I was heartened by (and a little jealous of) the title of a New York Times blog post this morning:

Head East, Young Techie

"Tech geeks are tickled that come January, one of their kind will be in the White House," writes Claire Cain Miller. Very true. But now that we have a leader who "gets" us, what are we gonna do about it?

I've said before that we need to channel our energy into DC and help the government become more Web-savvy; Matt Lerner, featured in the Times blog post, feels the same.

Mr. Lerner said he hopes the migration will change so that instead of building Facebook applications, engineers “will go to D.C. and try to make a difference.”

Indeed, for the first time, techies are whispering about a brain drain from Silicon Valley to Washington. In the past, “they have felt that government is moving so slowly that it’s not interesting to them,” Mr. Lerner said. “But with the innovation around the Obama campaign and Obama appointing a C.T.O., technologists feel they really might have a role to play in helping the government become more innovative.”

DC desperately needs some Silicon Valley culture and talent, and the new administration will hopefully do its part in creating the right opportunities for us. Then it will be up to us to walk the "Yes We Can" talk.