Several recent news reports indicate that President-elect Barack Obama is talking about plans and policy changes to stimulate or create 1000′s of new IT jobs, and broadband network upgrades for the whole country. This might be good news for thousands of Information Technology (IT), Data Processing and Web/Internet Experts who have recently lost jobs to off-shore, “best-shore”, or corporate restructuring /corporate downsizing (“right-sizing”) activities. (Like me, for instance.)

Contact me (Doug Vos) via email, or via my Facebook profile, or my LinkedIn profile (or leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post) — if you want to exchange ideas on how to take advantage of new business opportunities, or talk about new IT job listings as we roll into 2009 — and as the Obama administration begins implementing their new ideas.

While I personally do not favor government handouts (or any new policies that might create more government bureaucrats – drunk on tax dollars and lying sideways in the public trough)  — if these policies can be introduced in a way that create more private sector business, and efficiently upgrade the Internet and broadband access to the World Wide Web, it would obviously be great for the USA. The question in my mind is if Obama’s ideas will stimulate private business investments, and perhaps re-ignite private capital investments on Wall Street. Or will it just be a temporary solution that might make us feel good (for a short time), but ends up drowning the country in debt, and suffocating our children and grandchildren under the load of trillion dollar tax increases? ( My friend Jack Hoogendyk always talks about returning to Core Principles, and the things we really want: less government, lower taxes, and individual responsibility).

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in 2009.

President-elect Barack Obama

Here are some recent quotes describing Barack Obama’s policy ideas/plans for the next 4 years:

Schools: “My economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.”

Broadband: “As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m president – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”

Electronic Medical Records: “In addition to connecting our libraries and schools to the Internet, we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the Internet. That is why the economic recovery plan I’m proposing will help modernize our health care system – and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives. We will make sure that every doctor’s office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year.”