Maybe I’ll sound like a bitter old techie, but it’s absolutely wrong to have someone with no direct experience managing something that is technical.
If you can’t code, you shouldn’t manage coders. If you’re not a lawyer, don’t run a law firm. If you haven’t been in charge of a class of kids, you shouldn’t run a school. And that’s despite the day-to-day of these management roles not touching code/clients/kids.
The experience gained in a few years on any ladder is enough to appreciate most of how people in those fields think.
Have you ever tried working for someone who didn’t have relevant experience? You get people deciding that they don’t need an issue tracker, let alone a code repo. You get people who think paying Google 5 bucks a months is not worth it, they’d rather have their own email server. And it’s not that there’s never a case for having your own server, it’s that the case is never made in a technical way (eg we want security / uptime / whatever). The techies end up having to translate complex reasoning into something a layman could understand, or at least pretend to. A lot of time is wasted explaining things. And then when there’s feedback - and most people cannot resist the temptation to act like they’re contributing - it only makes sense to the non technical staff, while the tech people are trying to implement whatever crazy modification it is they’ve been given.
What these people tend to do is to make everything a management issue. So management, just like politics ends up having its own ladder. Relevant experience for being a health minister is to have been an MP. Relevant experience for managing a code department is having managed the interns.
It massively corrosive to let this continue.
And before someone makes this argument, it's perfectly possible for techies to do the managing and politics.
Some of the best managers I know, especially in tech, are the ones that admit their teams are far better qualified to make those decisions than they are. We're not talking about an architect here. A team lead is different than a V or C level, my understanding is that the minister has about 3-4 layers between him and someone pushing code or writing policy. If I have the choice of putting someone at the head of a division of 200 people with excellent people management skills or good domain knowledge the former will trump in almost all cases. Domain knowledge is great, but it can actually make you less open minded and unbiased.
I've seen some pretty scary discussions about underlying technology in executive management with seasoned industry veterans and it's the usually the person with no domain knowledge that asks the right questions that lead to a good decision.
You depend on your team to execute. They depend on their team and so on.
That's why the minister expressed that he preferred the questions in advance so he can distribute them with his team (the experts) and get the right answers instead of answering on behalf of them.
Also it's pretty hard to get hacked when you don't have a computer. If anything the fact he rose to his position without the help of modern devices is a pretty strong testament to his fundamentals. Most managers and executives in tech would find their day-to-day pretty difficult without modern productivity tools.
Here's a counterpoint: Lou Gerstner. He saved[1] IBM 25 years ago and had no relevant tech experience. I've also had personal experience with non-techie managers who were exceptional.
Moral of the story is I don't think it's wise to automatically overlook non-techies in the available pool of candidates who might do better at the job.
[1] - Arguably ruined it as well by turning it into a services company, but hopefully everyone agrees he exhibited competence in the turn-around despite the direction chosen.
You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you've worked on the assembly line?
You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you have engineered an automobile?
You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you have been in marketing?
You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you have been a personal injury attorney?
You shouldn't manage an auto manufacturer unless you have been an accountant?
Fun fact: the ethics rules of most state bars prohibit lawyers from becoming partners with non-lawyers in a business whose business model involves providing legal advice.
No it is not because you are a bitter old techie. You're right. The world has gone mad.
Look at the most competitive industries: Software, automotive manufacture, film, news, energy, finance, accounting, law.
What do they have in common? The principles of the major corporations all have deep, deep backgrounds in multiple areas related to their business. They often don't even come with a mere CS degree, they've layered it with a masters or PhD or have a degree in a useful field like law.
As an engineer turned manager, I disagree with this.
While it is absolutely essential that the person managing the domain area needs to be capable of understanding the technical details surrounding it, it's not a requirement to have to have done the exact same work as the team.
What's much more valuable and preferable to me and my team is for the person to understand how to build trust and push/prod/coach/enable folks to do their jobs in ways that are best for the team and for the company while having thought through the strategy of the direction we're heading into, and of course, take responsibility for the execution. In order to do that, being able to talk shop is important, but it's only part of the picture.
From being a good engineer to being a good manager is analogous to going from being a good runner to being a good tennis player: some relationship between the two exists (both are athletes), but it's a different set of skills.
This depends on what you think a manager's job is. If you think it is to "be the boss", to run things, to make decisions, to tell people what to do, then yes, relevant experience matters.
