“The White House CIO office had one data center, said Colangelo. “We had no redundancy,” he said
…
“When it was all said and done, in the first 40 days of the administration we were down 23% of the time,” said Colangelo. ”
You thought that the most powerful man on the planet had state-of-the-art tech? Or, heck, even an email server that worked? No, actually it is worse than what an impoverished kid living in a hut in Brazil gets for free from Gmail.
“Colangelo was also open to new ideas.
An intern in the Council of Economic Advisors, who had a computer science background but was working on projects unrelated to his training, sparked the effort. When asked to update a spreadsheet or a memo, he automated it using macros or some other type of technology to make it move faster. ”
Wait, “using macros” was a “new idea”? The intern probably blew the office away when he introduced them to “track changes.”
“The program also led to the development of survey tools, memo generators, and an online tool that replaced paper-based goods and services processing.
“I’m proud of what we’ve done here,” said Colangelo. ”
You should be, Mr. Colangelo. You should be. The six-figure salary that you earn to deliver 1990’s tech is not nearly the compensation that you deserve for producing such a monumental achievement.
Now, if only we could get these guys to run our healthcare system…
Ned "The Head" Ryerson 