At Politico, The 5 best jobs Obama has yet to fill. Craig Gordon and Ben Smith save the best for last -- the newest cabinet-level post, the first ever...
Chief Technology Officer
The list: Vinton Cerf (at right), Google's "chief Internet evangelist;" Julius Genachowski, a former FCC counsel who helped set up Obama's campaign, and Symantec chief John W. Thompson.
Al Gore took a lot of grief for saying he invented the Internet, but Google's Vinton Cerf can come as close as anyone alive to making that boast with a straight face. And he might be in line for this job.
Obama supporters Facebooked and Twittered him into the White House, with a campaign that harnessed the Internet for fundraising and organizing like never before. So it's no surprise that he wants a top-level tech guy, sort of a mega-IT Desk for the government, as well as a policy voice who could work with a new Federal Communications Commission chair (another hot job) to promote Internet-friendly policy.
There are also hundreds of millions of dollars at stake: Governors on Tuesday told Obama that they want to pour some of the billions he'd spent on job-creating infrastructure improvements not merely on roads and bridges but on IT improvements like medical technology systems and broadband.
Someone from Google would certainly seem to have an inside line on the job - with CEO Eric Schmidt already whispering in Obama's ear on tech issues, and Cerf himself kicking in $2,500 toward the transition. Schmidt has said he doesn't want the job.
Related? Let's throw these two together...
Free Internet Access On FCC's Docket, a straightforward explanation by Jennifer Bosavage at ChannelWeb of what outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin may leave as a legacy:
The Federal Communications Commission at a Dec. 18 meeting will debate a plan that, if approved, would result in free Internet access.
Free Internet access continues to be a hot topic as the cell phone industry vociferously opposes it, while the Republican leadership of the FCC entertains proposals in favor of it. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is a champion of the plan, which involves auctioning off 25MHz of the little-used Advanced Wireless Services band and offering at least 25 percent for a free nationwide broadband network. Under the plan, the winning bidder would have to offer free airwaves to at least 95 percent of the U.S. population.
There are two proposals facing the FCC commissioners. One includes a provision that if the free network hasn't reached its goals within five years, its local bandwidth would be transformed into Wi-Fi-like unlicensed spectrum. The other does not. The FCC will vote on one of those versions--which the commissioners will determine themselves--at the upcoming meeting.
Google's National Wireless Network at Daily Wireless:
"Google tries to hide it, but this article provides 8 reasons why one of the world's most successful companies is trying to build a national wireless network."
A literate and informed society needs all its people connected to the "outboard mind."
Cerf and others like him have created the structure, enabled the exchanges we now take for granted. Thirty-five years ago he co-designed the TCP/IP "protocol" -- rules for transferring data that ensure that computers at both ends of the transfer are speaking the same language.
He's an infrastructure guy.
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