A common expression for computers in use today is “To err is Human, to really mess up requires a computer”.

As President Obama’s team got started, they ran into this problem. From the Washington Post:

“Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts".

What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep President Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

"It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari," spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.

In many ways, the move into the White House resembled a first day at school: Advisers wandered the halls, looking for their offices. Aides spent hours in orientation, learning such things as government ethics rules as well as how their paychecks will be delivered. And everyone filled out a seemingly endless pile of paperwork.

There were plenty of first-day glitches, too, as calls to many lines in the West Wing were met with a busy signal all morning and those to the main White House switchboard were greeted by a recording, redirecting callers to the presidential Web site. A number of reporters were also shut out of the White House because of lost security clearance lists.” READ MORE.

This is how many modern organizations still operate. Computers are misused or underused, most people don’t like them, do not understand them, and shy away from new technology as if it would bite them.

How did this happen?

Well, let’s go back and look at the history of computers.