While it may be that the Geeks shall inherit the Earth, you will have to forgive me for thinking that government would never be conquered. Arcane IT systems, technophobes as far as the eye can see and one data breach after another, it appeared that there was little hope the government geek looking to rewire the red tape and truly transform government through tech.
But no! The once small and closed community of government techies appears to be growing and opening up with geeks popping up in high places, Invasion of the Body Snatchers style. Driven in no small part by the appointment of “IT enthusiast and blogging pioneer among MPs” Tom Watson to the role of Cabinet Office Minster for Transformational Government in January 2008, the profile and priority of all thing geeky has rocketed in what has been a pretty tech unsavvy government thus far.