Of the motivation both for my term of duty in Public Service as well as why i wanted to write the book. Your subtitle is how new technologies can transform government. How does the u. S. Government use technology and does it do it successfully . We are moving in the right direction. I try to spend a lot of my time thinking about American History in the book. If we go back to our Founding Fathers we have a long tradition of having government not just keep pace, but often lead the private sector in the use of technology to solve problems. I noted that one of the founding technologies of ibm had its origins in a Census Bureau employee who faced insurmountable odds to calculate the number of people that were in this country in the late 1800s. Governments had long history of being innovative and having the capability to solve and deliver Better Services. It has been the last several decades we have seen the big divergence between the capacity of the private sector and the capacity of the public. I think we are ready to prime ourselves for closing that gap. Why did that diversity happen . There are lots of reasons. In the 1990s, late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a bipartisan movement it is bipartisan to modernize the government. At that time while there was political consensus to modernize, there was not as much technological capacity. At the time president clinton and Vice President al gore launched their reinventing government initiative, for example, there were only some 200 plus websites in the world wide web. While that bipartisan commitment delivered great results, they were largely management reforms. The Technology Today really had not reached what we are seeing in the private sector with big data, mobile technologies, Cloud Computing. These are more recent capabilities and for history, culture, acquisition, these have not been part of our operational dna in the Public Sector and that is closing. What was your goal when you became the chief Technology Officer . To serve my president. To make sure every policy he advanced was thoughtfully infused with the power and potential of technology, data and innovation. As an enabler to advance the broader agenda he put forward whether it be fixing health care, helping us not only recovering but building upon a new foundation for our recovery and strengthening the Public Safety system. What were some of the issues you ran into in that position . First and foremost, we struggled from three perspectives if you take a big picture of this. First and foremost, you are walking into an environment where there are longstanding ways of operating. If you ask the average employee in the government how likely are you to be able to open up your information to the public . The perception was i cannot. I have limits. I have a cultural or technical or maybe even a policy barrier that says i cannot open up. We have walked into an environment where some of the entrenched circumstances made it more difficult to achieve some of the objectives. The second thing we came across was a bit of a i wouldnt call it a gap in technology, but i might say that is shorthand for it. I literally walked in on the first day, had a computer that was connected to the internet but would not allow me to access my Linkedin Profile or any other social media sites for fear it may create risks on the privacy and security front for white house personnel. I was literally constrained in my literal access to technology. Last but not least, we have had i would not call that much of a talent gap but if you think about the private sector, the idea of new Product Development and innovation had been central to the success of large swaths of our american economy. We do not have that same r d focus on transforming Government Services delivery. That was not a muscle we historically worked on in the proverbial gym. With these limits and constraints, the one advantage we had that trumped all of it was a president who focused on this and committed on day one. That really trumped a lot of the limits we saw in those early days. Do you think you made headway in the culture gap . We have planted a lot of seeds and i am very proud my successor has built on those seeds. With president obamas full support, we are seeing a much broader impact on the principles that i outlined. The opportunity to open up more data, collaborate with the private sector to lower barriers of entry in the form of improving standards, thinking about tapping new problem solvers. On occasion, like the recovering healthcare. Gov, putting together a lean startup and how you organize and manage such things so that specific projects get delivered at Internet Speed and with success as opposed to some of the more traditional challenges. In your book, you talk about the procurement process. Let me just quote the government has gotten more bigger, more bloated and not necessarily better in its modern acquisition culture. Accepting of exorbitant costs and lengthy delays, rarely considering novel alternatives, etc. That is a legacy born of relatively good intentions and that is a couple of things. One, in the interest of fair play, we wanted to make sure everybody had a shot to compete for government business. Thus, you have to be very specific in what you are looking for so you have an objective way of evaluating whether you pick a partner a or partner b to provide a that service. That is great if you are buying furniture or pencils because you know what those things are. But, if you are trying to find a new way of serving Health Insurance to the American People through digital means, it may not be as easy to define on the outset all the thousands of requirements one would otherwise