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        MobileBeat Nest is a brand new space at our upcoming MobileBeat event that
        spotlights a select number of emerging companies that are truly disrupting
        in the area of\u00a0mobile.","title":"Announcing the MobileBeat Nest:  A hub
        for emerging mobile\u00a0disruptors","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:32:04Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/announcing-the-mobilebeat-nest-a-hub-for-emerging-mobile-disruptors/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:32:02Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590196,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T11:59:05Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"The
        Turkish government has lifted its ban on major streaming video community YouTube,
        the country announced today.","title":"Turkey finally stops blocking access
        to\u00a0YouTube","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:32:02Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/turkey-finally-stops-blocking-access-to-youtube/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:32:00Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590195,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T12:37:26Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Netflix
        keeps edging away from\u00a0Silverlight, Microsoft\u2019s multimedia plugin.","title":"Netflix
        is slowly killing off Silverlight & switching to HTML5, with Safari support
        starting\u00a0today","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:32:00Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/netflix-is-slowly-killing-off-silverlight-switching-to-html5-with-safari-support-starting-today/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:58Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590194,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T07:10:55Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Guest
        Post French policed announced Sunday they\u00a0had\u00a0arrested a suspect
        in the terror attack against the Jewish Museum in Brussels, where four innocent
        people were\u00a0shot dead last week.","title":"What the Jewish Museum shooting
        tells us about face-recognition technology","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:58Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/what-the-jewish-museum-shooting-tells-us-about-face-recognition-technology/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590193,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T07:49:14Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"For
        AT&T to pull off its $48.5 billion acquisition of satellite TV service provider
        DirecTV, the company is willing to promise access to ultra high-speed Internet.","title":"AT&T
        says it\u2019ll bring gigabit Internet to 2M homes if DirecTV deal gets\u00a0approved","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:56Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/att-says-itll-bring-gigabit-internet-to-2m-homes-if-directv-deal-gets-approved/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:54Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590192,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T09:53:53Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Netflix
        is sick of catching all of the blame when its streaming-video service lags\u00a0or
        can\u2019t deliver high-definition quality content. The company\u2019s new
        strategy? Blame Verizon \u2014 directly in the video player as the stream
        loads.","title":"Crappy video stream? Netflix blames Verizon with new in-player\u00a0message","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:54Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/crappy-video-stream-netflix-blames-verizon-with-new-in-player-message/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590191,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T13:54:41Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Pixar,
        the animated movie company behind movies such as Toy Story, Cars, The Incredibles,
        and many\u00a0more, is releasing a magical gift of software to the masses.","title":"Computer
        graphics geeks, this one\u2019s for you: Pixar will release its animation
        software for\u00a0free","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:52Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/computer-graphics-geeks-this-ones-for-you-pixar-will-release-its-animation-software-for-free/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590190,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-05T08:16:19Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Barnes
        & Noble is partnering with Samsung on a new line of Nook-branded tablets,
        the companies announced today.","title":"Barnes & Noble taps Samsung to build
        its next Nook\u00a0tablet","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:50Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/05/barnes-noble-taps-samsung-to-build-its-next-nook-tablet/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590189,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-05T10:43:41Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Today
        Shelby.tv, a former graduate of the Techstars startup incubator, announced
        that it has been acquired by Samsung.","title":"Samsung snaps up struggling
        video streaming service Shelby.tv & promptly shuts it down\u00a0(UPDATED)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:48Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/05/samsung-snaps-up-struggling-video-streaming-startup-shelby-tv/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:46Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590188,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-05T11:23:11Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"The
        embattled live TV streaming service Aereo can now be accessed on the living
        room\u00a0TV using Google\u2019s Chomecast.","title":"And now, you can watch
        broadcast TV on Google Chromecast in 11\u00a0cities","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:46Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/05/aereo-is-now-live-on-google-chromecast-in-11-cities/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590187,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-05T12:44:15Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"A
        publisher feud with Amazon just got the Colbert bump. Last night, the soon-to-be
        host of the Tonight Show literally gave Jeff Bezos the middle finger over
        his company\u2019s questionable tactics against the Hachette publishing company,
        which sells some of Colbert\u2019s\u00a0books.","title":"Watch Colbert give
        Amazon chief Jeff Bezos the middle finger for bad publisher\u00a0tactics","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:44Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/05/watch-colbert-give-amazon-chief-jeff-bezos-the-middle-finger-for-bad-publisher-tactics/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:42Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590186,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-05T17:44:28Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Amazon\u2019s
        feud with major book publishers could get worse before it gets better.","title":"Amazon
        may soon face fights with two more major book\u00a0publishers","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:42Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/05/amazon-may-soon-face-fights-with-two-more-major-book-publishers/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:40Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590185,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-05T18:12:00Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"When
        big phone companies get into serious public relations problems, they usually
        call the lawyers first and ask questions later. That\u2019s exactly what Verizon
        did after Netflix began posting messages at its site\u00a0calling out the
        carrier for poor video streams on Wednesday.","title":"Netflix is name-checking
        Verizon for its crap network \u2014 and Verizon doesn\u2019t like it one\u00a0bit","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:40Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/05/netflix-is-name-checking-verizon-for-its-crap-network-and-verizon-doesnt-like-it-one-bit/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:38Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590184,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T11:15:12Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"It\u2019s
        ad execs all the way down: Twitter is making a documentary about itself for
        the benefit of the advertising crowd\u00a0gathered at the Cannes film festival.","title":"Twitter
        documentary for ad execs to feature ad execs watching Twitter documentary
        for ad\u00a0execs","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:38Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/twitter-documentary-for-ad-execs-to-feature-ad-execs-watching-twitter-documentary-for-ad-execs/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:36Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590183,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T11:43:51Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Google
        is in talks to purchase streaming music service Songza in a deal worth $15
        million, according to a New York Post report published today.","title":"Google
        may scoop up music-service Songza for\u00a0$15M","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:36Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/google-buys-songza/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:35Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590182,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T13:00:53Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Sponsored
        Post The Tabby Awards judging panel has shortlisted the best apps and games
        for Android and iPad tablets. Now is the time for tablet users to weigh in
        by voting for the Tabby Awards Users\u2019\u00a0Choice.","title":"Here are
        the 92 best iPad & Android tablet apps. You decide which one wins the\u00a0crown","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:34Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/here-are-the-92-best-ipad-android-tablet-apps-you-decide-which-one-wins-the-crown/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:33Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590181,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T14:30:10Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Imagine
        an industry where a few companies make billions of dollars by exerting strict
        control over valuable information \u2014 while paying the people who produce
        that information nothing at all.","title":"Dylan\u2019s Desk: Watch this multi-billion-dollar
        industry evaporate\u00a0overnight","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:32Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/dylans-desk-watch-this-multi-billion-dollar-industry-evaporate-overnight/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:31Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590180,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T17:37:24Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"YouTube
        cofounders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are splitting up after many years of
        working closely together, reports TechCrunch.","title":"YouTube cofounders
        part ways, will spin off\u00a0Mixbit","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:30Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/youtube-cofounders-part-ways-will-spin-off-mixbit/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:29Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590179,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T02:35:46Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Drone-mounted
        cameras are producing a new kind of self portrait: The\u00a0dronie.","title":"One
        step beyond #selfies: Here come the\u00a0#dronies","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:28Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/one-step-beyond-selfies-here-come-the-dronies/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:27Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590178,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T03:45:48Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Google
        may soon add a note to its edited search results, indicating that something
        has been removed in response to an EU privacy\u00a0request.","title":"Google
        may soon let you know when it\u2019s required to hide something from\u00a0you","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:27Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/google-may-soon-let-you-know-when-its-required-to-hide-something-from-you/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:25Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590177,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T04:05:40Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Owner\u00a0of
        Logitech\u2019s popular Harmony remote control have a few more things they
        can do with it: It now controls multi-room sound systems from Sonos and lights
        from Philips.","title":"Logitech adds Sonos support to its Harmony universal
        remote, voice search to its\u00a0app","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:25Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/logitech-adds-sonos-amazon-fire-support-to-its-harmony-universal-remote/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:23Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590176,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T07:31:16Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Italian
        startup Buzzoole launches today in public beta to help\u00a0brands find influencers
        and reward them for creating content on social media.","title":"AdWords of
        buzz? Buzzoole launches to let brands buy social\u00a0influencers","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:23Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/adwords-of-buzz-buzzoole-launches-to-let-brands-buy-social-influencers/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:21Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590175,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T11:00:52Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Microsoft
        bets that the Halo games will pull fans into the TV shows, and vice\u00a0versa.","title":"Microsoft
        bets big that multibillion-dollar game series Halo will thrive on\u00a0television","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:21Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/microsoft-bets-big-that-multibillion-dollar-game-series-halo-will-thrive-on-television/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:19Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590174,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T11:04:45Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Viacom
        is the latest big media company to grab a piece of the increasingly hot web
        video networks that primarily produce video content for YouTube.","title":"Viacom
        takes a stake in web video network Defy\u00a0Media","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:19Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/viacom-takes-a-stake-in-web-video-network-defy-media/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:17Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590173,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T12:30:14Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Netflix
        will no longer display in-player messages attributing slow buffering speeds
        or poor quality to Internet service providers, the company announced today.","title":"Netflix
        to stop its \u2018ISP-blaming\u2019 messages within video\u00a0players","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:17Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/netflix-to-stop-its-isp-blaming-messages-within-video-players/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:15Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590172,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T14:29:30Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Blogging
        platform Medium announced today that it\u2019s relaunching Matter, the long-form
        journalism publication it acquired last year, and also shed new light on how
        it plans to be both a publisher and a platform.","title":"With Matter relaunch,
        Medium clarifies its role as a platform-publisher hybrid","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:15Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/with-matter-relaunch-medium-clarifies-its-role-as-a-platform-publisher-hybrid/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:13Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590171,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T18:21:39Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Guest
        Post For years, site traffic has been a key metric for most businesses that
        advertise online. Unfortunately, CMOs can no longer assume that potential
        customers alone are generating their site traffic.","title":"Zero-waste marketing:
        Cognition and personalization is the new ad\u00a0currency","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:13Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/zero-waste-marketing-cognition-and-personalization-is-the-new-ad-currency/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:11Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590170,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T07:26:38Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Amazon
        is integrating\u00a0its\u00a0e-book and audiobook offerings so that users
        can easily switch between reading a book and listening to\u00a0it.","title":"Read
        to me, Kindle: Audible integration now works inside your\u00a0e-book","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:11Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/kindle-audible-whispersync-for-voice-integration/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:10Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590169,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T07:38:57Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Comic
        book fans and gamers will be pleased to hear that Sony is producing a new
        original TV series called Powers for PlayStation based on the Powers comic
        books series published by\u00a0Icon (Marvel\u2019s creator-owned imprint).","title":"Sony
        announces comic book adaptation of \u2018Powers\u2019 as first PlayStation
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        Media now reaches more than 155 million unique monthly\u00a0viewers.","title":"Defy
        Media buys GameTrailers, Addicting Games, and Shockwave from\u00a0Viacom","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:07Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/defy-media-buys-gametrailers-addicting-games-and-shockwave-from-viacom/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:06Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590167,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T08:48:45Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Folks,
        please turn off your cell phones, Google Glass, and enjoy the\u00a0film.","title":"Sorry,
        Google Glass, you\u2019re not welcome in our movie\u00a0theaters","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:05Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/sorry-google-glass-youre-not-welcome-in-our-movie-theaters/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:04Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590166,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T09:31:17Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Now
        firmly\u00a0in the music streaming business, Apple is starting to clamp down
        on shady\u00a0music apps in the App Store.","title":"Apple yanks music apps
        that let you download copyrighted\u00a0files","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:04Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/apple-yanks-music-apps-that-let-you-download-copyrighted-files/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:02Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590165,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T10:17:16Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Marketing
        and advertising are such a huge focus at Apple these days that the company
        is reportedly building up its own internal agency, which it intends to grow
        to as many as 1,000 people.","title":"Apple is building a massive in-house
        ad agency to recapture the \u2018Think Different\u2019 glory\u00a0days","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:02Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/apple-is-building-a-massive-in-house-ad-agency-to-recapture-the-think-different-glory-days/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:00Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590164,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T12:31:55Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Ross
        Levinsohn, a known name in Internet and media circles, has made his exit from
        Guggenheim Digital Media after failing to acquire a popular streaming service,
        namely Vevo or\u00a0Hulu.","title":"Ross Levinsohn departs Guggenheim Digital\u00a0Media","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:31:00Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/ross-levinsohn-departs-guggenheim-digital-media/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:58Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590163,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T13:18:48Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Last
        July, Google\u2019s Chromecast made a big splash. Now, new data indicates
        that usage is dropping as the novelty wears off even as streaming media devices
        in general have taken hold in the United States.","title":"Chromecast usage
        drops in the U.S. as streaming media settles\u00a0in","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:58Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/chromecast-usage-drops-in-the-u-s-as-streaming-media-settles-in/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590162,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T15:09:46Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"The
        latest tax filing of the record industry\u2019s anti-piracy lawsuit machine,
        the RIAA, reveals a group whose revenues are in deep decline and whose mandate
        may be wearing\u00a0thin.","title":"Piracy no longer such a big deal to the
        record industry, tax filing\u00a0shows","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:56Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/riaa-tax-filing-reveals-a-record-industry-thats-less-interested-in-paying-for-piracy-lawsuits/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:54Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590161,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T23:59:26Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Apple
        is going to do\u00a0amazingly well this quarter.","title":"Apple analyst:
        iPhone sales outperform expectations this\u00a0quarter","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:54Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/iphone-sales/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590160,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-11T11:34:29Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"The
        initial public offering on Nasdaq could give GoPro as much as $427 million,
        with the company angling for a valuation as high as $3 billion, Bloomberg
        is\u00a0reporting.","title":"GoPro prices its IPO: $21-$24 per\u00a0share","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:52Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/11/gopro-prices-its-ipo-21-24-per-share/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590159,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:56:54Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Zynga\u2019s
        experienced a host of problems over the last couple of years. You might want
        to add a public-relations kerfuffle to that list\u00a0now.","title":"Exclusive:
        Zynga affirms its support of LGBT people & their rights after launching Duck
        Dynasty slots\u00a0game","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:50Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/11/exclusive-zynga-affirms-its-support-of-lgbt-people-their-rights-after-launching-duck-dynasty-slots-game/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590158,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-11T19:00:24Z","slug":"social-media-club-boston","summary":"Cable
        TV company Comcast plans to launch its own streaming video service that will
        compete with Google\u2019s YouTube, the company confirmed today.","title":"Now
        Comcast is working on a YouTube clone, exec\u00a0confirms","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:48Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/11/now-comcast-is-working-on-a-youtube-clone-exec-confirms/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:41Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590157,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2008-01-08T15:01:19Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Social
        networks like Facebook and Bebo currently limit users and third-party developers
        from fully exporting most user data to other sites. However, there are a number
        of applications that are using these company\u2019s social networking platforms
        to share data across sites, grow and even make money.","title":"Gaia Online
        on Bebo, and other apps that span sites and work\u00a0great","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:41Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2008/01/08/gaia-online-on-bebo-and-other-apps-that-span-sites-and-work-great/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:39Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590156,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2008-11-07T09:12:52Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"The
        California Cleantech Open (CCTO), a yearly competition to identify some of
        the hottest new startups in green technology, has wrapped up its 2008 session
        with six winners, each in its own business sector. The six were chosen from
        43 finalists, who were in turn drawn from a larger pool.","title":"Here are
        the 2008 California Cleantech Open\u00a0winners","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:39Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2008/11/07/here-are-the-2008-california-cleantech-open-winners/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:21Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590155,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-09-22T23:22:17Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\nOn
        Sunday morning, I left Seattle so that I could attend the 2009 Portland Retro
        Gaming Expo. Besides myself, over 700 other people decided to spend a day
        at the expo and have great time. I love gatherings like this since they always
        do a great job of fattening up my video game collection. As you can see, I
        came home with over 50 new games, plus some extra stuff. My photo-filled recap
        of the event and better shots of my purchases are after the jump!","title":"I
        Went to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo and All I Got Was A Ton of Video\u00a0Games","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:21Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/09/22/i-went-to-the-portland-retro-gaming-expo-and-all-i-got-was-a-ton-of-video-games/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:19Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590154,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-10-08T15:46:58Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\nTrying
        to keep up with all of the downloadable games and content that\u2019s out
        there these days is enough to make a person cry. But cry no more, because
        Download Lowdown is here to help. I\u2019ll sift through the good, the bad,
        and the weird to help you get the most from your game system of choice without
        leaving your house.","title":"Download Lowdown: Real Soccer\u00a02010","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:19Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/08/download-lowdown-real-soccer-2010/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:17Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590153,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-10-22T13:55:08Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"This
        summer I played BioShock for the first time. I liked it. A lot. I liked it
        so much I wrote three stories about it (my first impressions, a mid-to-late
        game summary and my final thoughts). Beyond the compelling gameplay, BioShock
        also delivered an interesting story set in an underwater city created by genius/madman
        Andrew Ryan who believed in the greatness of man above all else. His philosophy
        was not created for this game, however. It was inspired by the works of Ayn
        Rand (note the name similarity), particularly her novels The Fountainhead