But there's another view of a manager's job, and that is to create an environment where they can get their work done without having to worry about bullshit like schedules, budgets, and politics. For that kind of a role, a non-technical person can be a great fit, possibly better than a technical one.
The tech manager is an apt analogy for me because I am currently working on hiring a new boss for (myself and) a team of programmers, high performance computing consultants and geographic information systems specialists. Each applicant has different levels of experience in these areas, but I think its safe to say that there are few people in the country that have good GIS and HPC experience.
Different groups need different managers/leaders. I could argue that I need a manager that understands my work so that they can guide me appropriately choosing techniques/languages/architectures. I could also argue that we have a diverse team of experts that self-manage well, and that we need a manager who is a good advocate for the group and good at dealing with the politics of university management, who won't micro-manage, and can deal with all of the admin requirements so that our team can program, make maps and support HPC customers. I agree that they should probably have some kind of a tech background, but I don't think you need to have been a professional programmer to manage me.
* Hopefully no one from HR, and none of the candidates read this.
* * Actually if a job candidate gets an advantage by reading a HN comment then I would consider that in-bounds for their interview prep in this case :)
I see a lot of comments arguing "you don't need to be an expert in the field to be a minister".
That's pretty right, IMHO, but we're now talking about him not being an expert, we're talking about him not having the slightest clue.
Not knowing what a USB drive is for, is akin to a minister of defence not knowing what a bullet is for, or a minister of health not knowing what medication is (or what it's used for).
These are key, basic elements, and most mid-level education citizen will understand what they are. It's hard to understand how he can represent their best interest in that scope.
Appreciate this is to a pretty ridiculous degree, but isn't this pretty much the story across the board?
Anecdotally I heard about some of the conversations with the government and adult industry regarding the UK porn filter. It was something along the lines of:
Industry: "OK, we get you want to put a block in front of adult sites. But what about all the porn Twitter?"
Govt: "There's porn on Twitter?"
When we're all getting angry about encryption and privacy and backdoors (and whatever else), it's probably prudent to remember these are the kind of people we're dealing with.
I know and work with a lot of millionaires and a couple billionaires, once you get to that level of eliteness they view using a computer as a boring chore for a technician, like fixing the plumbing or paying the bills, something they are far too important for and delegate to staff.
Surprisingly, this seems to be true regardless of age
Its beneficial for people in leadership roles to have some experience in the grounded disciplines; But it is not mandatory.
Historically, there have been many kings and emperors who were not professional soldiers or strategists. Yet many of the states they headed were successful in warfare. Many of the kings or emperors were great soldiers, but not good governors; yet still the kingdoms were governed. A leader has one job, to lead. It includes taking advice from specialists and make a decision.
In representative democracy, the true job of a representative is to convey the decision making to the people they represent. This includes heeding to the advice of specialists who have been assigned to help the "people", through that representative. A representative in that case is just a messenger. A messenger does not need to understand the contents of the message.
The representative is from among the general populace and the general populace in plural is hardly specialist.
Edit(1): I understand that this situation is unforgivable. A minister of Cyber-Security must at least be used to the "Cyber" part. I actually commented because in Representative systems which I am used to, the specialty of Minister does not matter much. The minister is a part of the cabinet, which is just simple power sharing for rubber stamping the decision making process. The minister generally comes from the parliament. Its function is to legitimize a bureaucrat's decision, which the rep always does. It does not hamper the actual cyber security program (It also does not improve it at an accelerated rate, this just proves that cyber security is not a relative major priority for the current Japanese government, but that's beyond the point), which is run by specialized bureaucrats (most probably). Friendly Americans, the Minister does not hold much power, but just legitimatizes "people's agreement" to the actual officer in charge.
Edit(2): Please forgive my English! I am not a native speaker.
Sure, but smart kings who aren't soldiers delegate to experienced generals. In America, an elected president may not be an expert, but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sure will be.
So it still seems weird to me that the problem of cybersecurity would be delegated to somebody who a) doesn't know beans about it and b) has spent his life avoiding learning a thing.
This seems vastly worse than "kings who were not professional soldiers" or "...not good governors".
If the minister had never done cyber-security work, I would understand. If he had never done any kind of technical computing at all, I would basically understand.
