{"id":73,"date":"2015-07-08T21:12:43","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T21:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/?p=73"},"modified":"2015-07-09T15:34:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T15:34:57","slug":"stealth-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/stealth-startup\/","title":{"rendered":"Stealth Startup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/photodune-4048532-technology-xs.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-82 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/photodune-4048532-technology-xs-300x195.jpg\" alt=\"photodune-4048532-technology-xs\" width=\"300\" height=\"195\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/photodune-4048532-technology-xs-300x195.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/photodune-4048532-technology-xs.jpg 555w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>It\u2019s a very intriguing name for Obama\u2019s quest to recruit top talent from the likes of Google and Facebook. While <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3046756\/obama-and-his-geeks?utm_source=mailchimp&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&amp;position=2&amp;partner=newsletter&amp;campaign_date=06152015\">this article in Fast Company<\/a> is long, it\u2019s a very interesting one, focusing on the mission of these top recruits \u2013 to \u201creboot\u201d how government works.<\/p>\n<p>Most of these recruits are young professionals that were on successful career tracks with public companies. What made them take a salary cut, move from one coast to another and work for the government is brilliantly explained in this article. Without a doubt, the transfixing power of creating technology that will make life easier for millions of people, had a lot to do with the decision to take a technology job in Obama\u2019s administration. The article explains what inspires these young men and women and helps us more fully understand their work ethics.<\/p>\n<p>We highly recommend that you put some time aside at lunch, or at the end of the day to <a title=\"Obama's Stealth Startup\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3046756\/obama-and-his-geeks?utm_source=mailchimp&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=fast-company-daily-newsletter&amp;position=2&amp;partner=newsletter&amp;campaign_date=06152015\">read the entire article,<\/a> but here are some of the high points.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Healthcare.gov<\/strong> \u2013 remember when the site just didn\u2019t work? People were getting locked up and the site froze from too many visitors. It wasn\u2019t the result of a dearth of engineering talent in the DC area, but rather the technique they used to build the site. Instead of one huge project, the fix-it team rolled out the site in stages \u2013 testing it, improving it and repeating the process to get the right outcome. It\u2019s a strategy used by most public companies in order to build software that works. It\u2019s called building \u201cagile\u201d software.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Making Government Work Better \u2013 <\/strong>The young people recruited for these government projects aren\u2019t just software engineers, but according to the article, \u201cthey\u2019re data scientist, user-experience gurus, product managers and design savants.\u201d Making the user experience better on any platform is what they strive for. \u201cFixing bugs\u201d for software companies is not very inspirational. But solving problems that have plagued the government for years is both satisfying and intriguing. These young professionals are uniquely capable of handling these \u201cplanet-sized\u201d websites, since they\u2019ve worked on huge sites solving various problems while creating extraordinary growth for their former companies.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Changing Minds About the Slowness of Government \u2013 <\/strong>According to this group of talented professionals, \u201cEverything else is getting done faster.\u201d The technology industry is built on the belief that processes can become twice as efficient every two years. Because that belief is so integral to their work, these professionals have a hunger for increased performance. If what we do online every day is completed far faster than before, then the same should be true for the Federal government.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Washington, the \u201cGo-To\u201d Place for Technology Gurus<\/strong> \u2013 The folks now being lured to DC are arguably among the very best. Talent is extremely important, but so is attitude, patience, collaboration and the ability to work within the structure of the government. According to the article, candidates are screened for EQ \u2013 that is, emotional intelligence. The workload within the Federal Government is huge. Can this team create enough momentum, before Obama\u2019s second term ends, to achieve a stable environment and re-energize government agencies?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These technology gurus believe they\u2019ve already had an impact. They can gauge improvement on various sites &#8211; from the Immigration site to the Veterans website. Interestingly enough, the recruitment team is not expecting these young professionals to make a career out of the Federal Government. But rather to enlist them for a year or two to accomplish real change. As a result, there is now a third option open to technology gurus \u2013 a start-up, a big company and now, Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a very intriguing name for Obama\u2019s quest to recruit top talent from the likes of Google and Facebook. While this article in Fast Company is long, it\u2019s a very interesting one, focusing on the mission of these top recruits \u2013 to \u201creboot\u201d how government works. Most of these recruits are young professionals that were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,6,5,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}