One of the advantages ZapThink brings to the discussion of Enterprise IT is our global perspective. As we travel the world, we hear the opinions of many people across many countries and industries. From this context we can confirm that most of the planet believes the US government is the laughing stock of the developed world.

First, we allow a fanatical right wing minority to shut down our entire government because they didn’t want American citizens to get affordable healthcare – even though most other developed countries consider healthcare a right rather than a privilege. We finally resolve the shutdown (at least temporarily) only to find that the centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) rollout – the Healthcare.gov Web site – suffered from severe flaws. Seriously, can’t we get anything right?

The embarrassing failure of the ACA Web site is even more ironic considering the federal government’s long …