Our use, or lack of use, of technology in government is schizophrenic.  Government funded R+D projects played a role in nearly every major breakthrough in the last century: sending man to the moon, creating the internet, aircraft carriers, and nuclear power are clear examples.  Yet when it comes to the operating model in Washington, they still work like, um Washington did.

We need intelligent implementation technology in government more than ever.  Tech is obviously not the solution to gov problems, but it can at least bring us to what they call in business "competitive parity" by bringing the same technologies that businesses and consumers use into governing processes.

Earlier in his campaign, Obama said:

"One of the things I'm excited about is to transfer what we've learned from this campaign in using technology into government," he said. "There are examples of that all throughout our government that can remove bureaucracy, eliminate red tape, [and] make the whole process more customer-friendly. They do it in the private sector all the time."

(source: MSNBC's Rachel Maddow)

This week Obama launched Change.gov  Obama promises to blog and use the site to continue to engage citizens via the social web.  Hopefully it's a sign of things to come from the President that gave us Google for Government.

I'm going to say something I haven't said in nearly 8 years. I'm so proud to live in the USA. There's still much work to be done to put this country back on track. Keep the spirit alive! Stay involved.
Check out BETHECHANGE to see how you can get involved and be a part of the new vision and rebirth of America.