Cureton’s Kobayashi Maru
Linda Cureton, chief information officer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, spoke at a breakfast sponsored by Input, a market research firm. During her presentation, she seemed…geek chic, for lack of a better term. Cureton is clearly a science fiction fan.
In her presentation, she quoted Yoda from Star Wars. She mentioned the mid-1960s era TV program “The Outer Limits,” which was similar in style to the earlier “The Twilight Zone,” although tending more to science fiction than fantasy.
She even talked about the “The Twilight Zone” episode “To Serve Man.”
In that episode, a race of aliens comes to Earth promising to be helpful to the cause of humanity. Even the most skeptical humans are convinced when their code-breakers begin to translate one of the aliens’ books with the seemingly innocuous title, “To Serve Man.”
And they do help solve problems. Unfortunately, they discover that “To Serve Man” is actually a cookbook.
We’ll let you decide what that says about the role of the chief information officer these days.
Cureton also mentioned Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru. For those of you who aren’t Star Trek geeks, the Kobayashi Maru is the name of a Star Trek training exercise. In it, trainees are faced with a no-win scenario.
Of course, the only person to avoid the lose-lose conflict is our hero, Capt. James T. Kirk. He reprogrammed the simulator.
Cureton’s point is that she is always looking for ways out of no-win situations, even if it means changing the rules.
Comings & Goings: Karl Krumbholz
The General Services Administration has selected Karl Krumbholz as director of network services programs at the Federal Acquisition Service’s Office of Integrated Technology Services.
As director of network services — a new position — Krumbholz will provide strategic, operational, technical and acquisition leadership for an organization that delivers $1.5 billion in telecommunications services
to 135 government agencies in 190 countries.
Krumbholz was deputy assistant commissioner at GSA’s Office of Service Development and Delivery in the Federal Technology Service. In that role he was responsible for managing the FTS 2001 Crossover federal telecom programs and the development activities that defined the next generation of GSA offerings.
Before joining GSA, Krumbholz worked at TRW and BDM where he managed telecom and information technology programs that supported government. Krumbholz is a retired naval officer.