But to have never used a computer? That's like administration by a king who has never seen uncooked food or left his palace. Past a certain point you have so few referents that expert advice becomes unintelligible. There's precedent here too, but it's the precedent of puppet kings and court intrigues - leaders who either do nothing at all or make their decisions without regard for any concrete facts.
Onboard with the instinct to fight HN snark about management, but I think this is a different category. Representatives shouldn't be expected to be experts in _solutions_ to problems, but they should be expected to understand the public experience of the problem. (You know, in order to _represent_.).
Cybersecurity exists because of the ways people use computers; it's impossible to evaluate trade-offs that will affect the public without being in the user role. It's also an error of judgement not to have sought that experience.
I think what you are describing is OK for leaders like CEO, President, a king or whatever. But their second level people (e.g. cyber security minister) should be subject matter experts in my view. Why would would you become cyber security minister or any minister if you know nothing about the subject matter?
In my company the CEO doesn't know much about tech or IT which is OK. But the CIO is also basically just a well spoken people manager who can't really judge any new initiative and it shows with a lot of stuff that gets started but set up in a nonsensical way so everything fails. And they keep hiring more managers who talk well but don't understand much either so things perpetuate because nobody in leadership knows how things could work if run by competent people.
Historically, there were no standing armies, so naturally the monarch could not be a professional soldier. But quite a lot of them since, including current royals, have military training. Before the age of standing armies they’d have had training in warfare and politics as well.
Even if you are going to delegate it to the generals, you need some appreciation of how it works and who seems like a good general.
I’m not saying people need to have phd’s and 20 years experience to manage. But probably more than a couple of years.
The fact is that somebody that was deemed worthy to appoint government ministers appointed him to the role.
If he can do the job great call if not questions should be answered.
> In representative democracy, the true job of a representative is to convey the decision making to the people they represent. This includes heeding to the advice of specialists who have been assigned to help the "people", through that representative.
I'm not familiar with the structure of the Japanese government, but it seems like he's not a representative. Isn't this something like a cabinet level position in the US like secretary of defense or agriculture, etc?
In that case wouldn't he be the expert that the representatives are supposed to depend on to understand the things they don't?
I remember the hearings after the problems with the Obamacare web site where the lady who ran Health and Human Services made it clear she was a believer in getting health care to people but seemed to think there was nothing she could do to make a software project succeed and that's completely untrue.
(Turns out the editor of my college newspaper was a project manager on that one... An astrophysics professor told me not to get involved in a 'science-in-politics' program that he did and look what happened to him...)
Ministers are all about government functions. As long as he has the right people below him and is able to listen to them and exercise judgment, that's what really counts.
What's weird though is "never" having used a computer. I mean, doesn't everyone write/edit with a computer these days? Do people at that level just verbally stream-of-consciousness dictate their memos and secretaries enter them? THAT is weird.
Someone sent me this link with the description "Japan's cyber-security minister doesn't use computers" and I thought it was some elaborate way to prevent being hackable... boy I didn't expect this.
The theatre of the Absurd has reached New Heights. If you don't understand something, you shouldn't be running the department that focuses on it. The legislature should have vetted his expertise before even proposing him as a candidate.
Sakurada blamed one particularly unimpressive performance in parliament on the opposition MP Renho Murata, complaining that she had not given him her questions in advance.
“Since there was no prior notice about the questions, I had no idea what would be asked at the session,” the Asahi quoted him as saying.
When Renho asked him how much funding the central government would contribute to the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, he responded: “1,500 yen”, which works out at just over $13, some way below the actual sum of 150 billion yen.
At face value it seems ridiculous, but really, what benefits would it bring had he been a run of the mill e-mail and web user?
Assuming he's generally a competent person, he will now be forced to listen to and be informed by smart people in his department instead of putting his foot down and saying "I've used outlook all my life, so obviously I'm an expert. I've never been hacked, so policy is now that everyone should use Outlook."
This is the end result of the 'old boy network', where the aged rise to the top on the basis of how many ticks they have groomed off the fur of the silverback's fur, in the USA/Japan, with no fur, it is the ass licks ledger that counts.
Sadly, this is fully operational in the USA military, where billions are spent on old weaponry whose life in a modern war will be measured in minutes when they meet modern drones. (by drones, I mean land based drone attack tanks etc, with costs only 5-10% of the cost of the manned equivalents, air based drones, surface water drones as well as submarine drones)
We see China and Russia unfettered by this old boy network that are allowing their brains unfettered freedom to make modern stuff.