        and Atlas Shrugged. With BioShock 2 coming out next year and a gap in my current
        reading schedule, I decided to pick up the first novel to learn more about
        her ideas.","title":"Gamer Book Report: Looking for Rapture in The\u00a0Fountainhead","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:17Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/22/gamer-book-report-looking-for-rapture-in-the-fountainhead/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:15Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590152,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-01-20T16:40:16Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Though
        it was created more than 25 years ago, Tetris just keeps breaking records
        in the game industry. Today, the owners of the game announced that Tetris
        has sold more than 100 million units on mobile phones since 2005.","title":"Tetris
        reaches 100M units sold on mobile\u00a0phones","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:15Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/20/tetris-reaches-100m-units-sold-on-mobile-phones/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:13Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590151,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-01-23T07:32:00Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\tIf
        there\u2019s anything that James Cameron\u2019s underwhelming intelligence
        insulting blue people fighty flick ''Avatar'' has shown it\u2019s that 3D
        can make money at the box office. In the movie''s wake, CES was dominated
        by advances in 3D home technology and has ignited a debate amongst gamers
        as to whether 3D is the next big thing to hit videogames. Of course, us being
        a fickle bunch, we are mostly forgetting that 3D imagery was giving us headaches
        way back in 1995\u2026","title":"RIP? 3D Gaming (1995-1995,\u00a02010-?)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:13Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/23/rip-3d-gaming-1995-1995-2010/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:11Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590150,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-02-10T05:37:18Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"You\u2019re
        back for part six, so I suppose last episode\u2019s portable extravaganza
        didn\u2019t appease those of you who wanted a full-course meal. But don\u2019t
        worry, there\u2019s still hope. After all, if a single turducken can satisfy
        John Madden, then there must be a JRPG that\u2019ll please even the most vocal
        of JRPG critics. Unfortunately, just the thought of a turkey stuffed with
        duck is making me lose my appetite, so I\u2019m going to leave you to devour
        this JRPG-stuffed bird.","title":"The Ultimate JRPG Buyer\u2019s Guide For
        RPG Haters Part\u00a06","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:11Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/02/10/the-ultimate-jrpg-buyers-guide-for-rpg-haters-part-6/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:09Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590149,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-04-02T21:20:53Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\n\tYs
        III: Wanderers from Ys (Ys is pronounced like \u201cease\u201d) on the SNES
        was my first exposure to Falcom''s action RPG series. At the time, I thought
        it was just a quirky, side-scroller with cool music, neat visual effects,
        and punishing difficulty. Dying within seconds of entering the first \u201cdungeon\u201d
        was my first taste of humble pie with Falcom''s arcade RPG series, a craving
        that had never really gone away.","title":"Lost in Esteria: A Short History
        of Falcom\u2019s Ys\u00a0Series","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:37Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/04/02/lost-in-esteria-a-short-history-of-falcoms-ys-series/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:07Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590148,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-04-09T11:00:09Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"The
        Apple iPad that I have carried around for almost a week now is clearly Silicon
        Valley\u2019s newest status symbol. It reminds me of the days when you pulled
        out an iPhone and people would stare.","title":"Review: Why iPhone OS 4 will
        make Apple''s iPad a knock-out\u00a0hit","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:07Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/04/09/review-why-the-ipad-and-iphone-os-4-will-give-apple-a-knock-out-hit/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:05Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590147,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-05-20T02:13:06Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\n\tLast
        week, Bitmobbers and 1uppers celebrated Field Week. There was games, prizes,
        and good times for all. Everyday I asked the Bitmob\u00a0community a question,
        and they would respond on Twitter. I have collected the responses from the
        whole week, and made this Bitmobbers on Twitter: Field Week Recap. Each page
        has a different day''s answers, so let''s get started!","title":"Bitmobbers
        on Twitter: Field Week\u00a0Recap","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:05Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/05/20/bitmobbers-on-twitter-field-week-recap/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:03Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590146,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-10-01T22:04:00Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\n\tI''m
        afraid of heights.","title":"Digital Vertigo: Gaming\u2019s Highest Heights
        and Biggest\u00a0Falls","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:03Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/01/digital-vertigo-gamings-highest-heights-and-biggest-falls/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:02Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590145,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-10-17T13:42:01Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\tSonic
        the Hedgehog holds a special place in my gamer\u2019s heart. The first game
        I ever owned was Sonic 2, which came packed in with my Sega Genesis. 18 years
        ago, I zipped past the loop-de-loops in the Emerald Hill Zone and stared in
        awe at the sparkling lakeside in the background. I sat dumbfounded at the
        carnage the mechanical deathtrap known as the Metropolis Zone wreaked on my
        life count. And I relished every Dr. Robotnik (who answers to \u201cEggman\u201d
        these days) encounter with the same excitement that Saturday morning cartoons
        brought to a youth\u2019s imagination.","title":"Sonic 4, Episode 1: The Spin\u00a0Cycle?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:01Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/17/sonic-4-episode-1-the-spin-cycle/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:00Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590144,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-03-03T11:43:59Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Disney
        has acquired gaming startup Rocket Pack, a specialist in games which use HTML5,
        the latest version of the Web\u2019s lingua franca. The  deal signals a move
        in the game-development community towards HTML5  games, which can be played
        across almost every modern device and Web  browser.","title":"Disney looks
        beyond apps with HTML5 game maker Rocket\u00a0Pack","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:59Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/03/disney-rocket-pack-acquisition/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:58Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590143,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-04-17T00:13:06Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Will
        Wright is perhaps the most successful video game designer in history, creating
        games from SimCity to Spore. His games have sold tens of millions of units
        and have opened up new genres such as life simulations and \u201cgod\u201d
        games. So there\u2019s nobody better to talk about the future of video games.
        At a recent talk, Wright predicted games will become ubiquitous and more diverse,
        and some will be meaningful works of art.","title":"Will Wright says games
        are headed toward ubiquity, diversity, and\u00a0art","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:57Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/17/will-wright-future-of-games/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590142,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-11-04T12:50:25Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\tI
        stomp my boot against the head of a zombie and feel its skull slowly pressing
        in and bending. A split-second later, it explodes in a visceral show of blood
        spatter and brain matter. My pants are soaked in it.","title":"Dead Island
        and indiscriminate\u00a0violence","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:55Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/04/dead-island-and-indiscriminate-violence/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:54Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590141,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-01-11T06:00:57Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\nPeople
        who cheat at social games are cheaters in real life too. So says a survey
        by casual game maker PopCap Games.","title":"People who cheat at social games
        are three times more likely to cheat in real\u00a0life","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:53Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/11/people-who-cheat-at-social-games-are-three-times-more-likely-to-cheat-in-real-life/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590140,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-01-25T21:18:52Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\tSPOILER
        ALERT. You''ve been warned.","title":"Chrono Cross: a mess of unimpressive
        gameplay and laughably bad\u00a0storytelling","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:52Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/25/chrono-cross-a-mess-of-unimpressive-gameplay-laughably-bad-storytelling/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590139,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-03-28T21:34:00Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\tWith
        the wind violently tussling through your hair, you look upon your obligatory
        enemy for just a micro-second as an impending cargo container falls from the
        heavens toward your face. You shuffle like a linebacker during a flea flicker
        trying to avoid boxes, airplane seat beats, and the occasional bullet from
        a fearless Syndicate .45 caliber.","title":"The Use of Gravity in Video\u00a0Games","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:49Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/28/the-use-of-gravity-in-video-games/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590138,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-03-30T12:12:36Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Guest
        Post The mobile experience is in a renaissance period, from phones to tablets
        to autos and more. We\u2019re seeing multi-core processors come to mobile
        devices to enable new applications like intense gaming and HD video playback,
        and we\u2019re seeing advanced user interfaces, such as gesture and eye tracking,
        that could greatly improve the mobile experience. Then there\u2019s Near Field
        Communications (NFC). Many predict NFC will bring one of the most significant
        improvements to the mobile experience of all.","title":"Get ready: NFC is
        nearing its tipping\u00a0point","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:47Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/30/get-ready-nfc-is-nearing-its-tipping-point/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:46Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590137,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-07-15T08:00:02Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\nChris
        Petrovic (pictured above) is the general manager of GameStop Digital Ventures.
        His job is to make sure that the world\u2019s largest video game retailer
        crosses over into the digital era, when gamers are as likely to download a
        digital game to their computers or phones as they are to walk into a store
        and buy a disk. GameStop still has 6,614 stores and annual revenues of $49.5
        billion. Within a couple of years, the company wants to grow its digital revenues
        to $1.5 billion a year. The retailer grew its downloadable content sales by
        315 percent last year, and it has acquired digital game startups Kongregate,
        Spawn Labs, and Impulse. Will that be enough for the company to \u201ccross
        over\u201d to the digital age?","title":"Will GameStop\u2019s digital ventures
        be enough to ward off online threats?\u00a0(interview)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:35Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/15/will-gamestops-digital-ventures-be-enough-to-ward-off-online-threats-interview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590136,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-08-07T14:45:10Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"At
        EA\u2019s Summer Showcase event last week, the publisher featured playable
        demos for both FIFA 13 and Mass Effect 3 on the Wii\u00a0U.","title":"EA shows
        off smart Wii U GamePad tricks for FIFA 13 and Mass Effect 3\u00a0(preview)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:44Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/07/ea-summer-showcase-wii-u-games/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:42Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590135,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-12-15T14:07:00Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Guest
        Post Using the cloud as a \u201ccheap and deep\u201d repository to host data
        is now well established, but we\u2019re only beginning to scratch the\u00a0surface.","title":"How
        the cloud will evolve beyond \u2018cheap and deep\u2019 in\u00a02013","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:42Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/15/how-the-cloud-will-evolve-beyond-cheap-and-deep-in-2013/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:40Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590134,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-01-16T13:00:55Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"This
        is your in-depth introduction to the world and gameplay of Mike Pondsmith\u2019s\u00a0Cyberpunk.","title":"Cyberpunk\u2019s
        old-school order: The history and future of the tabletop\u00a0games","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:40Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/16/cyberpunks-old-school-order/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:38Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590133,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-01-18T10:00:28Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Mobile
        apps generated about $18 billion in 2012, up from virtually nothing in 2008.
        Now it nearly matches web\u00a0revenue.","title":"The mobile app economy is
        exploding (so, what else is\u00a0new?)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:37Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/18/the-mobile-app-economy-is-exploding-so-what-else-is-new/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:36Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590132,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-01-31T06:06:36Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Developers
        and publishers need to make more of an effort to show the consequences and
        moral weight of violence in video\u00a0games.","title":"Developer responsibility:
        What\u2019s missing from video game\u00a0violence","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:36Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/31/game-violence-and-developer-responsibility/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:34Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590131,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-06-18T10:00:02Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"This
        year\u2019s E3 featured a multitude of titles with nonlinear gameplay in sprawling
        environments. Here are pretty much all of\u00a0them.","title":"E3 2013: The
        year of the open\u00a0world","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:34Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/18/e3-2013-year-of-the-open-world/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:32Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590130,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-08-14T05:58:30Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"The
        open-world crime game rises above its pedigree to create a world worth spending
        countless hours\u00a0with.","title":"Saints Row IV is relentlessly funny and
        surprisingly touching\u00a0(review)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:32Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/14/saints-row-iv-review/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:30Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590129,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-12-10T12:00:08Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Vuzix
        teamed up with Nokia to create augmented-reality optics that will eventually
        be used in conventional-size glasses.","title":"Vuzix develops Google Glass-like
        smart glasses \u2014 but with superior optics and standard\u00a0eyeframes","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:30Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/10/vuzix-has-google-glass-like-smart-glasses-but-with-superior-optics/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:28Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590128,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-12-28T05:02:10Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"As
        I did last year, I thought it would be interesting to survey what the next
        year has to offer between consoles, handhelds, and PCs focusing mainly on
        NA by taking a large sampling of what (we hope) will show up on time and go
        from there with a few thoughts on them in\u00a0general.","title":"A Survey
        of the 2014\u00a0Gamescape","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:34Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/28/a-survey-of-the-2014-gamescape/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:26Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590127,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-10T22:30:24Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"My
        view has become more nuanced after 365 days and 15,243 miles of of blizzards,
        bird droppings, heat, cold, glitches, groceries, dogs, road trips, drag races,
        Superchargers, traffic jams, service visits, vampire draw, software updates,
        and \u201cCheck Tire Pressure Monitoring System\u201d\u00a0warnings.","title":"One
        year and 15,000 miles with a Tesla Model\u00a0S","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:30:32Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/10/one-year-and-15000-miles-with-a-tesla-model-s/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:24Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590126,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-13T07:22:24Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Fear
        of illegal activity drives Bitcoin\u00a0regulation in\u00a0Singapore.","title":"Singapore
        regulates Bitcoin to prevent \u2018money laundering and terrorist financing\u2019","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:24Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/13/singapore-will-regulate-bitcoin-to-prevent-money-laundering-and-terrorist-financing/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:22Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590125,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-08T08:12:05Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Sponsored
        Post MapR       Technologies, Inc., provider of the top-ranked distribution
        for       Apache Hadoop, today announced that WE-Ankor, a highly regarded
        IT       specialist based in Petach Tikva, has become a registered partner
        in       Israel, which has a\u00a0high\u2026","title":"WE-Ankor Signs Partnership
        Agreement with MapR Technologies in\u00a0Israel","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:22Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/08/we-ankor-signs-partnership-agreement-with-mapr-technologies-in-israel/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:20Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590124,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-16T04:36:51Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"In
        the explosion of marketing technology over the past three years that has seen
        a tripling in startups with cloud, app, and web-based solutions for your marketing
        department, there\u2019s one company that has been around almost since the
        original dot-com boom.","title":"One-to-one marketing, global scale: Sitecore
        lands L\u2019Or\u00e9al to personalize\u00a0beauty","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:20Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/16/one-to-one-marketing-global-scale-sitecore-lands-loreal-to-personalize-beauty/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:18Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590123,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-21T08:30:38Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"The
        EA-owned publisher of third-party games is looking for big hits. It published
        Angry Birds, but Flappy Bird escaped\u00a0it.","title":"How Chillingo plans
        to find the next Flappy Bird\u00a0(interview)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:18Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/21/ed-rumley-interview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:16Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590122,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-24T09:49:21Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"If
        all of Apple\u2019s patents and patent applications actually get turned into
        products, the future will have arrived.","title":"Apple may let you interact
        with floating 3D images, patent application\u00a0shows","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:16Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/24/apple-may-soon-let-you-interact-with-floating-3d-images-patent-application-shows/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:13Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590121,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-07T17:14:36Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Editor\u2019s
        Pick Let\u2019s just wait and see if this Helion thing pays off or if the
        tech giant will just trot out a new cloud strategy in a few\u00a0months.","title":"Why
        HP\u2019s latest OpenStack position looks intelligent \u2014 in\u00a0theory","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:13Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/07/hp-helion-analysis/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:11Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590120,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-05-16T08:00:00Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Navigating
        the laws of cyberspace is getting ever more complex as virtual worlds themselves
        become mirrors of the real world. That\u2019s one clear message from a Stanford
        University event on legal frontiers for digital media that I attended today.","title":"Real
        world laws intrude on virtual world\u00a0behavior","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:11Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/05/16/sofa-king-rude-real-world-laws-intrude-on-virtual-world-behavior/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:09Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590119,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-10-13T08:00:00Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\nScenario
        1: I sprint at top-speed toward the edge of a roof, a 10-foot gap, and a 15-foot
        drop to the roof on the next skyscraper below. Leaping into the air, I lift
        my legs just high enough to clear the safety rail by an inch. A few crisp
        seconds of flight; the impact on the roof below; a perfectly executed roll
        to avoid taking damage, and immediately I\u2019m back at top-speed. I wall-run
        across a billboard, leap off it to grab the edge of a catwalk, and lift myself
        up in a smooth and effortless motion.","title":"Parkour and Gaming: When Virtual
        Experiences Aren\u2019t\u00a0Enough","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:09Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/13/when-virtual-experiences-arent-enough/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:07Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590118,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-01-13T00:22:11Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Cisco
        Systems, Equifax and three smaller companies have partnered to create United
        Nations Citizens, a virtual world that has a real economy and is geared toward
        enabling a virtual shopping mall.","title":"Five companies create United Nations
        Citizens virtual\u00a0world","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:07Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/13/five-companies-create-united-nations-citizens-virtual-world/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:04Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590117,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-02-15T14:35:06Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"\n\tIt\u2019s
        no secret that video games are intended to be fun, but to relegate the medium
        to simple entertainment would be na\u00efve. As developers become more willing
        to experiment with the pallet of available design tools, video games have
        in turn become more capable of assuming a didactic, instructive tone. In short,
        we\u2019re learning a lot about ourselves and each other by simply pressing
        start. And with so many millions of kids and young adults surrendering their
        afternoons to Skyrim, Fallout 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic, it would
        be folly to ignore the implications of those lessons.","title":"The hard lessons
        of morality in a virtual\u00a0world","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:04Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/15/the-hard-lessons-of-morality-in-a-virtual-world/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:02Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590116,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-01-06T07:00:13Z","slug":"virtual-mirrors","summary":"Gamers
        and video fans are the targets of Avegant\u2019s Glyph virtual retina\u00a0display.","title":"Avegant
        Glyph virtual retinal display is like shining an 80-inch TV image on your\u00a0eyeballs","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:29:02Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/06/avegant-glyph-retina-display-is-like-shining-an-80-inch-tv-image-on-your-eyeballs/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:28:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590115,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-02-11T11:12:06Z","slug":"castrol","summary":"RepairPal.com
        uses data to provide consumers with credible information about car repairs,
        and it received $13 million to build out its product and\u00a0network.","title":"Cars.com
        invests in RepairPal to try to keep mechanics\u00a0honest","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:28:50Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/11/cars-com-invests-in-repairpal-to-keep-mechanics-honest/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:28:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590114,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-02-11T11:12:06Z","slug":"bp-castrol","summary":"RepairPal.com
        uses data to provide consumers with credible information about car repairs,
        and it received $13 million to build out its product and\u00a0network.","title":"Cars.com
        invests in RepairPal to try to keep mechanics\u00a0honest","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:28:44Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/11/cars-com-invests-in-repairpal-to-keep-mechanics-honest/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590113,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-10-28T16:59:23Z","slug":"broadbase","summary":"\nMotorola
        turned to employees for new phone ideas \u2014 \u201cWhy should we trust you?\u201d
        one employee blurted to co-CEO Sanjay Jha a few minutes into his first meeting
        with employees to gather new ideas for the company\u2019s mobile phone handsets.
