Who's on First?

Some very interesting discussions around governance down at the OGI conference.

• Aneesh Chopra, the CTO, has been described as Mr. Outside the government.
• Vivek Kundra, the CIO, will be Mr. Inside.

Security cuts across all of the above so not certain how the new White House cyber chief interacts.

I asked one official about how they would work together since each reports up different chains, and he just laughed at me. “You are so old school,” he said. “That’s the command-and-control world. They all work on their own and take responsibility for letting each other know what is going on.”

I learned Facebook. I guess I can learn about this leaderless organization theory.

Also some questions about what to read into the jobs that are still open:

• DOD CIO. I haven’t even heard rumors. Dave Wennergren, the deputy CIO (and deputy assistant secretary) at DOD, is a very capable career man, but it seems strange that the top job, which has very high visibility, hasn’t been filled. If you have heard of some candidates, let me know.
• Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. Again there is a very capable deputy in place (Leslie Field, who also has the acting administrator title), so no perceived rush. But some people are saying it means that procurement is not a priority for this administration. Yesterday Vivek Kundra mentioned the need to tackle procurement reform. He focused in on Paperwork Reduction Act and cookies policy, but I think this is one the first times I have ever heard procurement reform mentioned by Obama people — fixed price contract rules don’t count.
• Cybersecurity czar. This is a tough one as everyone has heard of someone who has been offered the job and said no. Concerns seem to be this is a thankless job that will inevitably have some intrusion or incident and no one wants to be person trying to explain that. Names still floating include Melissa Hathaway and former Congressman Tom Davis. When asked, Davis said the right things about wanting to stay at Deloitte, but it’s hard to turn down the president. So will be interesting to see if the administration wants him enough to have the president make the call.

-aa