do to make a fair and open comparison. The notion of Agile Development that will build, learn, engage the public, add revisions, roll out new capabilities that process has a lot more to do with procuring talent and it does particular approaches to software development. There has been a myth busting that needed to be done to say we cannot do some of these things. We learned in the procurement cycle that fixing procurement is in part a congressional issue. We need to get laws on the book that create more openness. It is also a sort of cleaning up operational, administrative capabilities and you see what the president has launched with the new u. S. Digital service. One of its clear mandates its the myth bust on what can or cannot be done on procurement. You are going to see some good things coming ahead on account of the fact that some of the stuff can be done administratively. There was a chief Technology Officer which was you for a while. There is a federal chief Information Officer. Now there is a u. S. Digital services administrator. Are we starting a little bit of overlap here . No, let me be clear why this is so critical. At the outset when the president appointed the chief Technology Officer, heaving them the assistant to the president which makes them a policy advisor. As we look at the world that i played and how my successor tied park place, it is a direct report to the president. We meet every morning and engage in the policy issues to say as we craft new policy or reform old policies and manage really important initiatives on behalf of the white house, are we property utilizing technology, data and innovation . It is a collaborative role because Health Care Reforms led by the team focused on Health Care Reform there are passages in there to make sure we have a modern i. T. Infused infrastructure for the healthcare system. That is an important role. The government also manages 80 billion of i. T. Spending. We want to be effective and efficient in how you organize your purchasing power and operationalize the capability that is the servers that operate the medicare system or how we operate websites and immigration. We have a chief Information Officer who sets basically agencywide or administrationwide policy on how we better utilize the 80 billion. Get more with less. As an extension of these two voices, policy focused on the external and policy to fix the internal operations, you are now starting to see more support structures in place. The Digital Services arm is a support structure to the chief Information Officer to make government work better. That is a very natural extension of the work we started earlier. When it comes to that 80 billion spent on i. T. , is it centralized . Is it coordinated . Should it be . I find this a tough question because one can make the argument that centralization leads to economy of scale but you lose that focus on instate applications. It will be a dynamic continuum based on the need and the circumstances in question. At a minimum, you want to make sure that every decision at the agency level is made with the best information at hand as to how to go about solving the problem. As an example the ultimate in centralized is the use of Cloud Computing technology whether they are provided by the government or the private sector or through hybrid means. It might be the best example that an agency says i am going to use the public cloud to service my infrastructure needs to provide a function critical to my department, but in another circumstance, i might want to have a lot of that infrastructure on premise so i can actually meet the need. It is not a onesizefitsall in how you manage the moneys. It is to make sure each decision is infused with the best decisions. What are my options for infrastructure, how do i staff up and get the talent i need to produce the applications . How to gauge my customer in a better way so they know what they are looking for . How might i open up as many of these interfaces as possible so others can build Better Services to meet the needs of the American People . Something else you address in your book is whether or not those services should be contracted out or managed by a dedicated federal law force. If there is one message in the book to take away is the notion that an innovative state is characterized by handshakes and handoffs. It speaks to your question as to who should do what. The handshakes are what washingtons been doing lately. Maybe behind the curtain and not as well reported in the media which is shaking hands on some of the key principles. Opening up data, collaborative work around standards, issuing challenges and so forth. That means the opportunity to have a more open government starts with a bipartisan commitment to lay that foundation. What is critical in an innovative state is you are handing off to the American People. Innovators and the public, private, academic, federal, state and local levels of government to take that data and to build more interesting products and services. Lets take weather. You and i have the right to visit weather. Gov. Wonderful service. Exciting that we have all of the capability to predict the weather and great to have a website that the Government Supports that make sure you can see what you want to see. If that was the only option we face, if that was the only way we can learn what to wear today or tomorrow, we would be constrainted and limited and frustrated. The weather bureau, the agency that is responsible for the weather service, has opened up the underlying data that fuels weather. Gov and invites weather. Com, yahoo weather apps, your print and tv friends to do whatever they will on top of that data. Now we have a 5 billion