        Motorola corporate culture had stalled, and Jha wanted to jump-start it. He
        pressed forward, bringing employees not experienced at product design or product
        management into the brainstorming process for this year\u2019s lineup of handsets.","title":"5
        O''Clock Roundup: Yahoo''s communication engine, Motorola''s idea factory,
        and\u00a0more","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:52Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/28/137961/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590112,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-08-24T10:15:26Z","slug":"marc-and-vinit","summary":"Today,
        Lot18, a daily deals site for wine lovers, got a financial nod from two people
        known for smart business moves. Lot18 announced funding from the founders
        of Quidsi\u00a0(Diapers.com and Soap.com), which was acquired by Amazon for
        $545 million in 2010.","title":"Wine deals site Lot18 gets funding from Diapers.com\u00a0founders","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:43Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/24/wine-deals-site-lot18-gets-funding-from-diapers-com-founders/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:42Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590111,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-02-14T02:02:52Z","slug":"marc-and-vinit","summary":"\n\n\t\tGuild
        Wars 2 is an upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game that
        is in development by ArenaNet. The game is set in the fantasy world of Tyria
        and follows the reemergence of Destiny\u2019s Edge, a disbanded guild dedicated
        to fighting the Elder Dragons.","title":"A Guide to Guild Wars\u00a02","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:42Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/14/a-guide-to-guild-wars-2/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:40Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590110,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-12-28T05:02:10Z","slug":"marc-and-vinit","summary":"As
        I did last year, I thought it would be interesting to survey what the next
        year has to offer between consoles, handhelds, and PCs focusing mainly on
        NA by taking a large sampling of what (we hope) will show up on time and go
        from there with a few thoughts on them in\u00a0general.","title":"A Survey
        of the 2014\u00a0Gamescape","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:40Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/28/a-survey-of-the-2014-gamescape/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:38Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590109,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-05T00:00:14Z","slug":"marc-and-vinit","summary":"\nIf
        you are fascinated by Greek mythology, with fake gods, goddesses, demi-gods,
        heroes, and oracles of ancient Greece and Rome inspiring you, you\u2019ll
        want to take a look at these below five games.","title":"5 Greek Mythology
        Mobile Games to Whet Your\u00a0Appetite","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:23:37Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/05/5-greek-mythology-mobile-games-to-whet-your-appetite/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:08:03Z","domain":"techcrunch.com","id":1590108,"news_source":"TechCrunch","publication_date":"2014-06-12T08:08:01Z","slug":"userevents","summary":"LiveOps,
        an early mover in the area of cloud-based enterprise services, acquires the
        Canadian startup UserEvents to help fill out its cloud platform business.","title":"LiveOps
        Acquires UserEvents To Expand Its Cloud Contact Center Platform","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:08:03Z","url":"http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/27/liveops-raises-another-30m-acquires-userevents-to-expand-its-cloud-contact-center-platform-with-routing/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:24Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590107,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-01-06T06:00:13Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Keecker
        robot can also capture audio and video in a 360-degree\u00a0mode.","title":"Keecker
        robot can project digital art and video in your\u00a0home","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:24Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/06/keecker-robot-can-project-digital-art-and-video-in-your-home/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:22Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590106,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-01-07T10:32:50Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Buried
        within a lengthy CES keynote, Sony pulled out some big media announcements
        that could change the way we watch\u00a0TV.","title":"Sony announces a dreamy
        short-range 4K projector & cable-kiling cloud TV\u00a0service","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:22Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/07/sony-announces-a-dreamy-short-range-4k-projector-cable-kiling-cloud-tv-service/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:20Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590105,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-01-07T18:56:59Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"It\u2019s
        Android like you\u2019ve never seen it before: Projected large, and still\u00a0touch-enabled.","title":"Play
        Angry Birds right on your wall: Touchjet\u2019s interactive Android projector
        debuts at\u00a0CES","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:20Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/07/play-angry-birds-right-on-your-wall-touchjets-interactive-android-projector-debuts-at-ces/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:18Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590104,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-01-17T10:37:31Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Editor\u2019s
        Pick A Kickstarter kerfuffle.","title":"This guy\u2019s startup helps Kickstarter
        projects ship, but his own backers are calling\u00a0BS","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:18Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/17/this-guys-startup-helps-kickstarter-projects-ship-but-his-own-backers-are-calling-bs/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:16Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590103,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-01-30T03:00:44Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Berlin-based
        company builder Project A has won over two new investors for portfolio company\u00a0Kyto,
        a\u00a0B2B marketing service. According to online magazine Deutsche Startups,
        Bauer Digital and Creathor Venture have invested an unknown amount in the
        recently-launched startup.","title":"Berlin company builder Project A secures
        funding for two of its\u00a0startups","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:16Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/30/berlin-company-builder-project-a-secures-funding-for-two-of-its-startups/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:14Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590102,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-02-03T12:00:59Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Will
        Microsoft be able to ignite a creative revolution with Project\u00a0Spark?","title":"Project
        Spark is Microsoft\u2019s attempt to capture the magic of a Minecraft-like
        sandbox\u00a0(interview)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:14Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/03/microsofts-team-dakota-aims-for-user-generated-magic-with-project-spark-interview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:12Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590101,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-02-20T14:20:15Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"So
        this is why Google held on to Motorola\u2019s advanced hardware group.","title":"Google\u2019s
        ambitious push for mobile 3D mapping starts with Project Tango: A Kinect-like\u00a0smartphone","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:12Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/20/googles-ambitious-push-for-mobile-3d-mapping-starts-project-tango-a-kinect-like-smartphone/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:10Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590100,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-02-27T07:46:08Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Surprisingly,
        Google doesn\u2019t see its ambitious Project Ara modular smartphone as something
        just for geeks.","title":"Google aims for a basic $50 modular phone next year,
        dishes more on Project\u00a0Ara","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:10Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/27/google-aims-for-a-basic-50-modular-phone-next-year-dishes-more-on-project-ara/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:08Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590099,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-04T06:00:19Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"The
        developers of Project Spark, a free toolkit for novice game makers, gave us
        their picks for the best user-generated content they\u2019ve seen so\u00a0far.","title":"Project
        Spark developers share users\u2019 steampunk, apocalyptic, and pixel-art\u00a0creations","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:08Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/04/project-spark-developers-share-users-steampunk-pixel-art-and-apocalyptic-creations-preview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:06Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590098,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-04T06:05:04Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"You
        can play or create in this open world\u00a0\u201csandbox.\u201d","title":"Will
        Project Spark be Microsoft\u2019s Minecraft?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:06Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/04/will-project-spark-be-microsofts-minecraft/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:04Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590097,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-04T09:12:09Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Sponsored
        Post 33Across (www.33Across.com),       a leading advertising technology company,
        today announced its first       milestone since the launch of its Intent Signal
        Platform two weeks ago       with the signing of its one millionth publisher
        partner,\u00a0Project\u2026","title":"33Across Signs Project Nursery as 1
        Millionth Publisher, Expands Reach and Scale of i...","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:04Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/04/33across-signs-project-nursery-as-1-millionth-publisher-expands-reach-and-scale-of-its-intent-signal-platform/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:02Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590096,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-05T09:30:10Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"We
        have 10 codes to give away. Here\u2019s how you can snag\u00a0one.","title":"GamesBeat
        Giveaway: Project Spark beta for Xbox\u00a0One","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:02Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/05/gamesbeat-giveaway-project-spark-beta-for-xbox-one/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:00Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590095,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-06T05:30:59Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Sponsored
        Post The smartwatch market is expected to grow from 15 million devices to
        373 million devices by 2020, NextMarket Insights predicts. With so much competition
        in the market, from small start-ups to tech giants, the toughest challenge
        smartwatch manufacturers will face is differentiating\u00a0themselves.","title":"4
        Kickstarter projects take on tech giants in the wearables\u00a0industry","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:06:00Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/06/4-kickstarter-projects-taking-on-tech-giants-in-the-wearables-industry/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:58Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590094,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-06T13:04:45Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Over
        the past few months, Microsoft Bing employees have been quietly testing a
        new \u201cincubation\u00a0project.\u201d","title":"A shift in Microsoft\u2019s
        culture: Inside Bing\u2019s new incubation project\u00a0(exclusive)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:58Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/06/a-shift-in-microsofts-culture-inside-bings-new-incubation-project-exclusive/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590093,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-18T09:26:07Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Google
        has officially launched Android Wear, an initiative to extend the Android
        operating system to wearable tech.","title":"Google launches Android Wear:
        A new project to bring Android to wearables like\u00a0smartwatches","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:56Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/18/google-launches-android-wear-a-new-project-to-bring-android-to-wearables-like-smartwatches/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:54Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590092,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-18T18:05:00Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Sony
        believes that VR will fundamentally change the rules of\u00a0gaming.","title":"Project
        Morpheus: Sony announces its virtual-reality headset for PlayStation\u00a04","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:54Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/18/project-morpheus-sony-announces-its-virtual-reality-headset-for-playstation-4/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590091,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-19T05:00:54Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Sponsored
        Post OpenX Technologies, Inc. (OpenX), a global leader in digital and mobile       advertising
        technology, and Digiday, the leading media company and       community for
        digital media, marketing and advertising professionals,       today announced
        the\u00a0results\u2026","title":"OpenX and Digiday Research Projects Significant
        Programmatic Growth for Native and Vi...","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:52Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/19/openx-and-digiday-research-projects-significant-programmatic-growth-for-native-and-video-on-mobile-devices/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590090,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-19T18:40:35Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"It
        takes one demo to turn a VR skeptic into someone who gets the new\u00a0tech.","title":"A
        shark attack convinced me that Sony\u2019s Project Morpheus makes virtual
        reality\u00a0work","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:50Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/19/a-shark-attack-convinced-me-that-sonys-project-morpheus-makes-virtual-reality-work/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590089,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-20T08:30:01Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Editor\u2019s
        Pick Today\u2019s VR experiences are more like the movies than you might\u00a0imagine.","title":"Project
        Morpheus and Oculus Rift are more like \u2018The Matrix\u2019 and the holodeck
        than you\u00a0think","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:48Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/20/3-examples-of-virtual-reality-in-fiction-and-how-they-compare-to-oculus-rift-project-morpheus-and-other-vr-devices/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:46Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590088,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-20T09:10:38Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Advertising
        platform Rubicon Project has announced terms for an initial public offering
        today that will have the company seeking to raise $108 million.","title":"Ad
        platform Rubicon Project sets $108M\u00a0IPO","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:46Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/20/ad-platform-rubicon-project-sets-108m-ipo/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590087,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-22T04:42:56Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"\nI\u2019ll
        admit it and tell anyone: I\u2019m not a gamer. I\u2019d rather spend my time
        crafting essays, articles and books instead of pressing A or X or figuring
        out what that button on the back of the Xbox One controller does.","title":"A
        non-gamer\u2019s first look at Project Spark beta on Xbox\u00a0One","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:44Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/22/a-non-gamers-first-look-at-project-spark-beta-on-xbox-one/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:42Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590086,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-26T11:29:12Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Oculus
        founder Palmer Luckey thinks that most Morpheus games will end up on\u00a0Rift.","title":"Founder
        of Facebook\u2019s new virtual-reality company: Sony\u2019s Project Morpheus
        is \u2018a good thing for\u00a0VR\u2019","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:42Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/26/founder-of-facebooks-new-virtual-reality-company-sonys-project-morpheus-is-a-good-thing-for-vr/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:40Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590085,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-27T11:53:13Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"So
        far, Realty Mogul says its platform has been used to fund properties totaling
        more than $100 million in\u00a0value.","title":"Investment for the rest of
        us: Here\u2019s a cool company that crowdfunds big real estate\u00a0projects","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:40Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/27/investment-for-the-rest-of-us-heres-a-cool-company-that-crowdfunds-big-real-estate-projects/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:38Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590084,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-03T10:24:12Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Amy
        Hennig left Naughty Dog earlier this year. She will bring her magic to the
        Star Wars\u00a0universe.","title":"Uncharted mastermind Amy Hennig is directing
        a Star Wars project for Electronic\u00a0Arts","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:38Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/03/uncharted-mastermind-amy-hennig-is-directing-a-star-wars-project-for-electronic-arts-visceral-games/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:36Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590083,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-04T07:20:59Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"\u201cThis
        phone can flow and adapt just as much as our lives flow and adapt, and that
        in itself is an aesthetic,\u201d said Ara design head Daniel\u00a0Makoski.","title":"Project
        Ara video offers a tantalizing peek at Google\u2019s modular\u00a0smartphone","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:36Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/04/project-ara-video-offers-a-tantalizing-peek-at-googles-modular-smartphone/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:34Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590082,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-10T12:51:57Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Tim
        Schafer wants you to know about indie adventure game Last\u00a0Life.","title":"Kickstarter
        project Last Life is a murder mystery on Mars \u2014 and has Double Fine\u2019s
        seal of\u00a0approval","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:34Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/10/kickstarter-project-last-life-is-a-murder-mystery-on-mars-and-has-double-fines-seal-of-approval/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:32Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590081,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-11T08:45:42Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Guest
        Post With Project Tango, we are one massive step closer to a world where all
        PCs, tablets and smartphones have 3D\u00a0sensors.","title":"5 ways Project
        Tango, Google\u2019s 3D mapping initiative, can change how we interact with\u00a0tech","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:32Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/11/5-ways-project-tango-googles-3d-mapping-initiative-can-change-the-way-we-interact-with-tech/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:30Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590080,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-14T13:09:36Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Google
        and Facebook are now taking their war up into the sky, vying to provide potential
        new users not only with affordable devices and mobile services, but also access
        to the Internet\u00a0itself.","title":"Google buys Titan Aerospace to make
        more drones for Project\u00a0Loon","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:30Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/14/google-buys-titan-aerospace-to-make-more-drones-for-project-loon/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:28Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590079,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-18T09:51:35Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"\u201cThere\u2019s
        no tool currently available that would do what we want to do using secure,
        free software. With a system like this in place, EFF\u2019s efficacy in advocating
        for your rights can increase\u00a0dramatically.\u201d","title":"An open source
        success: EFF \u2018awed\u2019 by response to project for easily contacting\u00a0Congress","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:28Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/18/eff-contact-congress-project/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:26Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590078,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-20T12:11:54Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"The
        latest full-time addition to Google\u2019s secretive anti-aging initiative,
        Project Calico, is Cynthia Kenyon, a high-profile biochemist and biophysicist
        at the University of California, San\u00a0Francisco.","title":"Google scoops
        up another high-profile scientist for anti-death\u00a0project","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:26Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/20/google-scoops-up-another-high-profile-scientist-for-anti-death-project/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:24Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590077,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-24T17:09:46Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"New
        temporary CEO, check. New CTO, check. Mozilla is getting everything back in
        order after the Brendan Eich\u00a0debacle.","title":"Mozilla\u2019s new CTO
        is Andreas Gal, who stuck around after a one-off project with\u00a0Eich","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:24Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/24/mozillas-new-cto-is-andreas-gal-who-stuck-around-after-a-one-off-project-with-eich/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:22Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590076,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-28T06:00:18Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Xbox
        Entertainment Studios chief Nancy Tellem confirms that two major Halo TV projects
        are in the\u00a0works.","title":"Microsoft is taking Halo beyond gaming with
        two television\u00a0projects","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:22Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/28/microsof-has-set-in-motion-two-television-projects-based-on-halo/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:20Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590075,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-30T08:00:19Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"OpenWorm
        is aimed at unraveling the mysteries of\u00a0life.","title":"OpenWorm project
        wants you to help create the world\u2019s first digital\u00a0organism","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:20Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/30/openworm-is-going-to-be-a-digital-organism-in-your-browser/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:18Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590074,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-05T12:03:06Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Oligarchy
        is baked into the system in all sorts of ways. But Larry Lessig believes there\u2019s
        enough small-donor cash to outmatch the 1% that typically steer political\u00a0campaigns.","title":"Creative
        Commons creator is crowdfunding a project to end political corruption in\u00a0America","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:18Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/05/creative-commons-creator-is-crowdfunding-a-project-to-end-american-political-corruption/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:16Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590073,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-16T17:00:09Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"While
        AT&T is far from the heady, innovative days of Bell Labs in its prime, the
        telecom giant is still trying to keep that spirit\u00a0alive.","title":"5
        of the coolest projects in the works at AT&T\u2019s innovation\u00a0centers","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:16Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/16/5-of-the-coolest-projects-in-the-works-at-atts-innovation-centers/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:14Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590072,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-22T10:03:53Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"It
        looks like virtual-reality headsets\u00a0are\u00a0headed for the mainstream.
