I like to think of Information Technology (IT) as a means of improving efficiency. Every now and then, however, things go awry and wind up costing a lot of money. In federal procurement, the canonical example is the 1983 “$600 toilet seat,” which, adjusted for inflation, returns to the news every decade or so. You are about to see history repeat itself.
Let’s drop in on Senate hearings in 1994, to find out what happened to that toilet seat from 1983:
Senator GRASSLEY: The Defense Department wants you to believe that they are making dramatic changes in the way things are purchased, particularly spare parts. I think the most outstanding example is the $600 toilet seat of 1983. And we thought that we had that problem taken care of and, 16 [sic] years later, the $600 toilet seat was costing $1800.
Today InfoWorld reported that federal CIO Vivek Kundra unveiled a new General Services Administration (GSA) initiative called Apps.gov. That initiative is supposed to solve a common problem of federal IT procurement:
Kundra said that the government could save a lot of money by using many of the Web-based and cloud technologies that are already available to consumers. It costs the U.S. Transport Safety Administration (TSA) $600,000 to set up a blog, he said. By contrast, consumers can get a Blogger account free.
“If in our lives, we can go online and provision Webmail within a matter of minutes, why must the government spend billions and billions of dollars on information that may not be sensitive in nature?” he said.
Good question. I sure hope this TSA blog, which DOES run on Blogger, cost taxpayers a lot less than $600,000 to set up. The TSA blog could be a showcase of how government agencies use inexpensive consumer technology to accomplish their mission.
But will any savings materialize? How much, do you think, will the government pay to set up a blog in 2020?
Update: The InfoWorld article quoted above doesn’t quite convey the full context of Mr. Kundra’s remarks. His speech, formerly on YouTube, but now removed, was worth watching.
Chris Anderson’s latest book, 
President Obama’s comment about greedy doctors during last Wednesday’s press conference strikes a nerve because it relates not only to medicine, but to any profession, including my own.
Today’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Letters to the Editor section contains this profound missive:
As I’m a sucker for just about every consumer technology that comes down the pike, I had to try Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs) in my new house when they first appeared on the consumer market in 1995. I quickly discovered that the expensive (about $25 in today’s money) bulbs were not very bright, so I installed them in relatively inaccessible places like the basement crawl space, hoping that the manufacturer’s claims of long life would come true. Alas, the bulbs died young. Not recognizing the environmental hazard, I tossed the dead bulbs in the trash and forgot about them.
Many bloggers, including respected author Nicholas Carr, 
If you’re like me, you strive for a low profile while traveling. You want to avoid the watchful eyes of every nosy Tom, Dick, and Harriet as you fly the