Success Criteria

The Bush administration has trumpeted  "striking" success for its [hitherto unknown] broadband policy. Rather than laying out a vision, defining success criteria, and measuring progress against them, they have apparently defined success criteria based on current state. The results are laughable -- a single household in any given zipcode having merely 200kbps qualifies that entire zipcode as successfully broadbandedly networked. Compared with many countries in Europe and the Pacific rim, broadband in the US is slower, costlier, and has much worse coverage. There is no vision or plan or even apparent worry in the executive branch about the increasing gap between the US and other truly broadband-aware countries.

The beauty of this entire approach is that defining success criteria in advance lends itself to accountability in the future for progress or failure. If you want to avoid accountability, the Bush method is perfect. If I worked this way, I would be fired.