        Fast.","title":"Samsung is making a VR headset to beat Oculus VR and Sony\u2019s
        Project\u00a0Morpheus","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:14Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/22/samsung-is-making-a-vr-headset-to-beat-oculus-vr-and-sony-morpheus/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:12Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590071,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-27T12:00:13Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Night
        Light Interactive\u2019s upcoming title has a few ingredients that set it
        apart from the typical horror game you\u2019ve played a hundred\u00a0times.","title":"Astral
        projection, friendly ghosts, and other reasons why Whispering Willows isn\u2019t
        your average horror\u00a0game","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:12Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/27/astral-projection-friendly-ghosts-and-other-reasons-why-whispering-willows-isnt-your-average-horror-game/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:10Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590070,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T10:20:54Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"From
        inception to launch, here\u2019s an inside look at Swift \u2013\u00a0courtesy
        of its creator, Apple\u00a0developer tools director\u00a0Chris Lattner.","title":"Inside
        the development of Swift, Apple\u2019s passion project 4 years in the\u00a0making","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:10Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/inside-the-development-of-swift-apples-passion-project-4-years-in-the-making/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:08Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590069,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-05T09:42:18Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Developers
        will soon have their crack at Google\u2019s 3D mapping initiative with a new
        7-inch tablet.","title":"Google\u2019s latest Project Tango gadget: A 3D mapping
        7\u2033 tablet for\u00a0$1,024","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:08Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/05/googles-latest-project-tango-gadget-a-3d-mapping-7-tablet-for-1024/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:06Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590068,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-11T08:00:19Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"Sony\u2019s
        U.S. game boss says his teams are open to experimentation as well as new\u00a0franchises.","title":"Sony\u2019s
        Scott Rohde on game delays, beating Microsoft, and Project\u00a0Morpheus","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:05:06Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/11/sonys-scott-rohde-on-game-delays-beating-microsoft-and-project-morpheus/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590067,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-16T21:00:31Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Editor\u2019s
        Pick Jesse Pujji launched Ampush with his own cash and connected it to Facebook
        in 2010. Now Facebook accounts for nearly 90 percent of the company\u2019s\u00a0revenue.","title":"Ampush
        chief Jesse Pujji on mobile: \u2018Your client is your\u00a0god\u2019","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:56Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/16/ampush-chief-jesse-pujji-on-mobile-your-client-is-your-god/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:54Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590066,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-02T08:58:20Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Early-stage
        founders can get into trouble when they find themselves on a larger stage,
        and the past week has provided two stark examples: the founders of RadiumOne
        and\u00a0GitHub.","title":"Startup founders don\u2019t have to be\u00a0jerks","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:54Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/02/dylans-desk-truth-consequences-in-silicon-valley/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590065,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-02T12:30:13Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"We
        ran a story earlier this week on Eric Schiermeyer, the co-founder of Zynga
        and the analytics expert behind its success, and his new game studio called
        Luminary. But I had a nice walk with Schiermeyer on the coastal cliffs at
        Half Moon Bay where our conversation drifted across many other subjects.","title":"A
        walk on the California coast with Eric Schiermeyer, the cofounder and former
        analytics expert at Zynga\u00a0(interview)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:52Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/02/a-walk-on-the-california-coast-with-eric-schiermeyer-the-former-analytics-expert-at-zynga-interview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590064,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-06T09:30:35Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Rovio
        soft launches Retry, a simple mobile game with difficult mechanics, in Canada,
        Finland, and\u00a0Poland.","title":"Angry Birds developer gets all Flappy
        with its latest mobile\u00a0release","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:50Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/06/angry-birds-developer-gets-all-flappy-with-its-latest-mobile-release/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:49Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590063,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"notify","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:49Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590062,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-09T09:00:21Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Nintendo
        is working on a Skylanders-style Mario game as well as hardware with \u201cnew
        thinking\u201d for emerging\u00a0markets.","title":"Nintendo turns to toys
        and China \u2014 but these won\u2019t fix what\u2019s\u00a0wrong","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:48Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/09/nintendo-turns-to-toys-and-china-but-those-wont-fix-whats-wrong/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:47Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590061,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"factual","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:47Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:46Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590060,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-09T11:00:56Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Unity
        was at the right place and time when mobile games took off. Now it is expanding
        into services and game asset sales because it doesn\u2019t like to see game
        developers\u00a0die.","title":"CEO David Helgason on why Unity has expanded
        into mobile game-dev services\u00a0(interview)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:46Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/09/ceo-david-helgason-on-why-unity-has-expanded-into-mobile-game-dev-services-interview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:45Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590059,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"none","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:45Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590058,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-14T09:52:08Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"The
        Walking Dead: Season Two Episode Three \u2014 In Harm\u2019s Way is the most
        brutal entry in the series to\u00a0date.","title":"Growing up is hard to do
        in The Walking Dead: Season Two \u2014 Episode Three\u00a0(review)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:44Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/14/the-walking-dead-season-two-episode-three-review/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:43Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590057,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"zergnet","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:43Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:42Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590056,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-05-26T12:30:23Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Five
        global investors weigh in on the state of investing in the game business \u2014
        and how entrepreneurs can maneuver in this heady\u00a0environment.","title":"Has
        game investing turned into a gold mine or risky bubble\u00a0speculation?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:42Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/26/has-game-investing-turned-into-a-gold-mine-or-risky-bubble-speculation/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:41Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590055,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"blackberry","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:41Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:40Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590054,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-01T04:00:04Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Guest
        Post If you have read anything about online advertising in the past year,
        you may be afraid that the industry is about to collapse under the weight
        of\u00a0fraud.","title":"The frighteningly overblown reports of online ad\u00a0fraud","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:40Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/01/the-frighteningly-overblown-reports-of-online-ad-fraud/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:39Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590053,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"google-play","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:39Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:38Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590052,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-01T14:48:27Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Games
        that help us re-experience life as a kid can be more powerful than those in
        which we play as unstoppable\u00a0heroes.","title":"Growing up: Why I gravitate
        to games with child\u00a0protagonists","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:38Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/01/growing-up-gamer-why-i-gravitate-to-child-protagonists-in-games/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:37Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590051,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"vimeo","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:36Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:36Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590050,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2008-04-26T13:35:54Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"I
        spent four days this week at the Web 2.0 Expo at the Moscone West convention
        center in San Francisco. Here is a summary of the scene, including photos
        and my impressions of the show.","title":"A roundup of scenery from the Web
        2.0 Expo: an annotated photo\u00a0gallery","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:36Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2008/04/26/a-roundup-of-scenery-from-the-web-20-expo-an-annotated-photo-gallery/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:35Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590049,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"richard-dunn","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:34Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:34Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590048,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2008-08-14T05:38:01Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"When
        I was a kid in rural Virginia, losing electricity was a yearly event around
        Christmas. Situated on the outskirts of a large utility\u2019s territory,
        my family was among the last to have its power restored when, inevitably,
        a big winter storm knocked trees onto lines around the county. So for a day
        or two, or even a week, the daily entree was grilled cheese from the fireplace,
        and we all went to bed early.","title":"On the anniversary of our biggest
        blackout ever, are we on the road to\u00a0another?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:34Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/14/on-the-anniversary-of-our-biggest-blackout-ever-are-we-on-the-road-to-another/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:32Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590047,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"denis","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:32Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:32Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590046,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-06-05T00:00:00Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\tThis
        post was originally published right here on Bitmob over a year ago, just after
        the three big press conferences took place. With the pre-E3 hype already at
        full boil, I thought it appropriate to keep this whole motion control thing
        \u2014 likely the focus of at least two of the major console manufacturers
        \u2014 \u00a0in context with what I thought of them last year.","title":"E3
        2009: Changing the Way You Play Games\u2026or not\u2026but\u00a0Really!","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:32Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/06/05/e3-2009-changing-the-way-you-play-gamesor-notbut-really/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:30Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590045,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"light","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:30Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:30Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590044,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-08-13T04:51:11Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\u00a0","title":"Why
        I\u2019m Afraid of Multiplayer Gaming (and how I\u2019m working to overcome
        it) Part\u00a01","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:29Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/08/13/why-im-afraid-of-multiplayer-gaming-and-how-im-working-to-overcome-it-part-1/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:28Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590043,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"instagram","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:28Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:27Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590042,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-08-13T05:46:25Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"With
        where I last left off in Part 1, I had closed out what makes my stomach churn
        at the thought of online gaming.","title":"Why I\u2019m Afraid of Multiplayer
        Gaming (and how I\u2019m working to overcome it) Part\u00a02","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:27Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/08/13/why-im-afraid-of-multiplayer-gaming-and-how-im-working-to-overcome-it-part-2/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:26Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590041,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"challenger","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:26Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:25Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590040,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-09-16T18:59:07Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"When
        we last left our hero, he was preparing for the coming of a new generation,
        that was to be heralded by the almighty Dreamcast. You can still read Part
        1 and Part 2!","title":"Meet the Mob: Mike Minotti \u2013 Part 3 of the Epic\u00a0Trilogy","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:25Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/09/16/meet-the-mob-mike-minotti-part-3-of-the-epic-trilogy/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:24Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590039,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"eric-cantor","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:23Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:23Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590038,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-10-30T09:21:52Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Marc
        Benioff has been the reliably outspoken chief executive of Salesforce.com
        for 10 years. Salesforce was one of the pioneers of the\u00a0software-as-a-service
        business model, where traditional software is replaced by a web-based application
        that customers pay for via subscription, and he trumpeted the model with ads
        declaring that software is dead. Now that SaaS and cloud computing are becoming
        an increasing part of tech business models, Benioff said this spells big trouble
        for companies like Microsoft \u2014 he describes the software giant\u2019s
        leaders as \u201ctrapped in their own psychosis\u201d and says they will \u201cdrag
        their company into the gutter.\u201d","title":"Salesforce.com''s Marc Benioff:
        ''Many CEOs are afraid to get too\u00a0personal''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:23Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/30/salesforce-coms-marc-benioff-many-ceos-are-afraid-to-get-too-personal/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:21Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590037,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"getty-images","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:21Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:21Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590036,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-04-08T16:57:00Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\tEditor''s
        Note: Nathan gives us his view on the topic of gore in video games. While
        I do agree that realistic physics for blood spatter and severed limbs can
        increase the visual impact of a game, I also think that it can be really easy
        for developers to overdo it. Despite the fact that Dragon Age: Origins is
        one of my favorite games, the amount of blood on your characters sometimes
        reaches comical proportions while you''re playing it. \u2013 Jay\n\t","title":"Gore
        in Video Games: Innovation, not\u00a0Excess","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:21Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/04/08/gore-in-video-games-whats-the-deal/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:19Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590035,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-04-16T10:56:53Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"The
        big game-changer (or alternately, the potential disaster) that came out of
        Twitter\u2019s first big conference this week was Annotations. It\u2019s a
        new way for developers to attach any kind of metadata to tweets. Twitter has
        long supported certain kinds of metadata like geolocation or what service
        the tweet was sent from, whether it was the web site or a Twitter client like
        Brizzly.","title":"Ideas for Twitter''s new Annotations \u2014 from obvious
        to\u00a0intriguing","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:19Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/04/16/twitter-annotations/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:19Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590034,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"harris","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:19Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:17Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590033,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-04-28T16:18:55Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\tI
        don''t buy this 2012 hype. Natural disasters my ass, the world will not end
        through a series of earthquakes and tsunamis\u2026oh no, it will not end via
        large asteroid while the tune \"I Don''t Wanna Miss a Thing\" by Aerosmith
        plays in the background as you''re cuddling your girl/boyfriend for the last
        time. And before you start with your own theory, no, it won''t be global warming
        either.\u00a0","title":"Left 4 Dead not adequately preparing people for the
        impending zombie\u00a0apocalypse","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:17Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/04/28/left-4-dead-not-adequately-preparing-people-for-the-impending-zombie-apocalypse/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:17Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590032,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"cindy","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:17Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:15Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590031,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-07-28T04:21:42Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\tWith
        Blizzard\u2019s recent Real-ID debacle the subject of female gamers has once
        again been brought up. The Real-ID system would make any post on the official
        World of Warcraft forum appear under the person\u2019s real first name and
        last. According to Blizzard \u201cthe official forums have always been a great
        place to discuss the latest info on our games, offer ideas and suggestions,
        and share experiences with other players \u2014 however, the forums have also
        earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness
        run wild. Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute
        to a more positive forum environment, promote constructive conversations,
        and connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven\u2019t been connected
        before. With this change, you\u2019ll see blue posters (i.e. Blizzard employees)
        posting by their real first and last names on our forums as well.\u201d When
        this was announced one of the main defenses against using the real-id system
        on the official World of Warcraft forums was that gamers, especially females
        gamers, were worried about what that could mean for them having their real
        names publicly displayed. While I like the idea of making the internet a better
        place by taking away someone\u2019s anonymity and making them somewhat accountable
        and able to be called out for their actions, I don\u2019t like the argument
        of females being worried about being ousted as females or the fact that they
        are concerned about their image or employment.","title":"Why are gamers, especially
        girl gamers, afraid to admit\u00a0it?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:15Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/28/why-are-gamers-especially-girl-gamers-afraid-to-admit-it/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:15Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590030,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"bikini","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:15Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:13Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590029,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-09-03T14:00:00Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\tYou
        find yourself creeping down a pitch-black steel corridor. You''re armed to
        the teeth, but your flares only create a tiny island of harsh, purple light
        three feet in front of you. That''s no good against terrible, spindly shadows
        that flit at speeds you''ve never seen in a game before.","title":"It\u2019s
        Not Easy Being a Colonial Marine: Can You Keep Hope When a Franchise Repeatedly\u00a0Disappoints?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:13Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/03/its-not-easy-being-a-colonial-marine/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:13Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590028,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"youtube","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:13Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:11Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590027,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-10-08T07:23:34Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"While
        Apple seems to be finally moving on from the iPhone 4\u2032s antennagate controversy,
        the company may be gearing up to deal with a new problem centered around the
        device\u2019s glass back, gadget site GDGT reports.","title":"Glassgate: Could
        the iPhone 4''s glass back be another hardware flaw for\u00a0Apple?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:11Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/08/glassgate-could-the-iphone-4s-glass-back-be-another-hardware-flaw-for-apple/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:11Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590026,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"selena-gomez","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:11Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:09Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590025,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-10-28T13:17:30Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"A
        Google spokesperson has issued the following statement denying claims made
        by the San Francisco Chronicle today that Google had  transferred management
        of its Google TV operations to its YouTube  subsidiary:","title":"Did Google
        TV move to YouTube? Not really\u00a0(updated)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:09Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/10/28/will-google-tvs-move-to-youtube-make-a-difference-with-content/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:09Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590024,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"cyrus","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:09Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:07Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590023,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-04-20T18:41:53Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Guest
        Post Even before Apple\u2019s iPad reinvigorated what was an all-but-dead
        tablet marketplace, the exponential growth of computing capability on mobile
        phones was well underway. Now, with millions of tablets and nearly a billion
        smartphones circulating throughout our always-on world, mobile computing is
        not just on the rise but is truly the future of computing \u2013 both for
        consumers and\u00a0business\u2026","title":"Mobile computing is changing software
        and the PC \u2013 but don\u2019t be\u00a0afraid!","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:07Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/20/mobile-computing-is-changing-software-and-the-pc-%e2%80%93-but-don%e2%80%99t-be-afraid/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:07Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590022,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"middleton","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:06Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:05Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590021,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-12-17T01:59:00Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\n\tYou
        know where you are with a zombie.","title":"5 video-game terrors you should
        be very afraid\u00a0of","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:05Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/17/5-video-game-terrors-you-should-be-very-afraid-of/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:05Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590020,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"jessica","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:04Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:03Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590019,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-05-31T22:59:00Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\n\tFear
        comes in as many shapes and sizes as terrifying circus clowns. What scares
        one person might make another shrug or laugh, and that, in turn, may make
        that first person violent (but the courts can''t prove anything). We''re afraid
        of the unknown, the uncanny, and the uncontrollable, and these anxieties define
        us as much as anything else.","title":"3 games I\u2019m too afraid to\u00a0play","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:03Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/31/3-games-im-too-afraid-to-play/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:02Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590018,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"shoot","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:02Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:01Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590017,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-06-18T14:48:58Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\n\tIf
        you asked me a year ago if I ever thought a video game could make me cry,
        I\u2019d have said, \"No\" with resounding confidence. However, I\u2019d quickly
        follow it up with, \"But I wish one would.\"","title":"Game developers shouldn\u2019t
        be afraid to make you\u00a0cry","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:01Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/18/theres-no-crying-in-games-or-is-there/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:00Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590016,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"kris","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:04:00Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:59Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590015,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-07-17T01:37:35Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\t\u00a0","title":"Another
        gaming junky here to mark his\u00a0territory","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:58Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/17/another-gaming-junky-here-to-mark-his-territory/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:58Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590014,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"kate","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:58Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590013,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-07-31T12:00:31Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\nOne
