Bounced

"For a guy who doesn't keep a computer on his desk for security reasons, Barack Obama is fairly bullish on the use of technology. But if you're wondering why the previous few administrations didn't get the memo on the rise of the digital age, it might have been because their email was down."

When the president took office, his new IT manager quickly realized the previous administration must have been full of luddites. All the computers were old - the one Rahm Emmanuel got had a floppy drive (!!), and the White House email system was regularly down 40% of the time. There was no network redundancy at all, and every single aspect of the information technology was either gravely outdated or poorly implemented.

There was an intensive effort to replace the whole system in the first 40 days and now it's state of the art. Had any kind of real emergency taken place before that time, one that required computers to solve, the White House would have been cut off from the world.

You have to "get" technology today. It's not optional.