10 Things the Next President Should Do About IT

Employers everywhere are complaining about a general lack of IT workers with the skills they need. There is a large pool of IT workers out there; it-

The dirty little secret about the skills shortage in the U.S. is that age discrimination is rampant among employers that don-

Immigrants have made the U.S. such a powerhouse, providing a pool of highly motivated workers. We need the best the world has to offer in terms of skilled workers, but we need to do that in a way that doesn-

Large data centers consume more power and throw off more carbon than just about anything out there. We need to provide incentives for companies to upgrade their data center infrastructures to systems that are more energy-efficient. This isn-

Traffic on the road is a mess in most major cities. If we gave people the tools they need to work more effectively from home using unified communications tools, fewer people would need to get on the road every morning and evening.

Air traffic control is a mess because there are more businesspeople flying small planes cluttering the runway. Most of these people could easily conduct whatever business they are trying to do over a high-definition video conferencing system.

More transparency in business is a very good thing. But because there are so many possible interpretations of the statutes, these regulations have turned into a boondoggle for auditors that wastes time and saps productivity. We need a blue ribbon panel to bring some realistic order to the chaos.

The simple fact of the matter is that the mess we call Health Care IT is substantially driving up costs while simultaneously contributing to lower-quality care. We-

People should be allowed to leave a Web site such as Facebook or MySpace and take all their personal data with them. They should not have to spend hours on the phone with customer support people dealing with a complex process that is designed to deter people from taking their personal data with them. Deciding what organization has your permission to access your personal data, and when, is an inalienable right.

You can create policy about something you don-