The story is everywhere that Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York and undisputed heavyweight kingpin of information science is socking away 1 billion dollars (Dr Evil) for a presidential campaign. I don't ever want to be in the position we are in today with GWBush, which is to say, I want no interesting presidents in office based on the assumptions that it would be cool to have this kinda guy in for a change. Real global emergencies emerge and you want somebody who is prepared to handle the worst, period.
That said, it would be cool to have this kinda guy in for a change.
I haven't followed up, but Bloomberg promised the city of New York a call center paradigm for city government. Which is to say he took some of the best customer service principles from private industry and applied them to the municipality. Got a pothole? Call the City and you'll get a case number and the action request is put into a database. You can call anytime to check up on the status of your complaint, and they will call you back when the problem is solved. In the meantime city managers are looking at the number of calls, logging times to completion and being graded on objective performance measurements. As familiar as this scenario is to all of us consumers, it had never been attempted on that scale before Bloomberg. Amazing.
Bloomberg's own corporate story is legend, especially in my industry. I've long been an admirer even back to the days when he first took on Wall Street and revolutionized trading with his proprietary information network. I've got to get his bio if there's one out there. Like Walter Wriston, Bloomberg was a great innovator in global finance and information technology. He's the man I would pick to run Homeland Security. I guarantee you there would be no silos.
Bloomberg the company had an extraordinary type A accelerated work ethic. He liked people ultra competitive with unleashed personalities. It could be bruising. I must admit, especially now at this particular inflection of my career, that I regret not making the effort to go and work for Bloomberg. I was never invited, unlike for Microsoft and Wal Mart IT, but I should have given it a shot.
Anyway. I hold out hope for heroes and outsized, non-tap dancing personalities in politics. Right now only Senator Thompson has that kind of look and feel. I expect that perhaps he will get tapped for a fine cabinet position. And so too for Bloomberg. But President? I haven't seen a real President since Ronald Reagan, and I hated him during his first term.
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