This has happened before, when the blitzkrieg fought horse drawn gun carts at the start of WW2, when allied armies in Europe were prime examples of the old
boy network.
Why do we have it? We have a bribery and feedback mechanism in Congress that quantifies bribery and ass licking to perfection. An elected representative HAS NO SECRET BALLOT!!.
We can all see how he votes, as can all the bribers, who can call him to account.
We say this exists to allow the voters to see that there rep did their bidding YADA-YADA-YADA - we all know it allow the bribery effectiveness to be watched and measured, so you can threaten to cut them off if they do not dance to the briber's tune.
RANT/ How to get a better way? Empower all, with online voting of all eligible voters, in the style of the original Greek democracy. Pay people for their votes, hold back tax refunds for people who do not vote etc. This needs to be fine tuned.
Chance of success = zero, as all the well bribed elected officials do not want their gravy train to end. /RANT
Yes, always. A minister of a diplomatic department should have diplomacy experience. A minister of a justice department should have justice experience. Anything else is ludicrous.
> "But Mr Sakurada responded that other officials had the necessary experience and he was confident there would not be a problem."
No, people are being silly. Often people are kept away from their 'home turf' in an effort to make sure that when they absorb the brief (which they're usually given by political and civil advisors) it is in a way which is appropriate to the level they're working at. They're executives, not (eg) healthcare workers or train drivers etc. Their job is not to have a technical grasp of how to perform operations or drive trains, their job is to understand how to measure and influence the system they inherit.
In principle, this might not actually require that much pre-existing domain knowledge.
Agreed, hands-on experience does not equate to understanding.
Should architects necessarily be skilled bricklayers, etc? Let alone housing-policy advisors.
And as others have pointed out, politicians are not known to be the most careful users of computers, so perhaps he is rather wise to abstain.
He doesn't need to be an expert, but NEVER having used a computer, and not knowing what a USB drive is, is notably below what the average citizen knows.
This is akin to the minister of defence not knowing what a bullet is for. It's okay if he's never used a gun, but not knowing what a bullet is, is just way too much.
Should a project manager of a technology project know something about the technology? I had one once (in place where PMs were essentially dictators) who said "I don't need to know technology, I manage people"--and then made all the technology decisions without input.
Yes! A hundred times yes! Don’t let the fact that it’s common hide the fact that it’s absurd to have people with no relevant experience run departments (of governments and businesses).
It doesn't hurt to have hands-on experience, but it definitely isn't necessary.
The job of a department head is to navigate government bureaucracy and attain the budget, gather resources and hire experts for his department's needs.
The value of a minister of anything is his contacts/professional network, knowledge of government bureaucracy and his ability to marshal them for his department's needs.
It's why in the US, we've had Secretary of Defense who have never fired a gun or been in the military. Obviously most have had military experience, but it isn't a requirement.
People are mistakenly thinking that a minister of cybersecurity is a cybersecurity job. It isn't. It is a government bureaucratic job.
Given a choice between a cybersecurity expert ( with no bureaucratic experience ) and a bureaucratic expert ( with no computer experience ), it's a no brainer to go with the latter as minister of cybersecurity. Ideally, you want bureaucratic expert who is also a cybersecurity expert. But you only have 24 hours in a day.
My Algorithm professor in College had never used a Computer. He had a phd in Mathematics. Started off teaching Mathematics. When CS department was setup, he was invited to teach Maths in CS department. Then he switched to teaching subjects like Algorithms, Data Structures etc. He had never sat in-front of a Computer in life.
[+] [-] lordnacho|7 years ago|reply
If you can’t code, you shouldn’t manage coders. If you’re not a lawyer, don’t run a law firm. If you haven’t been in charge of a class of kids, you shouldn’t run a school. And that’s despite the day-to-day of these management roles not touching code/clients/kids.
The experience gained in a few years on any ladder is enough to appreciate most of how people in those fields think.