        of the most contentious issues in the skilled-immigrant debate is the H-1B
        visa, which allows qualified immigrants to work for U.S. tech companies on
        a temporary basis. Proponents of raising the H-1B visa cap say the nation
        faces a dire shortage of engineering talent and needs more of these visas
        to stay competitive. Detractors insist that there is no engineer shortage
        and that America should close its doors to foreigners because they take jobs
        away from citizens. Battles break out in Capitol Hill over the number of visas
        allocated because there are no hard data to back either side.","title":"America:
        Why are you so afraid of skilled\u00a0immigrants?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:56Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/31/america-why-are-you-so-afraid-of-skilled-immigrants/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:56Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590012,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"victims","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:56Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:54Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590011,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-08-02T23:23:02Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\n\tIn
        this fast-paced, hustle-and-bustle world of ours, a lot of people are afraid
        of being left behind. I''m often worried that I''ll be at a party and people
        will start talking about Lost, and I won''t have anything to add because I''ve
        only seen like 10 minutes of that show. But then I remember that the odds
        of that very specific situation arising are pretty low, and I don''t get invited
        to parties, anyway.","title":"3 reasons not to buy games (right\u00a0away)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:54Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/02/3-reasons-not-to-buy-games-right-away/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:54Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590010,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"sparks","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:53Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590009,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-08-28T22:01:31Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"\n\t\u201cDo
        what you love, and love what you do\u201d \u2013Some Random Guy Whose Name
        I Forget (or never knew in the first place)","title":"Why I\u2019m No Longer
        Afraid to Work With\u00a0Games","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:52Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/28/game/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:52Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590008,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"georgia-tech","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:51Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590007,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-10-02T15:16:15Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Neowin.net
        writer John Callaham struck a nerve last Friday, when he wrote an open letter
        to Marcus \u201cNotch\u201d Persson and called him a\u00a0hypocrite.","title":"Notch
        to Callaham: \u2018Thanks for the personal attack\u2019\u00a0(UPDATED)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:50Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/02/notch-to-callaham-open-letters/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:48Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590006,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"wtia","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:48Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:47Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590005,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-10-13T14:29:24Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"We
        talk with the artist about what inspired his line of Pac-Man\u00a0posters.","title":"Be
        not afraid: Pac-Man propaganda posters\u00a0(gallery)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:47Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/13/pac-man-propaganda-gallery/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:45Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590004,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-10-22T07:05:45Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Guest
        Post When an Israeli tells you, \u201cI think this is a horrible idea,\u201d
        he\u2019s not trying to insult you \u2013 he\u2019s just trying to save both
        of you the\u00a0time.","title":"\u2018It\u2019s not rudeness, it\u2019s chutzpah\u2019
        \u2013 an insider\u2019s take on Israel\u2019s startup\u00a0success","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:45Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/22/its-not-rudeness-its-chutzpah-an-insiders-take-on-israels-startup-success/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:44Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590003,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"magnet","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:44Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:43Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590002,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-11-12T11:20:22Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"Guest
        Post Online retail has a last-mile problem for many city dwellers: They\u2019re
        often not home when the UPS or FedEx driver chooses to show up. Amazon is
        solving the problem with Amazon locker, automated lockers installed in dense
        urban\u00a0areas.","title":"Who\u2019s afraid of Amazon\u00a0locker?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:43Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/12/whos-afraid-of-amazon-locker/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:41Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1590001,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-02-07T08:00:40Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"VentureBeat
        invited Evernote CEO Phil Libin to our office to discuss the big picture vision
        for the company. It runs far deeper than an IPO, international expansion plans,
        and the host of new features designed to appeal to busy\u00a0professionals.","title":"Evernote
        CEO says IPO is \u2018morally correct thing to do,\u2019 but not until 2015
        or\u00a02016","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:41Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/07/evernote/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:40Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1590000,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"white-house","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:40Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:39Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589999,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-02-18T08:00:39Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"A
        panel of experts describes both paid and non-paid user acquisition\u00a0tactics.","title":"User
        acquisition may not be sexy, but it\u2019s critical in mobile games (part\u00a01)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:38Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/18/user-acquisition-may-not-be-sexy-but-its-critical-in-mobile-games/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:37Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589998,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"span","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:36Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:36Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589997,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-04-17T14:41:57Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"For
        the first time, Tumblr\u2019s CEO chats about the company\u2019s failed journalistic\u00a0foray.","title":"Tumblr\u2019s
        CEO on killing its editorial team, not monetizing like Google &\u00a0YouTube","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:36Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/17/tumblr-ceo-talks-storyboard/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:34Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589996,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-01-20T16:30:43Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"While
        the Google acquisition puts Nest in a good spot to dominate the connected-home
        market one day, it also gave the fledgling industry a major stamp of\u00a0approval.","title":"Why
        smart-home startups like Birdi aren\u2019t afraid of the Nest-Google\u00a0alliance","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:34Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/20/why-smart-home-startups-like-birdi-arent-afraid-of-the-nest-google-alliance/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:34Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589995,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"the-standish","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:34Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:28Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589994,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"servant","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:28Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:24Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589993,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"fruition","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:24Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:21Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589992,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"eligible","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:21Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:17Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589991,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"immediately","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:17Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:15Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589990,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"ford","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:14Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:11Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589989,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"social-security-administration","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:11Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:07Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589988,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"clash","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:07Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:03Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589987,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"damon","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:03Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:00Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589986,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"it-project","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:03:00Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:52Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589985,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"anne-marie","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:52Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:49Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589984,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"abbott","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:49Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:45Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589983,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"weekends","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:45Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:42Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589982,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"fix-it","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:41Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:38Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589981,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"mike-abbott","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:38Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:35Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589980,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"arrived","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:34Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:31Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589979,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"cgi-federal","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:31Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:27Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589978,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"windfall","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:27Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:23Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589977,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"dice","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:23Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:19Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589976,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"reason-why","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:19Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:15Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589975,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"the-innovation","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:15Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:12Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589974,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"new-york-times","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:12Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:08Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589973,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"obama-for-america","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:08Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:05Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589972,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"harper-reed","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:04Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:01Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589971,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"howard","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:02:01Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:58Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589970,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"clay-johnson","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:58Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:53Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589969,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"tapped","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:53Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:49Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589968,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"think-it","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:49Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:47Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589967,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"greg-gershman","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:47Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:44Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589966,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"code-for-america","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:44Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:40Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589965,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"fellowship","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:40Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:36Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589964,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"general-services-administration","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:36Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:32Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589963,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"aaron-snow","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:32Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:26Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589962,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"were-not-afraid","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:26Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:25Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589961,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T11:28:36Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"SAN
        FRANCISCO \u2014 As expected, Apple jumped into the health-information business
        today, launching both a new health app and a cloud-based health-information
        platform.","title":"Apple announces \u2018HealthKit\u2019 platform and new
        \u2018Health\u2019 app","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:25Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/apple-announces-heath-kit-platform-and-health-app/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:24Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589960,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T11:38:07Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"SAN
        FRANCISCO \u2014 With 1.2 million active apps in the App Store, finding the
        right app has become a chore.","title":"Apple to make App Store discovery
        easier with new ways to find\u00a0apps","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:23Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/apple-to-make-app-store-discovery-easier-with-new-ways-to-find-apps/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:22Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589959,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T11:48:01Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"SAN
        FRANCISCO \u2014 Apple had lots of good news for developers here at WWDC today.
        But one of the standouts is a new development platform called CloudKit that
        should simplify\u00a0app creation.","title":"Apple launches CloudKit development\u00a0platform","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:21Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/apple-launches-cloud-kit-development-platform/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:20Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589958,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"greg","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:20Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:20Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589957,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T11:49:47Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        today announced a new programming language native to both OS X and iOS: Swift.","title":"Apple
        announces \u2018Swift,\u2019 a new programming language for OS X &\u00a0iOS","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:19Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/apple-introduces-a-new-programming-language-swift-objective-c-without-the-c/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:18Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589956,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T12:00:57Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"The
        new platform can improve 3D rendering by 10X for\u00a0games.","title":"Apple
        to deliver \u2018Metal\u2019 platform for high-end games on\u00a0iOS","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:17Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/apple-to-deliver-metal-platform-for-high-end-games-on-ios/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:17Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589955,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"myriad","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:17Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:16Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589954,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T12:24:59Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        is launching a series of products later this year, and they all point in one
        direction: They want to replace Google.","title":"Apple\u2019s new services
        are a Hail Mary to beat Google in search, calls, &\u00a0more","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:15Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/apples-new-services-are-a-hail-mary-to-beat-google-in-search-calls-more/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:14Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589953,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T13:05:28Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        dives into the smart home\u00a0arena.","title":"Apple says it\u2019s bringing
        \u2018rationality\u2019 to your increasingly crowded smart\u00a0home","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:13Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/apple-says-its-bringing-rationality-to-the-your-increasingly-crowded-smart-home/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:13Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589952,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"leg-up","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:13Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:12Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589951,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T14:19:11Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Humanity
        maybe plunging into a post-apocalyptic climate change disaster hellscape as
        rising temperatures spark disastrous\u2026.did someone say new Apple\u00a0fronts?","title":"Today,
        people cared about Apple\u2019s meh announcements more than Obama\u2019s climate
        plan (in 4\u00a0pictures)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:11Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/today-people-cared-about-apples-meh-announcements-more-than-obamas-climate-plan-in-4-pictures/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:10Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589950,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"steven","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:09Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:09Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589949,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T16:31:27Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Dr.
        Dre called in live to WWDC 14 to say hello. And he was\u00a0sober!","title":"News
        flash at WWDC 14: Dr. Dre sober, actually with\u00a0Apple","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:09Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/news-flash-at-wwdc-14-dr-dre-sober/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:08Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589948,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T18:36:27Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Box
        chief Aaron Levie proclaimed that Apple\u2019s new OS X Yosemite will leave
        the others\u00a0behind.","title":"Box CEO Aaron Levie: After WWDC today, Microsoft
        lags far behind\u00a0Apple","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:07Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/box-ceo-levie-after-wwdc-today-microsoft-lags-far-behind-apple/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:06Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589947,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"a-week","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:06Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:06Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589946,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-02T19:24:06Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"With
        Apple\u2019s new \u201cHealth\u201d platform, e may have just witnessed the
        birth of an ecosystem that follows a similar model to that of\u00a0iTunes.","title":"Did
        Apple just iTune-ize your personal health\u00a0data?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:05Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/02/did-apple-just-itune-ize-your-personal-health-data/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:04Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589945,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T06:10:28Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        unveiled a sweeping plan Monday to organize all kinds of personal health data
        in one platform called HealthKit, but with the official launch of the thing
        just a few months away some big\u00a0questions remain about just how the whole
        thing will work.","title":"Apple\u2019s Health app and HealthKit: Lots of
        questions still\u00a0remain","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:03Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/apples-health-app-and-healthkit-lots-of-questions-still-remain/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:03Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589944,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"deloitte","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:03Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:02Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589943,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T07:00:54Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        shows steady improvement in its iOS platforms for game\u00a0makers.","title":"Why
        game developers should be happy about Apple\u2019s WWDC\u00a0announcements","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:01Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/why-game-developers-should-be-happy-about-apples-wwdc-announcements/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:01:00Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589942,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T07:31:10Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Missed
        Apple\u2019s developer conference yesterday? Here\u2019s everything you need
        to know, packed into a two-minute video.","title":"Everything Apple announced
        at WWDC, in 2\u00a0minutes","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:59Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/everything-apple-announced-at-wwdc-in-2-minutes/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:59Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589941,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"department-of-veterans-affairs","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:59Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:58Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589940,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T08:11:39Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Sponsored
        Post MapR       Technologies, Inc., provider of the top-ranked distribution
        for       Apache Hadoop, today launched at Hadoop       Summit the industry\u2019s
        first Hadoop application gallery. Launching       with solutions from a wide
        range of Hadoop\u00a0ecosystem\u2026","title":"MapR Technologies Launches
        Industry\u2019s First Apache Hadoop Application\u00a0Gall...","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:57Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/mapr-technologies-launches-industrys-first-apache-hadoop-application-gallery/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589939,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T09:00:51Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Epic
        Games showed off its cool Zen Garden demo at WWDC 14. Epic\u2019s Tim Sweeney
        tells us how it was made\u00a0possible.","title":"Graphics guru Tim Sweeney
        explains why Apple\u2019s Metal will make mobile games far\u00a0better","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:55Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/graphics-guru-tim-sweeney-explains-why-apples-metal-will-make-games-run-10-times-more-efficiently/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:55Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589938,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"chief-technology-officer","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:55Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:54Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589937,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T09:10:23Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Amid
        all the big announcements Apple made at yesterday\u2019s Worldwide Developers
        Conference yesterday, one addition didn\u2019t get much attention: You can
        now switch your default search engine to DuckDuckGo in the company\u2019s
        native web browser, Safari.","title":"Apple\u2019s iOS 8 could be huge for
        search engine\u00a0DuckDuckGo","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:53Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/apples-ios-8-could-be-huge-for-search-engine-duckduckgo/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:52Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589936,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"marina-martin","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:52Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589935,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T16:10:42Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"On
        eBay, sales of used Apple hardware reached over $1 billion in a\u00a0year.","title":"EBay
        sees over $1 billion in Apple gadget sales every\u00a0year","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:51Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/ebay-sees-over-1-billion-in-used-apple-gadget-sales-every-year/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589934,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-03T20:54:58Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Editor\u2019s
        Pick Software engineer Sam Soffes gives us his hands-on first impression of
        Swift and why it\u2019s better than\u00a0Objective-C.","title":"A programmer\u2019s
        view of Apple\u2019s new Swift\u00a0language","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:49Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/03/a-programmers-view-of-apples-new-swift-language/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589933,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T06:10:37Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Yesterday
        at Apple\u2019s developer conference, a screen shot of its new Health app
        flashed up on the screen behind VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi.
