Obama’s technology-savvy election team worked very effectively to leverage a new world order of YouTube, social networking, and blogging tools to promote his agenda, connect with a nation of voters, and raise campaign funds. But does he really know what it’s going to take to overhaul and connect all the disparate government information systems that the U.S. Federal bureaucracy has built up over the past 200 years? He has certainly raised hopes and set expectations high for both the technology and financial sectors.

Obama’s Finance Team Appointments: A Great First Step

Even though SEC Chairman Christopher Cox has been criticized for not paying enough attention to details of the subprime meltdown and other fiascos like the Madoff Ponzi scheme, hopefully his legacy around interactive data and EDGAR modernization will still be preserved. All signs are good so far.

Obama’s selection of Mary Schapiro to spearhead the SEC makes sense. As head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), her insider’s knowledge of the SEC along with her understanding of the need for cross-agency, cross-jurisdictional and cross-borders cooperation is encouraging. In speeches post 9/11, Schapiro talked a good game about applying large doses of technological creativity to resolve the issues that were then plaguing the financial markets and the regulatory institutions. If she brings those ideas and enthusiasm to the SEC and other bastions of federal regulation to break down the information silos across government agencies, markets, and borders, we should be in good shape with XBRL advancement.

Shapiro will also be working with Gary Gensler, former undersecretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance and Obama’s pick to head up the Commodity Futures Trade Commission. You can bet they will be working closely together as both agencies have come under severe criticism in the wake of the financial meltdown. Suggestions of a proposed merger of the two agencies may eventually leave one of them without a job.

In addition, Obama also plans to appoint a new cabinet-level Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to upgrade government computer systems. He wants the nation's first CTO to "ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies, and services for the 21st century." The future CTO has the opportunity to be really instrumental in modernizing financial regulatory processes like XBRL by:

• promoting cross-agency cooperation on standards-based approaches to create a common taxonomy for information sharing;

• creating a single sign-on world for all government online activities; and

• working across traditional jurisdictional boundaries to break the federal, state, and municipal information-sharing barriers so that our enforcement agencies can truly share information efficiently and securely.

Moving Forward with Interactive Data

As Obama assembles his financial team, there is excitement about his emphasis on leveraging technology to gain efficiencies in other areas of government. For example, he’s pledged to invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to implement standards-based electronic health information systems. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. This new finance team can restore confidence by leading and accelerating the current federal modernization efforts underway that are using standards-based XBRL technology to help resolve this latest series of disasters plaguing the financial markets and regulatory institutions.

Obama’s team should also take a close look at the Dutch and Australian efforts to breakdown the governmental information silos with their move to a Standard Business Reporting (SBR) approach. This SBR approach relies heavily on XBRL technology, or “interactive data,” as Chairman Cox likes to call it. The Dutch and Australian governments have recognized the interdependent nature of government agencies and the increased need for information-sharing via a standards-based

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