Computerworld: Is the U.S. ready for its first BlackBerry president?

[highplainsdem]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9112630&intsrc=news_ts_head

By Stephen Lawson

August 14, 2008 (IDG News Service) The next U.S. president could shape cybersecurity, government research initiatives, intellectual property laws and wired and wireless communications services in ways that affect both enterprise IT executives and average citizens. Yet some experts say he could handle all this without having Twittered, texted or even used a PC, although his familiarity with information technologies could be crucial to his policies.

Much has been made in the media of a seemingly wide gulf in tech smarts between Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has described letting his wife handle his computer tasks, and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who has appeared on video using a BlackBerry while walking down the street.

President George W. Bush has been ridiculed for talking about rumors on "the Internets," but only one other president has even been in office in the age of the Web, laptops and ubiquitous cell phones. The expectation that a president "gets it" regarding IT is a fairly new one. Yet whatever the result of the November election, cutting-edge technology seems to be entering the realm of elected officials for good.

About half the members of the U.S. Senate use BlackBerrys, according to Louis Libin, CEO of unified communications vendor PhoneFusion, who has set up the networks for the past five Democratic and Republican nominating conventions. Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and McCain rival, gave every member of his campaign team a BlackBerry and carried one himself, according to David Palmer, a senior consultant and technical architect at Molecular, a digital marketing company that handled Romney's Web site.

And on Monday, Obama announced via the microblogging site Twitter that he would alert his supporters via text message immediately after he chooses his running mate for vice president.

Several observers in the IT industry and scholars who study the intersection of technology and policy say it will be important for future presidents to grasp IT issues.

"To the extent that we think the Internet economy...is a major source of value-creating activity in the U.S. economy and a major source of social experience for lots of Americans, it seems to me really critical that the president understand what that's about," said Steven Weber, a professor of political science at UC Berkeley.

Some believe IT issues are so central that they should guide the choice of a chief executive.

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More at the link -- this is a two-page article.

[senseandsensibility]

1. Al Gore was using a blackberry during the 2000 election

I remember it clearly because that was the first time I heard the term.

[seafan]

2. Be careful of what we might wish for.....

Is the U.S. ready for its first BlackBerry president?, August 14, 2008







Look at the shelf behind him.




We still haven't recovered the destroyed electronic evidence of the his brother's administration's crimes.


We may never.