John Kamensky's Deep Thoughts

I don't link to John Kamensky's awesome blog for the IBM Center for the Business of Government nearly as often as I should, in part because I get caught up in the news cycle a lot of the time, and he's often doing important thinking about questions a little bit outside the news cycle. But I'm home sick today (thus the slow blogging folks, sorry) and feeling a little removed from the news cycle myself, so I thought this would be an opportune time to call attention to this very smart post on what the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Performance Officer will actually do.

I think he inadvertently raises two larger points. First, czars without clearly defined kingdoms are kind of stuck. A lot of attention's been paid to who Obama is going to slot into the CTO and CPO gigs, but there's been a much less effective debate about what those people will actually do. It's unlikely to get clearer now that Nancy Killefer's withdrawn from her nomination to be CPO and take a linked deputy position at OMB. Second, management czars get even less attention, at least from mainstream press. It's really sad to me that Killefer's withdrawal will get far more ink than what she was actually set up to do.

But really, all of this is just a way of saying you should read John Kamensky's blog, if you're not already.