        Just one problem: It showed the wrong metric for a user\u2019s blood glucose\u00a0level.","title":"Apple\u2019s
        on-stage HealthKit goof proves it still has to earn the trust of the health\u00a0community","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:47Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/apples-on-stage-healthkit-goof-proves-it-still-has-to-earn-the-trust-of-the-health-community/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:47Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589932,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"it-matters","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:46Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:46Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589931,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T10:20:54Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"From
        inception to launch, here\u2019s an inside look at Swift \u2013\u00a0courtesy
        of its creator, Apple\u00a0developer tools director\u00a0Chris Lattner.","title":"Inside
        the development of Swift, Apple\u2019s passion project 4 years in the\u00a0making","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:45Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/inside-the-development-of-swift-apples-passion-project-4-years-in-the-making/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589930,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T10:25:02Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"1.2
        million apps. That huge inventory of Apple\u2019s App Store is a source of
        pride for the company \u2013\u00a0and a big roadblock for users trying to
        find the right app or developers trying to find an audience.","title":"Apple
        App Store users and developers got more than a few goodies this\u00a0week","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:43Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/apple-app-store-users-and-developers-got-more-than-a-few-goodies-this-week/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:43Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589929,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"key","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:42Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:42Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589928,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T16:26:29Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Big
        data repositories like Apple\u2019s HealthKit and Samsung\u2019s SAMI seem
        to be in vogue, but Intel has no immediate plans to build a platform of its\u00a0own.","title":"Intel
        wearables chief unimpressed with Apple, Samsung\u00a0\u00fcber-platforms","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:41Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/intel-wearables-chief-unimpressed-with-apple-samsung-uber-platforms/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:40Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589927,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"a-white","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:40Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:40Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589926,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-04T21:05:46Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Applovin
        emerges from stealth with a roster of over 300 clients and\u00a0counting.","title":"Mobile
        marketer AppLovin emerges from stealth with 300 customers\u00a0(exclusive)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:39Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/04/mobile-marketer-applovin-emerges-from-stealth-with-300-customers-exclusive/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:38Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589925,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-05T06:15:12Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"All
        of a sudden, Android is no longer the only flexible mobile operating system
        on the market.","title":"As Apple opens up with iOS 8, Google needs to give
        Android users a reason to\u00a0stay","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:38Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/05/as-apple-opens-up-with-ios-8-google-needs-to-give-android-users-a-reason-to-stay/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:37Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589924,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"the-program","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:37Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:36Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589923,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T06:05:15Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Even
        as Apple opens up iOS to developers, it\u2019s still keeping things as closed
        as\u00a0ever.","title":"Open Apple, closed\u00a0Apple","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:35Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/open-apple-closed-apple/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:34Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589922,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"online-access","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:33Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:34Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589921,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T11:22:05Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"A
        new report today cites \u201cindustry sources\u201d saying that Apple is working
        on a health wearable that it will release next October.","title":"New details:
        Apple\u2019s new health wearable will be lined with\u00a0sensors","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:33Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/breaking-apple-is-preparing-a-new-health-wearable-for-fall-release/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:31Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589920,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T11:26:42Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple\u2019s\u00a0Swift
        programming language has a new fan.","title":"Apple\u2019s Swift language
        gets a new supporter: Facebook-owned\u00a0Parse","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:31Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/apples-new-swift-language-gets-a-new-supporter-facebook-owned-parse/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:30Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589919,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"built","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:29Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:29Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589918,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T12:41:20Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Social
        search engine startup Spotsetter is Apple\u2019s latest acquisition, reports
        TechCrunch.","title":"Apple reportedly buys local search app Spotsetter \u2014
        and shuts it\u00a0down","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:29Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/apple-buys-spotsetter/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:27Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589917,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-06T14:52:05Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        is readjusting its stance on pre-paid cell phone service plans in hopes of
        boosting iPhone sales, reports 9to5Mac.","title":"You can now get a pre-paid
        iPhone plan at Apple stores, no unlock or new SIM\u00a0required","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:27Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/06/you-can-now-get-a-pre-paid-iphone-plan-at-apple-stores-no-unlock-or-new-sim-required/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:26Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589916,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"new-america-foundation","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:26Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:25Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589915,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T09:00:20Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        finally implemented its long-planned 7-for-1 stock split over the weekend,
        which means it began trading at a new price this morning: about $92.70, instead
        of the $645.54 it closed at on Friday.","title":"What you need to know about
        Apple\u2019s 7-1 stock split\u00a0today","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:25Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/what-you-need-to-know-about-apples-7-1-stock-split-today/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:23Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589914,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-09T19:00:51Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        introduces attribution features for iTunes\u00a0Connect.","title":"Apple introduces
        attribution features for its new version of iTunes\u00a0Connect","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:23Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/09/apple-introduces-attribution-features-for-its-new-version-of-itunes-connect/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:22Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589913,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"tom","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:22Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:21Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589912,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T05:00:24Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"It
        was only a matter of time before veterans of the home temperature-regulating
        industry took bold steps to compete with Nest, the current darling of the
        \u201cconnected home\u201d\u00a0scene.","title":"Thermostat veteran Honeywell
        takes on Google and Apple as it attempts to\u00a0modernize","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:21Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/thermostat-veteran-honeywell-is-taking-on-nest-as-it-attempts-to-modernize/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:20Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589911,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"fellows","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:20Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:19Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589910,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T08:07:34Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Tuesday,
        the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple a patent\u00a0for a \u201cshoe
        wear-out sensor, body-bar sensing system, unitless activity assessment and
        associated methods\u201d that could be used with the rumored iWatch.","title":"Apple
        patent hints at iWatch-enabled weightlifting\u00a0tracker","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:19Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/apple-patent-hints-at-iwatch-enabled-weightlifting-tracker/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:17Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589909,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T09:31:17Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Now
        firmly\u00a0in the music streaming business, Apple is starting to clamp down
        on shady\u00a0music apps in the App Store.","title":"Apple yanks music apps
        that let you download copyrighted\u00a0files","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:17Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/apple-yanks-music-apps-that-let-you-download-copyrighted-files/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:16Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589908,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"the-white-house","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:16Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:15Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589907,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T10:17:16Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Marketing
        and advertising are such a huge focus at Apple these days that the company
        is reportedly building up its own internal agency, which it intends to grow
        to as many as 1,000 people.","title":"Apple is building a massive in-house
        ad agency to recapture the \u2018Think Different\u2019 glory\u00a0days","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:15Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/apple-is-building-a-massive-in-house-ad-agency-to-recapture-the-think-different-glory-days/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:13Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589906,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T11:19:15Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        and other large U.S. companies have been parking profits overseas for years
        as a way of reducing their overall tax bill.","title":"EU may launch formal
        investigation into Apple\u2019s Irish tax\u00a0deal","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:13Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/eu-will-launch-formal-investigation-into-apples-irish-tax-deal-report/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:12Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589905,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"national-security-agency","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:12Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:11Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589904,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T11:37:58Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Social
        bulletin board Pinterest is on a roll: After raising a massive $200 million
        round less than a month ago, it just snagged itself two seasoned veterans
        to beef up its search and discovery department.","title":"Pinterest grabs
        two Apple veterans to beef up its engineering & product\u00a0teams","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:11Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/pinterest-grabs-two-apple-veterans-to-beef-up-its-engineering-product-teams/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:09Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589903,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T15:07:59Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"The
        FDA has just released the summary of a meeting it had with Apple last December
        to discuss the agency\u2019s sensitivities on regulating new health apps and\u00a0devices.","title":"Apple
        met with FDA to feel out agency\u2019s position on regulating health apps,
        sensors, and\u00a0devices","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:09Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/apple-met-with-fda-to-feel-out-agencys-position-on-regulating-health-apps-sensors-and-devices/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:08Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589902,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"evenly","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:08Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:07Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589901,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-06-10T23:59:26Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"Apple
        is going to do\u00a0amazingly well this quarter.","title":"Apple analyst:
        iPhone sales outperform expectations this\u00a0quarter","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:07Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/10/iphone-sales/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:05Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589900,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"the-private-sector","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:04Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:01Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589899,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"macarthur-foundation","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T08:00:01Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:57Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589898,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"ford-foundation","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:57Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589897,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-09-01T17:53:28Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"For
        some reason, a lot of readers come to us with their game ideas, asking us
        for advice. After years of telling them to stay cool and go back to school,
        we finally have a more legitimate lead for them.","title":"Design an Xbox
        Live Arcade Game, Win a Job and\u00a0$50K","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:56Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/09/01/design-an-xbox-live-arcade-game-win-a-job-and-50k/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:54Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589896,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2009-09-22T09:00:17Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"eduFire
        is offering a new business channel where venture capitalists and successful
        executives will offer advice to young entrepreneurs and the unemployed.","title":"Education
        site eduFire adds live video classes for entrepreneurs (50 free\u00a0passes)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:54Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2009/09/22/edufire-offers-lives-online-video-classes-for-entrepreneurs-taught-by-expert-vcs/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:53Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589895,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"partly","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:53Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:52Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589894,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-01-13T19:56:36Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Editor\u2019s
        note: Juan tweaks a brilliant thought experiment from the writer Chuck Klosterman:
        If you had 15 seconds to talk to your 15-year-old self about games, what would
        you say? Leave your answers in the comments! -Brett","title":"15 for 15: What
        Game Advice Would You Give to the 15-Year-Old\u00a0You?","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:52Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/13/15-for-15-a-message-to-your-past-self-about-video-games/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589893,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-01-25T09:17:27Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Lots
        of merger reports are coming in this morning. AOL, in the largest of the three
        reported deals, has picked up Internet video firm StudioNow for a reported
        $36.5 million. That\u2019s a pretty good payoff for investors in the Nashville-based
        startup. Clayton Associates and Claritas Capital had put only $3.5 million
        into StudioNow.","title":"Acquisition roundup: AOL \u2013 StudioNow, StockTwits
        \u2013 Abnormal Returns, LivePerson \u2013\u00a0NuConomy","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:50Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/01/25/acquisition-roundup-aol-buys-studionow-stocktwits-buys-abnormal-returns-liveperson-buys-nuconomy/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:50Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589892,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"obama-campaign","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:50Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589891,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-03-31T07:30:47Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Forget
        the TV crew. Broadcast journalists may turn to their Android devices and iPhones
        to file reports on the spot.","title":"Broadcast journalists turn to Bambuser''s
        live-streaming mobile video\u00a0apps","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:48Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/31/bambuser/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:46Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589890,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-07-21T19:40:11Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Mark
        Zuckerberg and \u201cThe Facebook Effect\u201d author David Kirkpatrick met
        for an on-stage conversation this evening at the Computer History Museum in
        Mountain View.","title":"Live-blog: Zuckerberg and David Kirkpatrick on the
        Facebook\u00a0Effect","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:46Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/21/live-blog-zuckerberg-and-david-kirkpatrick-on-the-facebook-effect/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:44Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589889,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"carol-davidsen","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:44Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589888,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-07-28T06:00:24Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Guest
        Post (Editor\u2019s note: Serial entrepreneur Steve Blank is the author of
        Four Steps to the Epiphany. This column originally appeared on his blog.)","title":"How
        to keep your business acumen alive for the\u00a0ages","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:44Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/28/how-to-keep-your-business-acumen-alive-for-the-ages/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:42Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589887,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2010-09-16T23:26:41Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"\n\tMy
        friends and I came up with the idea to help gamers with relationships. If
        you are interested in submitting a question send your email to DearAbby4Geeks@gmail.com.","title":"Relationship
        Advice for\u00a0Gamers","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:41Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/16/relationship-advice-for-gamers/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:40Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589886,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-01-29T23:26:13Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Tonight,
        on Saturday Night Live, the real Mark Zuckerberg popped up in the show\u2019s
        iconic opening monologue alongside Jesse Eisenberg, who played the Facebook
        founder in the oscar-nominated movie The Social Network.","title":"Mark Zuckerberg
        meets The Social Network''s Jesse Eisenberg on Saturday Night\u00a0Live","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:39Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/29/mark-zuckerberg-meets-the-social-networks-jesse-eisenberg-on-saturday-night-live/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:38Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589885,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"contrast","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:38Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:37Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589884,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-04-16T23:57:01Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"\n\t\u00a0","title":"Ultimate
        Guide to Meet Gamer Girls on Xbox Live\u00a0(Reloaded)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:37Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/16/ultimate-guide-to-meet-gamer-girls-on-xbox-live-reloaded/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:35Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589883,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-06-16T22:07:30Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"\n\t\u00a0","title":"Amateur
        Advice: 5 things Nintendo needs to\u00a0do","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:35Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/06/16/amateur-advice-5-things-nintendo-needs-to-do/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:34Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589882,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"smith","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:34Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:33Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589881,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-09-14T09:59:18Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Thirteen
        startups presented in the Social and Media Technologies category at this week\u2019s
        Demo Fall 2011 conference in Silicon Valley. Common themes were getting advice
        from strangers and trying out items for purchase virtually before buying.
        Here\u2019s a look at three of those startups we haven\u2019t covered yet
        in our Demo reporting:","title":"Demo: Advice-from-strangers theme dominates
        social tech\u00a0demonstrations","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:33Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/14/demo-advice-from-strangers-theme-dominates-social-tech-demonstrations/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:32Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589880,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"software-engineer","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:32Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:31Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589879,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-09-19T12:14:51Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Editor''s
        Pick \nRockets, electric cars, motion-sensing interfaces, free math education
        for all, and a social network that\u2019s closing in on a billion people.","title":"How
        to change the world: advice from Facebook, the Kinect team, Elon Musk & Salman\u00a0Khan","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:31Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/19/churchill-club-awards/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:30Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589878,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"paul-smith","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:30Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:29Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589877,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-09-26T08:48:28Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"It\u2019s
        fair to raise an eyebrow when a social network for healthcare comes along,
        but this network just might make you raise both eyebrows in surprise: HealthTap
        has created a healthcare social network with more than 5,000 real-live doctors
        to answer patient questions. Not peers, not \u201cexperts\u201d and not brands.
        Health questions aren\u2019t posted for the world to see or comment on. This
        is a private network between a patient and thousands of doctors.","title":"HealthTap\u2019s
        social network of 5,000 doctors is ready to give free\u00a0advice","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:29Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/26/healthtaps-social-network-of-5000-doctors-is-ready-to-give-free-advice/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:27Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589876,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-11-09T13:26:04Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"\nPlanning
        a getaway? Uptake, a social travel site for the inquisitive trip planner,
        can now pass your pressing travel inquiries on to Facebook friends who may
        have the answers.","title":"Need travel advice? Uptake connects you to Facebook
        friends who know\u00a0best","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:27Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/09/uptake-travel-qa/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:27Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589875,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"cooler","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:26Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:25Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589874,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2011-12-04T08:00:27Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"\nThis
        week, my Xbox Live account was hacked. This is the story of what happened,
        my response to it, and the questions about security that it has raised.","title":"How
        I was hacked \u2013 a tale of hijack, XBox Live and FIFA trading\u00a0cards","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:25Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/04/how-i-was-hacked-a-tale-of-hijack-xbox-live-and-fifa-trading-cards/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:23Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589873,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"rollout","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:23Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:23Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589872,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-04-21T12:15:05Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Guest
        Post The cost of sequencing the human genome continues to fall, reaching a
        low of $1,000 this year due to a new microchip and machine designed by genetics
        company Life Technologies Corp. And unleashed by those lower costs, a small
        cadre of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley is exploring ways to harness this
        data to enable us to live longer and healthier lives.","title":"Genome entrepreneurs
        say their data will help you live\u00a0longer","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:23Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/21/genome-entrepreneurs-say-their-data-will-help-you-live-longer/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:21Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589871,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-05-13T08:00:19Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"The
        former president of Microsoft\u2019s gaming and devices division spoke to
        a captive audience about how to create entrepreneurial projects within a larger
        company. During that talk, he touched on the Xbox 360\u2032s early troubles
        and how that affected him\u00a0personally.","title":"Former Xbox 360 exec\u2019s
        $1B pain and advice to\u00a0entrepreneurs","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:21Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/13/1-billion-dollar-pain/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:20Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589870,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"apparent","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:19Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:18Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589869,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-07-01T08:00:55Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Millions
        of kids (along with a healthy number of adults) want to make a living writing
        about video games. Dan Amrich\u00a0wants to create more of them. Or at least
        give them solid advice on how to succeed at getting their dream jobs as video
        game reviewers.","title":"How to break into video game writing: Advice from
        an\u00a0expert","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:18Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/01/how-to-break-into-video-game-writing-advice-from-an-expert/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:16Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589868,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-08-16T11:11:57Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Through
        fundraising auction site Goodwillion, Hacker Dojo\u2019s community has banded
        together to offer an eclectic selection of rewards, services, and\u00a0meetings.","title":"Hacker
        Dojo supporters auction off dates, cakes, and entrepreneurial advice from
        robot\u00a0dinosaurs","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:16Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/16/hacker-dojo-auctions/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:16Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589867,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"tech-experts","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:16Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:14Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589866,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-10-08T10:46:30Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Guest
        Post How to build regional entrepreneurial communities has just gotten it\u2019s
        first \u201chere\u2019s how to do it\u201d\u00a0book.","title":"\u2018Startup
        Communities\u2019 book delivers roadmap for Silicon Valleys\u00a0everywhere","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:14Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/08/startup-communities-book-delivers-roadmap-for-building-startup-clusters/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:12Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589865,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-10-10T10:08:11Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Guest
        Post Women founders were few at DEMO Fall in Santa Clara. Here\u2019s what
        they had to say about living, working, and competing in a \u201cman\u2019s\u00a0world.\u201d","title":"Women
        of DEMO: Female founders give tech career\u00a0advice","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:12Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/10/women-of-demo/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:11Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589864,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"the-federal","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:10Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:10Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589863,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-10-19T10:56:00Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"\n\n\tIt\u2019s
        every fighting-game player\u2019s worst nightmare. Online hecklers trash those
        who suffer it. People don\u2019t enter tournaments for fear of it: getting
        mauled in a tournament stream with thousands of your peers watching you online.
        It\u2019s the virtual version of being tarred and feathered. And I felt the
        pain firsthand.","title":"I got destroyed on a Super Street Fighter IV live\u00a0stream","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:10Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/19/super-street-fighter-4-game-diary-1-i-got-destroyed-on-a-live-stream/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:08Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589862,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-10-30T08:00:52Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"David
        Vonderhaar is the multiplayer gaming design director at Treyarch. He offers
        us sound advice on how to get ahead in multiplayer combat in the upcoming
        Call of Duty: Black Ops\u00a0II.","title":"David Vonderhaar\u2019s expert
        advice on how to get ahead in Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer (exclusive\u00a0interview)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:08Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/30/david-vonderhaars-expert-advice-on-how-to-get-ahead-in-call-of-duty-black-ops-ii-multiplayer-combat-interview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:07Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589861,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"digital-tools","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:07Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:06Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589860,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-11-19T17:18:17Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"We
        selected a few of our favorite videos from Rocketlist.me to inspire you this
        afternoon. Hope you\u00a0enjoy!","title":"Need afternoon inspiration? Get
        advice from entrepreneurs at Quora, LearnSprout and more\u00a0(video)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:06Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/19/rocketlist-videos/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:04Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589859,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-12-11T00:36:13Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Why
        should you play games on your console\u00a0anyway?","title":"Xbox 360 to get
        40 new entertainment apps on Xbox\u00a0Live","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:04Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/11/xbox-360-to-get-40-new-entertainment-apps-on-xbox-live/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:03Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589858,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"github","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:03Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:02Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589857,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-01-07T11:00:21Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"The
        co-directors of Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller, and adventure game veteran
        Jane Jensen, chat with GamesBeat about their writing\u00a0process.","title":"Cognition
        writers talk adventure games, detective stories, and bad writing\u00a0advice","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:02Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/07/jane-jensen-phoenix-online-studios-cognition-interview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:00Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589856,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-06-18T09:59:17Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Sponsored
        Post Advisory boards can be invaluable. They can also be unbearable. But either
        way, you can leverage their networks and knowledge to grow your\u00a0business.","title":"Smart
        Scaling: How to get actionable advice from your board to kickstart\u00a0growth","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:00Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/18/smart-scaling-2/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:59:00Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589855,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"rose","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:59Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:58Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589854,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-07-22T09:00:07Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"The
        key is to create teams that can respond to changes rapidly as they\u00a0happen.","title":"Navy
        SEAL\u2019s advice: Training is the way to deal with\u00a0disruption","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:58Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/22/navy-seals-advice-training-is-the-way-to-deal-with-disruption/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:56Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589853,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"obama","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:56Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:56Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589852,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-08-09T08:08:32Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Guest
        Post I had the opportunity to sit down with Branson to talk about challenges,
        competing against giants and entrepreneurship.","title":"\u2018Screw it \u2014
        just do it\u2019: Advice from Richard Branson for\u00a0entrepreneurs","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:55Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/09/screw-it-just-do-it-advice-from-sir-richard-branson-for-entrepreneurs/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:53Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589851,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-08-18T08:00:36Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Tina
        Palacios dives into the details for surviving in Call of Duty: Ghosts\u00a0multiplayer.","title":"Can
        you stay alive for 30 seconds in Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer?\u00a0(interview)","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:53Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/18/can-you-stay-alive-for-30-seconds-in-call-of-duty-ghosts-multiplayer-interview/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:52Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589850,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"tumblr","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:52Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:51Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589849,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-10-01T15:05:10Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Sponsored
        Post The digital health landscape isn\u2019t what it was five years ago \u2014
        or even last year. Advances in remote diagnostics, big data, advanced sensing
        technologies, mobile, and genomics research are enabling patient-powered applications,
        improved doctor-to-patient communication, and smarter physician tools and\u00a0insights.","title":"The
        plan to fix health care: Entrepreneurs collaborate live with top\u00a0VCs","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:51Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/01/the-plan-to-fix-health-care-entrepreneurs-collaborate-live-with-top-vcs/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:50Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589848,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"for-d","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:50Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589847,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-10-15T11:00:44Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Game
        industry leaders say it takes discipline and learning to shift from hands-on
        coding to running\u00a0things.","title":"How to turn a developer into a founder:
        Advice from those who\u2019ve done\u00a0it","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:48Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/15/how-do-you-turn-a-developer-into-a-founder/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:48Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589846,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"sam","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:48Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:46Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589845,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"jeffrey","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:46Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:46Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589844,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-10-24T10:25:17Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Guest
        Post I\u2019m a staff software engineer at a fast-growing Web startup. Here\u2019s
        my three pieces of advice for overcoming bias in the\u00a0workplace.","title":"\u2018Don\u2019t
        wait for an invitation,\u2019 and other advice for women in\u00a0tech","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:45Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/24/dont-wait-for-an-invitation-and-other-advice-for-women-in-tech/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:43Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589843,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-01-28T07:00:08Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Remote
        Coach gives golfers live analysis and instant feedback for game\u00a0improvement.","title":"MobiCoach
        gives golfers real-time coaching advice via mobile\u00a0app","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:43Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/28/mobicoach-gives-golfers-real-time-coaching-advice-via-mobile-app/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:42Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589842,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"jeffrey-young","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:42Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:41Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589841,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-03-03T16:14:27Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"\u201cTraditional
        startup advice says stay close to your customer so you know what they want.