Have you ever tried working for someone who didn’t have relevant experience? You get people deciding that they don’t need an issue tracker, let alone a code repo. You get people who think paying Google 5 bucks a months is not worth it, they’d rather have their own email server. And it’s not that there’s never a case for having your own server, it’s that the case is never made in a technical way (eg we want security / uptime / whatever). The techies end up having to translate complex reasoning into something a layman could understand, or at least pretend to. A lot of time is wasted explaining things. And then when there’s feedback - and most people cannot resist the temptation to act like they’re contributing - it only makes sense to the non technical staff, while the tech people are trying to implement whatever crazy modification it is they’ve been given.
What these people tend to do is to make everything a management issue. So management, just like politics ends up having its own ladder. Relevant experience for being a health minister is to have been an MP. Relevant experience for managing a code department is having managed the interns.
It massively corrosive to let this continue.
And before someone makes this argument, it's perfectly possible for techies to do the managing and politics.
[+] [-] tgtweak|7 years ago|reply
I've seen some pretty scary discussions about underlying technology in executive management with seasoned industry veterans and it's the usually the person with no domain knowledge that asks the right questions that lead to a good decision.
You depend on your team to execute. They depend on their team and so on.
That's why the minister expressed that he preferred the questions in advance so he can distribute them with his team (the experts) and get the right answers instead of answering on behalf of them.
Also it's pretty hard to get hacked when you don't have a computer. If anything the fact he rose to his position without the help of modern devices is a pretty strong testament to his fundamentals. Most managers and executives in tech would find their day-to-day pretty difficult without modern productivity tools.
[+] [-] trimbo|7 years ago|reply
Moral of the story is I don't think it's wise to automatically overlook non-techies in the available pool of candidates who might do better at the job.
[1] - Arguably ruined it as well by turning it into a services company, but hopefully everyone agrees he exhibited competence in the turn-around despite the direction chosen.
[+] [-] nnforall|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] torstenvl|7 years ago|reply
> If you’re not a lawyer, don’t run a law firm.
Fun fact: the ethics rules of most state bars prohibit lawyers from becoming partners with non-lawyers in a business whose business model involves providing legal advice.
See ABA Model Rule of Professional Responsibility 5.4(b). https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili...
[+] [-] 3pt14159|7 years ago|reply
Look at the most competitive industries: Software, automotive manufacture, film, news, energy, finance, accounting, law.
What do they have in common? The principles of the major corporations all have deep, deep backgrounds in multiple areas related to their business. They often don't even come with a mere CS degree, they've layered it with a masters or PhD or have a degree in a useful field like law.
[+] [-] Stryder|7 years ago|reply
While it is absolutely essential that the person managing the domain area needs to be capable of understanding the technical details surrounding it, it's not a requirement to have to have done the exact same work as the team.
What's much more valuable and preferable to me and my team is for the person to understand how to build trust and push/prod/coach/enable folks to do their jobs in ways that are best for the team and for the company while having thought through the strategy of the direction we're heading into, and of course, take responsibility for the execution. In order to do that, being able to talk shop is important, but it's only part of the picture.
From being a good engineer to being a good manager is analogous to going from being a good runner to being a good tennis player: some relationship between the two exists (both are athletes), but it's a different set of skills.
[+] [-] lisper|7 years ago|reply
But there's another view of a manager's job, and that is to create an environment where they can get their work done without having to worry about bullshit like schedules, budgets, and politics. For that kind of a role, a non-technical person can be a great fit, possibly better than a technical one.
[+] [-] chrisBob|7 years ago|reply
Different groups need different managers/leaders. I could argue that I need a manager that understands my work so that they can guide me appropriately choosing techniques/languages/architectures. I could also argue that we have a diverse team of experts that self-manage well, and that we need a manager who is a good advocate for the group and good at dealing with the politics of university management, who won't micro-manage, and can deal with all of the admin requirements so that our team can program, make maps and support HPC customers. I agree that they should probably have some kind of a tech background, but I don't think you need to have been a professional programmer to manage me.
* Hopefully no one from HR, and none of the candidates read this.
* * Actually if a job candidate gets an advantage by reading a HN comment then I would consider that in-bounds for their interview prep in this case :)
[+] [-] WhyNotHugo|7 years ago|reply
That's pretty right, IMHO, but we're now talking about him not being an expert, we're talking about him not having the slightest clue.
Not knowing what a USB drive is for, is akin to a minister of defence not knowing what a bullet is for, or a minister of health not knowing what medication is (or what it's used for).
These are key, basic elements, and most mid-level education citizen will understand what they are. It's hard to understand how he can represent their best interest in that scope.