private industry born in large part because we have opened up all that sensor, satellite data which otherwise would be cost prohibitive for just one company. Imagine each company had to build their own Satellite Network of sensors for weather data. It does not make sense. We have that burden as a public utility. If we do that across health, energy, education, safety, all these domains of government, we can start to see a much more vibrant innovative state which is not characterized by is the governments website working but rather can i get the information i need whether i access it directly from the government or through these incredibly more innovative, personalized services. Even healthcare. Gov has a handoff. The u. S. News world report, one of its first assignments was launching the Health Insurance finder powered by the data that we released in the first version of healthcare. Gov back in july 2010 focusing on an inventory of all public and private Insurance Options that were available. That website is still live today. You can find a wonderful User Experience but the information that powers it is provided by the federal government. Take it to a 2. 0. How else would this system of open government work in health care . It is an amazing opportunity because if you asked the question what do we ultimately want . Whether you are republican or democrat, you want a system that is high quality, lower cost and deliver satisfaction that people will consume. The former administrator of medicare and medicaid refers to this as the triple aim. I think it is bipartisan. One of the ways you get there is you realize a third of the money we spend in health care is wasted and wasted could be defined as you couldve gotten care at a cheaper setting that mightve actually been better for you or you should not have sought that particular care at that time if you had known you are getting worse if you sought earlier treatment and prevented some of the need to have that surgical procedure down the road. Where is the biggest source of data on the performance of our Health Care System . In one location, it is the medicare claims file and for the first time we are opening up that data, protecting patient privacy to be sure, but making sure folks get a handle on if i am at risk of blindness, should i see dr. X or dr. Y and what is the likelihood if i see dr. X he or she will prescribe for me a cheaper 50 drug to avoid blindness versus a 2000 drug. That practice pattern is now transparent and public so people can start making informed decisions about the care they seek. Support services are increasingly being born to help aid you in making those decisions. What are some of the security and privacy concerns, especially when it comes to health care Electronic Health care. The most important thing we must do is to strengthen if we are going to use the internet as a way to transform the relationship between the American People and the government and its service delivery, we need to strengthen the internet so that it can provide more secure privacy protecting capabilities. I refer to this as an internet within the internet. In health care, it is the birth of the health internet. You and i may email each other to schedule a visit, but today you and your doctor or not emailing your sensitive medical records on your Gmail Account because that doesnt meet the security standards. Thankfully, we work collaboratively with the private sector and say can we use email and add some encryption and security that were not present in the traditional forms that are available . Within 90 days, a coalition of public and private stakeholders came together and said lets achieve consensus on what the specifications are for safe secure email. Today, every american could get a secure health email account that is called the direct project where you can get a direct standardized email system. It is in many cases free. I have one from microsoft. I get all my Health Records safely to me. You can choose another option if youd like. That will continue to flourish. You want to take advantage of the internet as a communications medium, but you want to have an internet on top of the internet that is more secure and reliable and more focused on your privacy. That is coming and working in the collaborative spirit to be brought to you. How did you become secretary of technology in virginia . I was a constituent of virginia and working in the private sector. At a firm called the Advisory Board company writing Research Studies among things. How to use the internet to make an impact on health care. Governor mark warner asked if i would serve on a couple of his commissions. He asked me to serve on the medicaid board and he asked me to serve on a task force called Electronic Health records task force. He said we have to find a way to utilize all these technologies to modernize health care. After i had done that, when governor kane was elected, governor warner said aneesh served me pretty well. I met with governor kane and we had a very specific conversation about Electronic Health records. His vision of a cabinet position called secretary of technology was not to go off and do their own work but to collaborate with the Health Secretary and say how might we bring some technology to support your mission or Public Safety . That is essentially the pitch i made and the conversation we had. Had a wonderful time. Virginia is the best managed state, best place to raise a family and it has a long bipartisan tradition in ensuring we infuse our government with the best technologies and the most appropriate models for innovation to solve problems. People listening to this conversation are going to say that is all great and