Change We Need”.
This change is about transcendence, repair, and to borrow from the technical lexicon – interoperability – domestically and internationally, philosophically, infrastructurally. Not to imply that there aren’t still dark days ahead, but we’ve already seen movement across party and racial lines, and participation, if not enthusiasm among the previously non-voting or heretofore politically and/or socially indifferent (- the numb or perhaps even the resigned or capitulated).
In these economic times, and while the world’s perception of the U.S. is at a low, we could ask for nothing greater than the combination of an energized and informed nation with an administration tuned to leveraging and guiding this enthusiasm – to rebuild. Interoperability – between the government and the people, between departments, programs, institutions – connecting the moving parts necessary – is the technology of this new era, to make this change work.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Eric,
Nice to read this. I agree with you, and would love to see this kind of interoperability. But doing consulting work in the government the past few months makes me a little cynical.
Have you read “What Would Google Do?”. It talks about some of this, in the sense of how a Google approach to things could improve government.