        \u2026 Failing to do so can be detrimental to your core\u00a0business.\u201d","title":"Influx.com
        raises $250,000 to help online businesses excel at customer service\u00a0delivery","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:41Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/03/influx-com-raises-250000-to-help-online-businesses-excel-at-customer-service-delivery/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:39Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589840,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-09T04:30:09Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Health-tech
        startup Omada Health promises to help people with health issues change their
        behavior. And it\u2019s starting out with a program\u00a0to\u00a0help diabetes
        sufferers.","title":"Omada Health grabs a new $23M to \u2018deliver weight
        loss over an Internet connection\u2019","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:39Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/09/omada-health-grabs-a-new-23m-to-deliver-weight-loss-over-an-internet-connection/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:39Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589839,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"gerald","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:39Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:37Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589838,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2014-04-24T06:40:56Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"Facebook
        just bought\u00a0itself an exercise app.","title":"Facebook buys Moves exercise
        diary app, service will live\u00a0on","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:37Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/24/facebook-buys-moves-exercise-diary-app-service-will-live-on/"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:36Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589837,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"gerry-smith","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:35Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:35Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589836,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-12-07T08:00:40Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"If
        you follow the advice of experts, you can perform a lot better in the shooting
        gallery of Call of Duty: Black Ops II\u00a0multiplayer","title":"The DeanBeat:
        Expert advice on staying alive in Call of Duty: Black Ops II\u00a0multiplayer","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:35Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/07/the-deanbeat-expert-advice-on-staying-alive-in-call-of-duty-black-ops-ii-multiplayer/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:32Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589835,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2013-06-27T06:39:58Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"The
        past few months have been rocky for TechStars NYC, but you couldn\u2019t tell
        by looking at the startup accelerator\u2019s diverse Spring 2013\u00a0cohort.","title":"TechStars
        NYC\u2019s 2013 Demo Day: Shopping advice for parents, gourmet recipe deliveries,
        and\u00a0more","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:32Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/27/live-at-techstars-nycs-spring-2013-demo-day/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:32Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589834,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"previous","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:32Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:30Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589833,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"chris","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:30Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:28Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589832,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"comcast","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:28Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:26Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589831,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"reddit","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:26Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:24Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589830,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"turing","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:24Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:22Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589829,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"netflix","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:21Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:19Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589828,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"verizon","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:19Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:17Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589827,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"francisco","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:17Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:15Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589826,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:15Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:13Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589825,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"huffpost-live","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:13Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:11Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589824,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"surreal","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:11Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:09Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589823,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"wendy-davis","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:09Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:07Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589822,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"burning-man","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:07Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:05Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589821,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"dad","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:04Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:02Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589820,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"figure-out","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:02Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:00Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589819,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"fox-news","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:58:00Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:58Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589818,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"woman","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:58Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:56Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589817,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"chappelles-show","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:56Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:54Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589816,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"dave","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:54Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:52Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589815,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"dinnertime","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:52Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:50Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589814,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"space","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:49Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:47Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589813,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"sixth-sense","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:47Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:45Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589812,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"moviefone","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:45Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:43Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589811,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"backstory","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:43Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:41Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589810,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"kelly","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:41Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:39Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589809,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"bill-oreilly","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:39Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:37Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589808,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"donald-trump","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:37Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:35Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589807,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"cooper","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:35Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:33Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589806,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"msnbc","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:33Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:31Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589805,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"jon-stewart","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:31Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:29Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589804,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"eric","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:28Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:26Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589803,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"laura","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:26Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:24Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589802,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"whisper","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:24Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:22Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589801,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"my-business","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:22Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:20Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589800,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"dodge","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:20Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:16Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589799,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"walgreen","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:16Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:12Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589798,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"lego","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:12Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:10Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589797,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"vine","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:10Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:08Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589796,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"the-huffington-post","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:08Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:05Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589795,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T12:10:54Z","slug":"huffington-post","summary":"<div
        style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845041/original.jpg\" /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>President
        Obama delivers remarks about the error-plagued launch of Healthcare.gov in
        the Rose Garden. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</em></div></div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<p><span class=\"feature-dropcap\">W</span>ashington
        -- There may be no foosball tables or luxury buses ferrying employees to work,
        but a new startup in the nation\u2019s capital is offering other incentives
        to lure tech talent away from Silicon Valley.</p><br />\n<br />\nIt is sharing
        its work on GitHub, a popular website for open-source software, to appeal
        to coders. It is opening another office in San Francisco for those who don\u2019t
        want to live in Washington. And it is convincing civic-minded techies to build
        websites, apps and other digital tools that serve their country.<br />\n<br
        />\nIt\u2019s all part of an effort to persuade computer wizards to reject
        the lure of Google or Facebook and work for someone who isn\u2019t thought
        of as an innovator: Uncle Sam.<br />\n<br />\nThe startup, named 18F for its
        location on 18th and F Streets, is the in-house tech team for the federal
        government. It launched in March as part of a growing push in Washington to
        overcome a shortage of tech experts that was apparent last fall during the
        disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov. <br />\n<br />\nWhile Silicon Valley
        may offer more money or the chance to build cooler products, 18F employees
        chose to work in government for other reasons.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThis is
        the place to get big things done,\u201d Hillary Hartley, 18F\u2019s co-founder,
        said on a recent morning at the startup\u2019s open-air office, where a few
        programmers quietly typed code on MacBooks and stared into monitors. <br />\n<br
        />\n\"If you build something [in government] and it\u2019s successful, it
        is going to touch an enormous amount of people,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd
        that\u2019s intoxicating.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nBut with just 31 employees
        so far, 18F is a mere blip in a government bureaucracy with some 80,000 tech
        workers. And critics say the Obama administration has a long way to go before
        it can build a sustainable high-tech workforce.<br />\n<br />\nThe push to
        recruit more tech experts comes as many Americans expect access to almost
        everything -- including their government -- online. The recent glitches with
        the federal health care website proved the Obama administration needs to find
        more people with experience building high-traffic websites, said Paul Smith,
        37, a software engineer and programmer who helped fix HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere''s only going to be more expectation, more demand for transactional,
        consumer-facing services from the government, not less,\u201d Smith said.
        \u201cSo there''s only going to be more HealthCare.gov-like sites.\u201d<br
        />\n<br />\nThe Obama administration\u2019s talent shortage stands in contrast
        to the army of programmers and engineers who used cutting-edge digital tools
        to target voters and help the president win reelection in 2012. More than
        200 people worked on the campaign\u2019s digital operations. Many had left
        jobs at Facebook, Google and Twitter.<br />\n<br />\nBut after the election,
        almost all of them chose to return to tech companies or launch their own startups
        instead of taking jobs with the government. <br />\n<br />\nCarol Davidsen,
        who used digital tools to help the Obama campaign target swing voters with
        TV ads, said she chose not to pursue a government job after the election partly
        because she worried she would be misunderstood in D.C. Instead, she co-founded
        a startup called Cir.cl that creates a marketplace for like-minded buyers
        and sellers.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cI still don''t think a lot of people in
        government and Washington have a lot of respect for technologists,\u201d Davidsen
        said in an email. \u201cIn general, I don''t want to be in a situation where
        I feel like I have to take direction from someone who doesn''t appreciate
        or understand the complexities of what it is that a great technologist or
        software engineer does.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch cultural differences between
        the tech and policy worlds help explain why the government struggles to recruit
        programmers and engineers. After the HealthCare.gov failures, \u201cdeep questions
        remain\u201d about whether the government can \u201cidentify, cultivate, and
        retain individuals with the necessary skills for success in a world increasingly
        driven by information technology,\u201d <a href=\"http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/news/afutureoffailure.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a recent report</a> commissioned by the Ford
        Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nAbout 70 percent
        of people with math and science degrees take jobs in the private sector, while
        4 percent go to work for the federal government, the report found.<br />\n<br
        />\nTech talent is also not evenly distributed across government. The National
        Security Agency has attracted an abundance of computer experts with its tech-driven
        mission, while other government agencies, like those involved in social problems,
        \u201care relatively starved for such talent,\u201d the report said.<br />\n<br
        />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span
        class=\"feature-dropcap\">T</span>he launch of 18F is the latest government
        attempt to bridge the tech talent gap. In 2012, the White House created the
        President Innovation Fellows program to recruit employees in the tech industry
        to work on government IT projects for six to 12 months. The program\u2019s
        first round received 1,200 applications for 18 positions, according to Tom
        Kalil, the White House deputy director for technology and innovation.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThis is more competitive than the Ivies,\u201d Kalil said at a recent
        forum hosted by the New America Foundation. <br />\n<br />\nThe fellows have
        built digital tools that help consumers save money on electricity bills or
        get secure online access to health records. Current fellows are building a
        website that will be a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d for veterans to access VA
        services and benefits.<br />\n<br />\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        target=\"_hplink\">A video about the program</a> on the White House website
        says it seeks anyone who is \u201ca data geek, an entrepreneur, a developer,
        a designer, a maker.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<p><div style=\"margin:10px auto
        10px auto;\"><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/KK0HOIqOcHw\"
        frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style=\"width:250;font-size:90%;margin-bottom:20px;\"><em>A
        White House video calls on tech experts to apply for the Presidential Innovation
        Fellows program.</em></div></p><br />\n<br />\n\u201cIf you\u2019re using
        the skills of the 21st century to make things happen, there are endless opportunities,\u201d
        the video says. \u201cBut there\u2019s one key opportunity to put your talents
        to use that you may not have thought of -- the federal government. Government
        matters. It matters a lot. And it needs people like you.\u201d <br />\n<br
        />\nAbout one-third of fellows stay to work full-time in government. More
        than a dozen now work for 18F. One former fellow, Marina Martin, is now chief
        technology officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which badly needs
        the help. The VA has about one IT staffer for every 40 employees -- one of
        the lowest ratios in the federal government, <a href=\"http://fcw.com/articles/2013/05/01/veterans-affairs-trouble.aspx\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a 2012 report by the consulting firm Deloitte.</a><br
        />\n<br />\nYet even new government ventures like 18F can face roadblocks.
        Most tech startups can test their products publicly at any time, but 18F must
        undergo an extensive cybersecurity test before introducing a website to ensure
        it can\u2019t be hacked. That process can take several weeks or more.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cThere are limitations in how we can engage the public,\u201d Hartley
        said. <br />\n<br />\nThe government\u2019s recruiting troubles are compounded
        by its slow hiring process. While tech firms can hire new engineers in about
        a week, government agencies take more than 100 days on average to hire IT
        specialists, according to Steven VanRoekel, the chief information officer
        for the White House Office of Management and Budget. <br />\n<br />\nThe Obama
        administration is now looking to waive some hiring rules -- like posting jobs
        publicly for weeks, evaluating multiple candidates, or doing lengthy background
        checks -- to compete with Silicon Valley, he said.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cThere
        are things in place because of process and history that don\u2019t give us
        a leg up in that fight for the best talent,\u201d VanRoekel said.<br />\n<br
        />\nEmployees at 18F are also trying to speed up the process. They have shortened
        the time it takes to hire workers from nine months to two months, mostly by
        cutting the amount of people handling interviews, paperwork and other red
        tape.  And they\u2019ve introduced modern ways of building technology, like
        testing projects along the way instead of waiting until they are done months
        later, a method used by government contractors that yielded disastrous results
        with HealthCare.gov.<br />\n<br />\n18F does not operate under different rules
        than the rest of the federal government. Instead, it is trying to bring ideas
        from the startup world and make them work within the myriad rules of the government
        bureaucracy, according to 18F co-founder Greg Godbout. \"We''re not afraid
        of taking risks,\" he said, \"but we don''t have the risk tolerance of Silicon
        Valley.\"<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px; margin-top:30px;\"><img
        style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845019/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Aaron Snow and Hillary Hartley co-founded
        18F to help the federal government build technology. (Photo: Gerry Smith/Huffington
        Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nBy appearances alone, 18F bears little
        resemblance to a typical Silicon Valley startup. Its office is located past
        a metal detector inside a hulking federal building that is home to the General
        Services Administration. While many startups have founders in their 20s, 18F
        was started by three former Presidential Innovations Fellows in their late
        30s and early 40s.<br />\n<br />\nHartley, 38, had worked previously for a
        company that builds websites and other online tools for federal, state and
        local governments. She started 18F with Aaron Snow, 43, a former lawyer and
        programmer who once co-founded a personalized shopping app, and Godbout, 41,
        an IT expert who owns the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. They say they started
        18F to take the idea of the fellowship program and make it permanent. <br
        />\n<br />\nThe three co-founders talk like data geeks, often referring to
        their open-source code and A.P.I., or application programming interface. They
        are hoping to grow 18F to more than 50 employees by the end of July largely
        by recruiting from Washington\u2019s community of civic-minded programmers,
        including Code For America, a nonprofit that builds websites for city governments.
        <br />\n<br />\n\u201cThese are people who want to do good work for the government,\u201d
        Hartley said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re giving them a home.\u201d<br />\n<br
        />\nLast month, 18F introduced one of its first projects: <a href=\"http://NotAlone.gov\"
        target=\"_hplink\">NotAlone.gov</a>, a government website with resources on
        handling sexual assault on college campuses. It is unclear whether 18F will
        be a model for the rest of the federal government, but some observers say
        it offers a glimmer of hope.<br />\n<br />\n\"It''s essentially, I would say
        at this point, unproven,\u201d Greg Gershman, a software engineer and former
        Presidential Innovation Fellow, said of the venture. \u201cBut I think it
        shows a lot of promise. They''re trying to hire developers, hire designers,
        the kind of people who should''ve been working on things like HealthCare.gov
        from the beginning.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nWhen HealthCare.gov crashed last
        October, the White House tapped tech experts from Obama\u2019s 2012 presidential
        campaign to salvage the website. Some former campaign techies are <a href=\"http://www.wired.com/2014/06/healthcare-gov-revamp\"
        target=\"_hplink\">now working on an overhaul of the health care portal</a>
        that will include methods commonly used by startups, like hosting parts of
        the site with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing services.<br />\n<br />\nOthers
        are calling on more former tech experts from the campaign to help the president
        run his administration.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cTogether, we\u2019ve done things
        that transformed elections, but we now need that work to carry into transforming
        government,\u201d Clay Johnson, a programmer for Howard Dean\u2019s 2004 campaign,
        and Harper Reed, former chief technology officer of Obama for America, <a
        href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&_r=0\"
        target=\"_hplink\">wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed in October.</a><br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cA digital candidate will never be able to become a digital president
        if he can\u2019t bring the innovation that helped him win election into the
        Oval Office to help him govern,\" they said.<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br
        />\n<div class=\"feature-section\"><br />\n<br />\n<span class=\"feature-dropcap\">O</span>ne
        obvious reason why the country\u2019s top tech talent avoids Washington is
        money. While the average salaries for engineers in the private sector and
        government are about the same -- around $85,000 a year, <a href=\"http://marketing.dice.com/pdf/Dice_TechSalarySurvey_2013.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to a survey by Dice, a technology-recruitment
        service</a> -- tech firms typically offer employees stock options in addition
        to their salaries, creating a potential windfall if the company succeeds.