[+] [-] iamben|7 years ago|reply
Anecdotally I heard about some of the conversations with the government and adult industry regarding the UK porn filter. It was something along the lines of: Industry: "OK, we get you want to put a block in front of adult sites. But what about all the porn Twitter?" Govt: "There's porn on Twitter?"
When we're all getting angry about encryption and privacy and backdoors (and whatever else), it's probably prudent to remember these are the kind of people we're dealing with.
[+] [-] crunchlibrarian|7 years ago|reply
Surprisingly, this seems to be true regardless of age
[+] [-] app4soft|7 years ago|reply
I think that Yoshitaka Sakurada lie: he used PC in school before he was 25 years old!
/thread
[+] [-] Aeolun|7 years ago|reply
What golden cage was this man born in that he had a staff and secretaries at 25?
[+] [-] z3phyr|7 years ago|reply
Historically, there have been many kings and emperors who were not professional soldiers or strategists. Yet many of the states they headed were successful in warfare. Many of the kings or emperors were great soldiers, but not good governors; yet still the kingdoms were governed. A leader has one job, to lead. It includes taking advice from specialists and make a decision.
In representative democracy, the true job of a representative is to convey the decision making to the people they represent. This includes heeding to the advice of specialists who have been assigned to help the "people", through that representative. A representative in that case is just a messenger. A messenger does not need to understand the contents of the message.
The representative is from among the general populace and the general populace in plural is hardly specialist.
Edit(1): I understand that this situation is unforgivable. A minister of Cyber-Security must at least be used to the "Cyber" part. I actually commented because in Representative systems which I am used to, the specialty of Minister does not matter much. The minister is a part of the cabinet, which is just simple power sharing for rubber stamping the decision making process. The minister generally comes from the parliament. Its function is to legitimize a bureaucrat's decision, which the rep always does. It does not hamper the actual cyber security program (It also does not improve it at an accelerated rate, this just proves that cyber security is not a relative major priority for the current Japanese government, but that's beyond the point), which is run by specialized bureaucrats (most probably). Friendly Americans, the Minister does not hold much power, but just legitimatizes "people's agreement" to the actual officer in charge.
Edit(2): Please forgive my English! I am not a native speaker.
[+] [-] wpietri|7 years ago|reply
So it still seems weird to me that the problem of cybersecurity would be delegated to somebody who a) doesn't know beans about it and b) has spent his life avoiding learning a thing.
[+] [-] Bartweiss|7 years ago|reply
If the minister had never done cyber-security work, I would understand. If he had never done any kind of technical computing at all, I would basically understand.
But to have never used a computer? That's like administration by a king who has never seen uncooked food or left his palace. Past a certain point you have so few referents that expert advice becomes unintelligible. There's precedent here too, but it's the precedent of puppet kings and court intrigues - leaders who either do nothing at all or make their decisions without regard for any concrete facts.
[+] [-] justin66|7 years ago|reply
This isn't the Prime Minister or the Emperor. It's the cyber-security minister.
[+] [-] evrydayhustling|7 years ago|reply
Cybersecurity exists because of the ways people use computers; it's impossible to evaluate trade-offs that will affect the public without being in the user role. It's also an error of judgement not to have sought that experience.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|7 years ago|reply
In my company the CEO doesn't know much about tech or IT which is OK. But the CIO is also basically just a well spoken people manager who can't really judge any new initiative and it shows with a lot of stuff that gets started but set up in a nonsensical way so everything fails. And they keep hiring more managers who talk well but don't understand much either so things perpetuate because nobody in leadership knows how things could work if run by competent people.
[+] [-] HenryBemis|7 years ago|reply
I hope this guy gets the job done and we enjoy safe and secure Olympic Games.
[+] [-] lordnacho|7 years ago|reply
Even if you are going to delegate it to the generals, you need some appreciation of how it works and who seems like a good general.
I’m not saying people need to have phd’s and 20 years experience to manage. But probably more than a couple of years.
[+] [-] mywacaday|7 years ago|reply
The fact is that somebody that was deemed worthy to appoint government ministers appointed him to the role. If he can do the job great call if not questions should be answered.
[+] [-] imgabe|7 years ago|reply
I'm not familiar with the structure of the Japanese government, but it seems like he's not a representative. Isn't this something like a cabinet level position in the US like secretary of defense or agriculture, etc?
