The Obama administration owed Mickey Dickerson a great deal for saving its disaster of a website, Healthcare.gov. In return for his services, The White House asked the former Google engineer to lead the new U.S. Digital Service and looked the other way when he didn't come to work dressed in a suit and tie.
"Based on Healthcare.gov performance, your performance there, do the same play over and over again," Jeff Zients, director of the National Economic Council, told Dickerson in a new video released by The White House.
Dickerson will lead the new government service launched by the administration on Aug. 11. He and his team will work with all government agencies to better their digital platforms like websites, apps and email services.
"The Digital Service... will work with agencies to remove barriers to exceptional service delivery and help remake the digital experience that people and businesses have with their government," said The White House in a statement.
"The Digital Service team will take private and public-sector best practices and help scale them across agencies - always with a focus on the customer experience in mind."
Dickerson admitted the question he's getting asked the most about his new position isn't about the job at all. They all want to know if he's "sold out" and wearing suits to work now instead of his more casual wardrobe. It turns out, neither.
"People are putting up with me walking around the EEOB and the West Wing just wearing whatever. I mean, not quite whatever. I'm not wearing a T-shirt," he said in the video. "I made some slight concessions. I'm wearing actual shirts with buttons with collars, but that's about where we're at right now."
As part of the new pilot program, the administration released the initial version of a Digital Services Playbook. The playbook includes 13 key "plays" that will help federal agencies provide "services that work well for users and require less time and money to develop and operate."
The White House encourages anyone from the public and private sector to offer feedback on the Playbook.