        Government employees, on the other hand, have recently been subject to <a
        href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/16/furloughed-employees-typically-would-return-on-day-after-shutdown-ends/\"
        target=\"_hplink\">furloughs and pay freezes.</a><br />\n<br />\nBut dreams
        of dot-com riches only partly explain why tech experts don\u2019t pursue government
        work. If Washington wants to attract more computer wizards, it may also need
        to dramatically change its culture.<br />\n<br />\nThe culture differences
        between Silicon Valley and Washington were evident last October during the
        troubled rollout of HealthCare.gov. At the time, a team of tech experts handpicked
        by The White House, including veterans from Google, traveled to the offices
        of CGI Federal, an IT contractor in Northern Virginia, to fix the broken website.
        <br />\n<br />\nWhen they arrived on a Saturday, they were stunned by what
        they found. The parking lot was virtually empty. So were the chairs inside
        the building that should have been filled by programmers and managers scrambling
        to save the online exchange.<br />\n<br />\nThe exhausted contractor employees
        who built most of the crippled website had taken the weekend off, according
        to members of the rescue team who said they could not speak on the record
        because of nondisclosure agreements they had signed.<br />\n<br />\nAt most
        tech companies, failing to show up for work on a weekend during a crisis would
        be unheard of, said Mike Abbott, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and
        former vice president of engineering at Twitter who helped fix the health
        care website.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cOut here, if something is broken, you do
        whatever it takes to fix it -- you stay up all night or work weekends,\u201d
        Abbott said. \u201cI didn\u2019t sense that same level of ownership and urgency
        to solve the issue when I arrived.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nSuch bewilderment
        among tech experts is common in Washington, where \u201cthe culture is radically
        different\u201d than in Silicon Valley, according to Anne Marie Slaughter,
        a former director of policy planning at the State Department.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt\u2019s
        what I would call the difference between the culture of the \u2018presumptive
        no\u2019 and the \u2018presumptive yes,\u2019\u201d Slaughter said at a recent
        forum. \u201cThe \u2018presumptive yes\u2019 is the culture of Silicon Valley,
        it\u2019s the culture of technology. It\u2019s \u2018that\u2019s a cool idea,
        let\u2019s see whether that would work ... The \u2018presumptive yes\u2019
        is not the culture of Washington.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n<div style=\"width:100%;margin-bottom:30px;
        margin-top:30px;\"><img style=\"width:100%\" src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1845009/original.jpg\"
        /><div class=\"feature-caption\"><em>Chris Frommann quit his job with the
        federal government after an IT project he worked on was never introduced.
        (Photo: Damon Scheleur/Huffington Post)</em></div></div><br />\n<br />\nChris
        Frommann, 27, has seen first-hand how this culture clash impacts government
        tech projects. Four years ago, Frommann turned down a job at Microsoft to
        join a team of engineers in Washington working for the Social Security Administration.<br
        />\n<br />\nThe atmosphere was unlike anything he\u2019d experienced before.
        Employees were required to leave by 6 p.m. -- even if they needed to stay
        late to finish a project -- because there wasn\u2019t money to pay for overtime.
        By contrast, employees at startups routinely work long hours, especially leading
        up to a new product launch.<br />\n<br />\nGovernment programmers were also
        still writing code in COBOL -- an obsolete computer language developed in
        the 1950s and still used by some government agencies, Frommann said.<br />\n<br
        />\n\u201cIt\u2019s as if the auto industry insisted on using Henry Ford technology
        despite the innovation over the last 70 years,\u201d he said.<br />\n<br />\nAt
        the time, Frommann and other engineers were building software that would allow
        people to apply for government benefits online and immediately learn if they
        were eligible. Employees would no longer need to process applications by hand.
        The project would have saved the administration as much as $1 billion a year
        on technology, IT personnel and case workers, he said.<br />\n<br />\nBut
        after several months of work, Frommann''s boss was suddenly fired and the
        team was broken up, a casualty of \u201cinternal politics,\u201d Frommann
        said. The project wasn''t introduced. Frustrated his work never came to fruition,
        Frommann quit.<br />\n<br />\n\u201cIt definitely disappointed me and I became
        less naive,\u201d said Frommann, who now works for a media analytics startup
        with other techies from the 2012 Obama campaign. \u201cI still plan to work
        in government, and I still want to be a public servant, but I\u2019ll be a
        lot more cautious about the team and the project because I\u2019ve already
        been burned.\u201d<br />\n<br />\nHis disappointment with such projects is
        not unusual. Only 6 percent of large government IT projects over the past
        decade were deemed successful -- the rest were delayed, over budget, didn\u2019t
        meet expectations, or failed completely, <a href=\"http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BigBangBoom.pdf\"
        target=\"_hplink\">according to research by the Standish Group, a consulting
        firm.</a><br />\n<br />\nThat dismal record is why the founders of 18F say
        they chose to work for the government: They wanted silence the critics.<br
        />\n<br />\n\u201cThere are many people who think government can\u2019t get
        technology right,\u201d Snow said. \u201cI love coming to work every day and
        proving them wrong.\u201d<br />\n<br />\n</div><br />\n<br />\n<style type=\"text/css\">.articleBody
        div.feature-section, .entry div.feature-section{width:55%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;}
        .articleBody span.feature-dropcap, .entry span.feature-dropcap{float:left;font-size:72px;line-height:59px;padding-top:4px;padding-right:8px;padding-left:3px;}
        div.feature-caption{font-size:90%;margin-top:0px;}</style> ","title":"Uncle
        Sam Wants Coders To Leave Silicon Valley For D.C.","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:05Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/washington-tech_n_5475316.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:03Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589794,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"notify","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:03Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:01Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589793,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"factual","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:57:01Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:59Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589792,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"none","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:59Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:57Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589791,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"span","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:57Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:55Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589790,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"zergnet","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:55Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:53Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589789,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"blackberry","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:52Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:51Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589788,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"google-play","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:50Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:48Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589787,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"vimeo","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:48Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:46Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589786,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"richard-dunn","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:46Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:43Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589785,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"denis","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:43Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:41Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589784,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"light","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:41Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:38Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589783,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"instagram","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:37Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:34Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589782,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"challenger","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:34Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:31Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589781,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"eric-cantor","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:30Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:28Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589780,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"getty-images","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:27Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:26Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589779,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"harris","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:25Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:23Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589778,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"cindy","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:23Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:20Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589777,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"bikini","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:20Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:17Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589776,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"youtube","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:17Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:15Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589775,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"selena-gomez","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:15Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:12Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589774,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"cyrus","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:12Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:10Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589773,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"middleton","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:10Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:08Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589772,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"jessica","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:07Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:06Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589771,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"shoot","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:05Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:02Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589770,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"kris","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:02Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:00Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589769,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"kate","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:56:00Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:57Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589768,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"victims","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:57Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:55Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589767,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"sparks","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:55Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:53Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589766,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"opened","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:53Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:49Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589765,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"cnnmoney","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:49Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:46Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589764,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"florian","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:45Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:42Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589763,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"teenager","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:42Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:38Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589762,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"smith","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:38Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:35Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589761,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"anthony-b","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:35Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:31Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589760,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"ppl","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:31Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:24Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589759,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"als","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:24Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:20Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589758,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"andreas","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:20Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:17Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589757,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"tweeters","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:16Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:13Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589756,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"torrent","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:13Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:09Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589755,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"sift","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:09Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:05Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589754,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"accounts","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:05Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:03Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589753,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"weve","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:03Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:01Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589752,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"tumblr","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:55:01Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:59Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589751,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"tweetdeck","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:59Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:55Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589750,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"previous","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:55Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:53Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589749,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"chris","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:53Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:51Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589748,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"for-d","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:51Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:47Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589747,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"sam","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:47Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:44Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589746,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"comcast","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:44Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:42Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589745,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"reddit","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:42Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:40Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589744,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"turing","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:40Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:38Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589743,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"netflix","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:38Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:34Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589742,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"verizon","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:34Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:30Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589741,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"francisco","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:30Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:27Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589740,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"live-advice","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:27Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:21Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589739,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"huffpost-live","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:21Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:19Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589738,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"surreal","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:19Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:17Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589737,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"wendy-davis","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:16Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:15Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589736,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"burning-man","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:14Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:12Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589735,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"dad","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:12Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:09Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589734,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"figure-out","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:09Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:07Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589733,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"fox-news","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:07Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:03Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589732,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"woman","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:03Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:01Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589731,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"chappelles-show","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:54:01Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:57Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589730,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"dave","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:57Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:55Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589729,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"dinnertime","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:55Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:51Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589728,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"space","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:51Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:48Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589727,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"sixth-sense","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:48Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:44Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589726,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"moviefone","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:44Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:42Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589725,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"backstory","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:42Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:40Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589724,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"kelly","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:40Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:38Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589723,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"bill-oreilly","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:38Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:36Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589722,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"donald-trump","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:36Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:33Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589721,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"cooper","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:33Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:31Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589720,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"msnbc","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:31Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:27Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589719,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"jon-stewart","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:27Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:24Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589718,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"eric","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:24Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:22Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589717,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"laura","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:22Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:19Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589716,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"whisper","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:19Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:17Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589715,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"my-business","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:17Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:14Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589714,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"radioshack","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:14Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:10Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589713,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"trader-joes","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:10Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"person","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:08Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589712,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"430","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:08Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:06Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589711,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"the-huffington-post","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:06Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:04Z","domain":"huffingtonpost.com","id":1589710,"news_source":"Huffington
        Post","publication_date":"2014-06-11T18:17:40Z","slug":"huffington-post","summary":"TweetDeck
        suffered a big hack on Wednesday that forced the service to shut itself down
        for all users.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>We''ve
        temporarily taken TweetDeck services down to assess today''s earlier security
        issue. We''ll update when services are back up.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck (@TweetDeck)
        <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476770732987252736\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nFor those who don''t know, Tweetdeck
        is a popular program used by Twitter obsessives to manage multiple Twitter
        accounts and sift through the daily torrent of tweets. If you''re still logged
        in to TweetDeck, you should log out now and go to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/settings/applications\"
        target=\"_hplink\">your Twitter settings</a> in order to revoke access to
        the app.<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>A
        security issue that affected TweetDeck this morning has been fixed. Please
        log out of TweetDeck and log back in to fully apply the fix.</p>\u2014 TweetDeck
        (@TweetDeck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TweetDeck/statuses/476763638695743489\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe vulnerability lets hackers
        push alert boxes containing any random text to tweeters. Naturally, Twitter
        users are seeing vulgarities:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"
        lang=\"en\"><p>Tweetdeck XSS <a href=\"http://t.co/tgT9w0bZ1q\">pic.twitter.com/tgT9w0bZ1q</a></p>\u2014
        Andreas Lindh (@addelindh) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/addelindh/statuses/476749338123968512\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nLots of them:<br />\n<br />\n<blockquote
        class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>Als ich <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TweetDeck&src=hash\">#TweetDeck</a>
        ge\u00f6ffnet habe und dieses Fenster sah, f\u00fchlte ich mich schon fast
        pers\u00f6nlich angegriffen^^ <a href=\"http://t.co/UvQqTlKeBw\">pic.twitter.com/UvQqTlKeBw</a></p>\u2014
        \u2022 (@Negiert) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Negiert/statuses/476753266773336064\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nAnd some Rickrolling:<br />\n<br
        />\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\"><p>hackers from 2007 are
        currently rickrolling ppl on TweetDeck tho <a href=\"http://t.co/HfO03OiLjy\">pic.twitter.com/HfO03OiLjy</a></p>\u2014
        Anthony B. L. Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnthonyBLSmith/statuses/476760677609005056\">June
        11, 2014</a></blockquote><br />\n<script async src=\"//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\"
        charset=\"utf-8\"></script><br />\n<br />\nThe security hole was discovered
        by a 19-year-old Austrian teenager named Florian, <a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/11/technology/security/tweetdeck-hacked/index.html\"
        target=\"_hplink\">CNNMoney reported</a>. He said he stumbled upon the vulnerability
        after tweeting the \u2665 symbol, which inadvertently opened up a security
        hole that other hackers could exploit.<br />\n<br />\n<img alt=\"tweetdeck\"
        src=\"http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1848555/thumbs/o-TWEETDECK-570.jpg\" /><br
        />\n<br />\n<em>This entry was updated with information on the identity of
        the teenager who discovered the security bug.</em> ","title":"TweetDeck Got
        Hacked And People Are Seeing The Word ''Penis''","updated_at":"2014-06-12T07:53:04Z","url":"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/tweetdeck-down_n_5485031.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-code&ir=huffpost+code"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:59Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589709,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-03-01T14:00:51Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"\nRewards-network
        Kiip is about to kick off a big effort to get more game developers to use
        its mobile program. The company is announcing a new $100,000 independent-developer
        fund to get companies to use Kiip\u2019s rewards in their games.","title":"Kiip
        entices more game developers into its mobile-rewards\u00a0network","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:58Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/01/kiip-announces-enticements-to-get-more-game-developers-into-its-mobile-rewards-network/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:57Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589708,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-05-07T08:00:44Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"\nRaptr,
        the gamer social network with 12 million hardcore users, is unveiling a novel
        rewards program today that gives targeted bonuses to gamers just for playing
        their favorite titles. Judging by sponsors such as Microsoft and Blizzard
        jumping on board the program, being a gamer is about to get a lot more awesome.","title":"Awesome!
        Raptr will give you targeted rewards just for playing\u00a0games","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:57Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/07/raptr-rewards/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:55Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589707,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-05-08T06:30:44Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"Spectators
        rule. That\u2019s one of the lessons of the ultra-competitive sports marketing
        business. Kwarter is proving that with today\u2019s launch of an iPhone app
        called FanCake, which\u00a0provides sports fans with rewards just for watching
        TV.","title":"Attention couch potatoes: FanCake app rewards sports fans for
        watching\u00a0TV","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:54Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/08/couch-potatoes-rejoice-fancake-app-rewards-sports-fans-for-watching-tv/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:53Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589706,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-05-10T11:43:43Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"\nGroupon
        made its Groupon Rewards loyalty program available to all U.S. businesses
        today in an effort to counter claims that its deals are bad for business.","title":"Groupon
        goes after loyalty with U.S. launch of Rewards\u00a0program","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:53Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/10/groupon-rewards/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:50Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589705,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-05-22T05:00:08Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"Social
        gaming giant Zynga has connected with credit company American Express to provide
        a rewards program where users can receive virtual game rewards for using their
        real-life American Express\u00a0card.","title":"Plant a money tree in Farmville
        as Zynga and American Express launch new rewards\u00a0program","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:50Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/22/plant-a-money-tree-in-farmville-as-zynga-and-american-express-launch-new-rewards-program/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:48Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589704,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-06-09T09:54:14Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"You\u2019ve
        explored in games before, but indie game The Unfinished Swan, due later this
        year as a downloadable title for the PlayStation 3 \u2014 takes things to
        another level:\u00a0discovery.","title":"The Unfinished Swan rewards your\u00a0curiosity","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:48Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/09/the-unfinished-swan-rewards-your-curiosity/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:46Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589703,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-07-11T10:25:03Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"Social
        fashion site Chicismo officially launched today and announced it has raised
        $800,000 in initial investment.","title":"Chicismo bestows virtual rewards
        on the fashion\u00a0savvy","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:46Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/11/chicismo-bestows-virtual-rewards-on-the-fashion-saavy/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:44Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589702,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-07-12T09:26:35Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"\nGames
        have always rewarded players with virtual points and other rewards that become
        a source of pride and cred. But in an attention-based economy, some companies
        are willing to give real, physical rewards for gamers who hit the highest
        achievements in games.","title":"Raptr and Kiip mine game rewards for new
        business\u00a0models","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:43Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/12/game-rewards-are-leading-to-new-business-models-for-raptr-and-kiip/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:42Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589701,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-07-23T14:47:25Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"Referly
        launched its public beta today, which helps online businesses create referral
        programs to expand their markets.","title":"Referly rewards consumers for
        making recommendations, helps businesses along the\u00a0way","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:42Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/23/who-needs-karma-when-you-can-have-cash-referly-rewards-consumers-for-making-recommendations/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:40Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589700,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-07-24T05:00:20Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"Kiip
        released its own app today, charmingly called \u201cKiipsake,\u201d which
        acts as a digital wallet where people can store all their Kiip rewards.","title":"Kiip
        will fill its digital wallet with rewards for your everyday\u00a0victories","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:40Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/24/kiip-releases-its-own-digital-wallet-to-collect-rewards-for-everyday-victories/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:38Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589699,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-08-01T15:36:44Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"How
        many people actually use Bing,\u00a0anyway?","title":"Bing Rewards earns you
        Microsoft Points, but not when you use it on an Xbox\u00a0360","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:38Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/01/bing-rewards-not-on-xbox-360/"},{"contact_type":"organization","created_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:36Z","domain":"venturebeat.com","id":1589698,"news_source":"VentureBeat","publication_date":"2012-08-16T15:34:51Z","slug":"rewards-to","summary":"Discover
        has officially partnered with Google to support Google Wallet, an NFC pay-by-phone\u00a0application.","title":"Discover
        gives its blessing to Google Wallet and rewards users with cash\u00a0back","updated_at":"2014-06-12T06:45:36Z","url":"http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/16/discover-google-wallet/"}]'
    http_version: 
  recorded_at: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:01:23 GMT
recorded_with: VCR 2.9.2