Comments | multiplexer: Obama vs. George Bush’s Computers

multiplexer

Obama vs. George Bush’s Computers

Jan 19, 2009 14:49

I read this morning on Politico (sorry, I misplaced the link) that the Obama staffers have been informed that they are no longer allowed to use IM. Obama himself won his fight of Treasury Department vs. Blackberry (although they are making him move to one of the Blackberries approved by the NSA and armored for in theater combat which, as a ( Read more... )

politics, technology

Comments 4

Jobs and technology fdmts January 19 2009, 16:28:17 UTC

Probably no surprise to you, but I decided a long time ago that the job of technology (and its administrators) is to make the people who do the work more productive. There are some cases where the IT folks will be the best judge of what makes a person effective ... but 75 times out of 100, the person who is doing the job is the best judge of what makes them most effective.

Security is a valid concern. So is maintainability and stability. There do exist geeks who will be unhappy unless they are running something that nobody else in the office is running. They should encounter pushback.

I guess that what I'm trying to say is: If the best and the brightest think that IM will help them stay at the top of their game, then the response from their IT organization should be "what platform do you want, and do you mind if we take two weeks for an audit first." Anything else should get those folks fired.

Re: Jobs and technology multiplexer January 19 2009, 16:57:59 UTC

I am not 100% certain, because I only get drips and drabs of what WH IT is like, but I understand --

1. You have a bunch of career people who cannot get fired doing IT.
2. There is tons of push for secure and functional IT on the road but apparently not in the offices.
3. The WH IT is where computer people go to die and all technology goes to die.
4. Some of these pushes have to come from the top.

If you have a luddite Administration and career computer people who can barely run the whitehoues.gov website, I am not really surprised. But I do hope beyond hope that the Obama people start making their internal IT work for them, because not having essential services is an embarrassment. Having internal IM is not a particularly hard service to stand up or keep inside.

Re: Jobs and technology thealien January 20 2009, 02:36:34 UTC

I'm not really sure 75% of people on an individual level actually know what they need in specific.

But of course, seeing to the needs of your users is the whole point.

XMPP/Jabber Server oneiromancer666 February 1 2009, 20:22:18 UTC

"they apparently don’t have Microsoft Communicator IM server hooked up internally to their Outlook server, likely because no one knew they could do that."

Since they are opposing the use of external IM servers for security reasons, I would not trust an IM server which also doubles as an e-mail server to the outside world, especially not one that was running Microsoft software since monoculture makes it an easy target. I would setup an internal XMPP/Jabber server for secure instant messaging.