A few years ago when my friend Harvey wanted learning to edit video he sat and watched some pros.
“It’s not that I didn’t know how to do it,” Harvey would later say. “It’s that I didn’t know what I didn’t know!”
I thought of Harvey’s editing encounter when I read a story about Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitanto. She has been a frequent target of conservatives. Now she’s going to get it from me.
CNN Security Blog: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano acknowledged Friday her Luddite-like ways, despite the fact her position puts her in a critical leadership role when it comes to defending the nation’s infrastructure from cyberattacks.
Napolitano said she does not use email “at all.”
“For a whole host of reasons. So, I don’t have any of my own accounts and that, you know, I’m very secure,” Napolitano noted at a Washington conference about cyber security.
“Some would call me a Luddite but you know. But that’s my own personal choice and I’m very unique in that regard I suspect,” Napolitano added.
It is 2012. Calling herself a Luddite might seem sweet and quaint to Secretary Napolitano. It is not!
Like Harvey, she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to move through life without being technologically savvy. Maybe it’s still possible for some, but how is it even remotely possible when you’re in charge of our nation’s cybersecurity?
Secretary Napolitano’s comment is telling to others in a way she can’t see.
Does this disqualify her for the job? I don’t know what I don’t know, but at first glance–yes!
Scary.