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Bush Gets Down To The Nitty Gritty At AOL
During his pre-primary swing through Virginia Friday, Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush stopped at America Online's campus for an online chat. "I am a customer of AOL, but I'm not a big panderer," he said. The Texas governor fielded questions ranging from his thoughts on the state of high tech to his opinion on the TV show "Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire?" Bush poked fun at himself, referring several times to an interview last year where he ran into trouble on a pop quiz on international leaders. "Hopefully, we'll have some online questions about foreign leaders. If you know what I mean," Bush chuckled. But he became serious when speaking about key issues. Touting the Internet as a communications tool that enables voters direct access to campaigns, Bush said that online contributions to his campaign have picked up since his victory in South Carolina nearly two weeks ago.
Bush expressed concern about cyberterrorism. He said that the Internet could create damaging cultural clashes between countries, but applauded President Clinton's recent meeting with industry experts. Bush gave a nod to Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, R, who dropped by AOL for the chat. When someone asked Bush what he would do about the transportation problem in Virginia, he responded, "That's a great question. Call your governor." (By the way, on the topic of "Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire?", Bush called the show "ridiculous" and said if he were president he would "blow the whistle on pop culture like that.")
"There are some opportunities you just don't let pass," Mitch Glazier said. And the chance to head up the Recording Industry Association of America's lobbying shop is not one Glazier, the chief counsel for the House Judiciary Courts and Intellectual Property Committee, will pass up, regardless of how "bittersweet" it might be, according to Glazier. "There's no more challenging job right now than music over the Internet," he said. Glazier's heads over to RIAA on Monday, where he will serve as legislative counsel and senior vice president of government relations. No. 2 man Blaine Merritt will replace Glazier.
Online auction powerhouse eBay has opened a Washington office. Tod Cohen has been tapped to be its Washington counsel and director of government affairs. Cohen was vice president and counsel of new media for the Motion Picture Association of America where he worked on intellectual property issues. Prior to the MPAA, Cohen was an attorney with Covington & Burling, where he spent several years with the dual title of counsel for Covington & Burling and European counsel for the Business Software Alliance. Cohen is a Utah native and worked for several Democratic members of Congress during the 1980s. Under Cohen's direction, eBay is likely to lobby on database legislation, intellectual property, Internet taxes, computer security, international trade, consumer fraud and privacy. "This is the next wave in Washington. Four or five years ago, it was Microsoft and America Online that were opening offices. Now it's the e-commerce companies like eBay, DoubleClick, Amazon.com and Yahoo," Cohen said.
When Microsoft was searching for a new corporate affairs director, it was seeking someone with both government and private sector experience. Although that proved to be a challenging task — Microsoft reviewed more than 120 applicants — the company said it has found the perfect balance in Ed Tobin. Currently, he is U S West's vice president for public policy. Tobin will oversee Microsoft's government relations activities, political action committees and involvement in industry groups and trade associations. Tobin replaces Kimberly Ellwanger, who late last year left the company to spend more time with her family.
Larry Lindsey, former Federal Reserve board governor and chief economic adviser to the George W. Bush presidential campaign, spent his Presidents' Day break visiting Silicon Valley executives. During his visit, Lindsey pushed Bush's high-tech agenda, which includes an increase in the level of H-1B visas to help companies relieve worker shortages. The visas are given to skilled foreign workers, many of which are in the IT industry. The long-term solution — which could take 10 to 20 years — is education reform, according to Lindsey. Bush's education reforms include setting national standards, giving schools flexibility in how they meet the standards and giving parents the ability to make a choice in where their children attend school. Lindsey also said Bush would work to enact liability reform and would extend the current moratorium on new Internet taxes by another three years. Lindsey's trip to the region was arranged by TechNet, the area's bipartisan lobbying group.
The phones have been ringing off the hook at Campaign Advantage with clients looking to update their online images, according to CEO Philip Tajitsu Nash. The company launched Ralph Nader's presidential campaign site on Presidents' Day. Nash said the site could help Nader build an infrastructure to help attract and connect people to his presidential campaign. "Presidential candidates are starting to use it as an interactive tool to bring more people to their site, not just as a fundraising tool," he said. Rep. Richard Gephardt's, D-MO, campaign also has retained Campaign Advantage to design an "industry leading" Web site, rather than the run of the mill, cookie-cutter Web sites, that constitute most lawmaker's Internet presence, according to Nash. "It's an image conscious industry and one that wants to keep up with the Joneses," Nash said.
After setting out to redefine its company, high-tech public relations firm Brodeur Worldwide has been named Agency of the Year by PRWeek magazine. To better serve its clients and to attract larger tech companies, Brodeur enhanced its shop by incorporating interactive services. "What's happening more and more is [businesses] are incorporating technology into their companies. They are redefining their business models to make them more of tech companies. They are looking for companies that have a good grasp of tech," said Zanku Armenian, vice president of the company's Washington office. Brodeur's clients include the Commerce Department and U S West. "I think in the past year it has been dot com fever. There will be a lot of shakeout for those companies just throwing up a Web site and saying its dot com," Armenian said. "Branding will become very important and you have to have legitimate services behind it."
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is the most admired man among information technology executives, according to a survey by RHI Consulting. Gates clinched 37 percent of the vote, and 19 percent of chief information officers polled chose Dell Computer Chairman and CEO Michael Dell. Candidates included Apple Computer's Steve Jobs, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems and Larry Ellison of Oracle.
 | - by Jessica Smith |
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