As the stimulus package works its way through the Congressional process, more attention is being paid to the technology part of it — both pro and con. Critics question whether increased broadband and construction of research facilities is truly stimulative. Proponents argue for the importance of the transformational investments.
Galen Gruman at InfoWorld offers a different take on the the agenda – A high-tech agenda for President Obama:
In economics and foreign policy, there are competing schools of thoughts that marshal think tanks, academics, activists, and business leaders to argue over and propose policy. The high-tech industry does not do this except in a very simplistic way. That fact is the biggest danger Obama faces in formulating and executing a high-tech agenda.
The tech industry is largely a libertarian one, which encourages creativity and respects differences among people but is perfectly happy with abusive monopolies, socio-economic imbalance, and profiteering. Its worst impulses are borne of meritocracy gone awry: The smartest succeed, and everyone else accepts what the meritocracy decides. Politically, this has kept Silicon Valley, Route 128, and other high-tech centers focused on keeping government out of the way so they can pursue economic and technology domination unfettered. Companies like Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Oracle, Microsoft, Sun, and Verizon are genuinely puzzled when people object to using their success in technology areas to lock out competitors and lock in customers to an ever-widening area of their own products. In the extreme version of this worldview, government is bad and/or incompetent, and customers are cattle.
But the high-tech industry also has a neo-socialist component, which distrusts both government and business. The positive aspect of this ideology engendered the open source movement and provided some balance to the techno-meritocracy in areas such as privacy and information access. But its extreme also promotes dubious ideas such as making software and Internet access free for all that are simply unworkable in the real world.
Both ideologies take for granted that technology is good, and if left unfettered goodness will prevail. There’s an extreme naiveté that makes the high-tech industry as a whole one unequipped to lead efforts for the greater national good. Certainly there are individuals quite capable of that leadership, but the Obama administration should be very cautious in letting the high-tech industry as a whole try to set any agenda.
Instead, start with the policy agenda — what is good for the nation and people as a whole — and put the high-tech industry in the position of having to deliver on that policy agenda. It will do better executing than leading. With that in mind, my recommended tech agenda starts with policy proposals, not with technologies per se.
He then goes on to talk about a number of the hot button IT issues: broadband, outsourcing, medical records, privacy and national identity system, e-government, and research priorities.
An interesting analysis. I especially agree with the notion of starting with problems and goals and then turning to IT as a means of solution.
I would argue, however, that he falls into the same trap as he argues against — starting with the technology. The agenda he talks about is not a “technology” agenda, nor an “innovation” agenda. It is an “information technology” agenda. The agenda he proposes is a good starting point. But it needs to be greatly expanded to include all of innovation policy.