In that case wouldn't he be the expert that the representatives are supposed to depend on to understand the things they don't?
[+] [-] adamtheclayman|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] PaulHoule|7 years ago|reply
I remember the hearings after the problems with the Obamacare web site where the lady who ran Health and Human Services made it clear she was a believer in getting health care to people but seemed to think there was nothing she could do to make a software project succeed and that's completely untrue.
(Turns out the editor of my college newspaper was a project manager on that one... An astrophysics professor told me not to get involved in a 'science-in-politics' program that he did and look what happened to him...)
[+] [-] ceejayoz|7 years ago|reply
There's a fascinating article on how it was rescued here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/the-s...
[+] [-] crispyambulance|7 years ago|reply
What's weird though is "never" having used a computer. I mean, doesn't everyone write/edit with a computer these days? Do people at that level just verbally stream-of-consciousness dictate their memos and secretaries enter them? THAT is weird.
[+] [-] mosselman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] outofpaper|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwheeler|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toolslive|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IOT_Apprentice|7 years ago|reply
“Since there was no prior notice about the questions, I had no idea what would be asked at the session,” the Asahi quoted him as saying.
When Renho asked him how much funding the central government would contribute to the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, he responded: “1,500 yen”, which works out at just over $13, some way below the actual sum of 150 billion yen.
[+] [-] craigsmansion|7 years ago|reply
Assuming he's generally a competent person, he will now be forced to listen to and be informed by smart people in his department instead of putting his foot down and saying "I've used outlook all my life, so obviously I'm an expert. I've never been hacked, so policy is now that everyone should use Outlook."
[+] [-] baud147258|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/08/abbott_pc_support_s...
[+] [-] ceriodamus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asianthrowaway|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tehchops|7 years ago|reply
All joking aside, color me shocked a policy-maker has 0 experience with $thing they are writing policy for.
[+] [-] aurizon|7 years ago|reply
Why do we have it? We have a bribery and feedback mechanism in Congress that quantifies bribery and ass licking to perfection. An elected representative HAS NO SECRET BALLOT!!. We can all see how he votes, as can all the bribers, who can call him to account. We say this exists to allow the voters to see that there rep did their bidding YADA-YADA-YADA - we all know it allow the bribery effectiveness to be watched and measured, so you can threaten to cut them off if they do not dance to the briber's tune. RANT/ How to get a better way? Empower all, with online voting of all eligible voters, in the style of the original Greek democracy. Pay people for their votes, hold back tax refunds for people who do not vote etc. This needs to be fine tuned. Chance of success = zero, as all the well bribed elected officials do not want their gravy train to end. /RANT
[+] [-] AllegedAlec|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kaveren|7 years ago|reply
> "But Mr Sakurada responded that other officials had the necessary experience and he was confident there would not be a problem."
Then why is he the one taking the job?
[+] [-] hkt|7 years ago|reply
In principle, this might not actually require that much pre-existing domain knowledge.
[+] [-] jacknews|7 years ago|reply
And as others have pointed out, politicians are not known to be the most careful users of computers, so perhaps he is rather wise to abstain.
[+] [-] lessclue|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WhyNotHugo|7 years ago|reply
This is akin to the minister of defence not knowing what a bullet is for. It's okay if he's never used a gun, but not knowing what a bullet is, is just way too much.
[+] [-] coldcode|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordnacho|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] contravariant|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thanosnose|7 years ago|reply
The job of a department head is to navigate government bureaucracy and attain the budget, gather resources and hire experts for his department's needs.
The value of a minister of anything is his contacts/professional network, knowledge of government bureaucracy and his ability to marshal them for his department's needs.
It's why in the US, we've had Secretary of Defense who have never fired a gun or been in the military. Obviously most have had military experience, but it isn't a requirement.
People are mistakenly thinking that a minister of cybersecurity is a cybersecurity job. It isn't. It is a government bureaucratic job.
Given a choice between a cybersecurity expert ( with no bureaucratic experience ) and a bureaucratic expert ( with no computer experience ), it's a no brainer to go with the latter as minister of cybersecurity. Ideally, you want bureaucratic expert who is also a cybersecurity expert. But you only have 24 hours in a day.
[+] [-] Hanibaal|7 years ago|reply