White House Gets Its Own Wiki Guy

Slap yourself on the back, Wiki-believers: The White House is hiring one of your own. Washington Post:

Sources in the government contracting community said the White House is expected to announce as early as Thursday the selection of Rod A. Beckstrom as a top-level adviser based in the Department of Homeland Security. Beckstrom is an author and entrepreneur best known for starting Twiki.net, a company that provides collaboration software for businesses.

The new inter-agency group, which will coordinate information sharing about cyber attacks aimed at government networks, is being created as part of a government-wide "cyber initiative" spelled out in a national security directive signed in January by President Bush, according to the sources...The presidential directive expanded the intelligence community's role in monitoring Internet traffic to protect against a rising number of attacks on federal agencies' computer systems

We think the Post is an excellent paper, but we take issue with their description of him: Twiki.net is a pretty anonymous Wiki business. But Beckstrom's book, The Starfish and The Spider, which explains why Al-Quaeda is like Napster, which is like Toyota, which is like Craigslist, has "been favorably reviewed in Newsweek, Business Week, U.S. News and World Report, Fast Company, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, The Washington Post, and more." Don't believe us? Check out Rod's website.