There's plenty of confusion right now about the role that a chief technology officer will play in the Obama administration. It could be a position that has plenty of clout to develop and enforce policy, or simply a glorified adviser and speechmaker.

While the position is being welcomed by the IT community, the lack of a clear job description may make the position useless. Tech advocates want the person in this position to have a solid understanding of federal IT needs.

One fear is that if the role is that of a figurehead, the lack of policy power could keep good candidates away. Right now two possible candidates are Vivek Kundra, CTO for Washington, D.C., and Padmasree Warrior, CTO at Cisco Systems, according to a recent BusinessWeek article.

Time will tell whether this position fills a big need or whether it will be another level of bureaucracy that has long stood in the way of the federal IT community's goal of reaching the next best level for technology.

For more on the CTO:
- check out this Federal Computer Week article