The State of the Union speech is its own special genre. Presidents aim to deliver the right tone and right messages for a range of audiences. Sometimes the messages are direct, and sometimes they are more subtle. Often, these speeches are long on ideas and vision, and a little thinner on specifics. And so President Obama's speech followed this track, for the most part. That said, though, there were kernels to be applauded by the IT sector and small businesses.

First, I would note that Microsoft U.S. NTO Stuart McKee in his VFI blog post earlier this week said at the top of his list, he would be listening for the President to address the credit crunch for small businesses. Well, one of the first policy proposals in the speech was "to take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat." Clearly, this issue is on the President's radar.

For technology more specifically, the President highlighted the need to invest in "American innovation," and he specifically called out energy. Clearly IT has a role here, along with advances in materials science. The President also recognized that to create and fill tech jobs over the long haul, we need to redouble commitments to education. He called for community college support and also said that our educational system needs to "inspire[] students to excel in math and science." The President clearly understands the importance of technology to our economy, and now we will have to see how this understanding is put into policy action.

Finallly, in this quick summary, I wanted to note that the President said "we need to export more of our goods." He set a goal of doubling exports in five years. In many ways, the IT industry has been an important part of American exports, even as our nation imports many consumer products. This eye toward fair and free trade is important for technology. It means not only growing exports organically, but creating the need for legitimate products by reducing IP theft through software piracy. It also means enabling U.S. innovations to compete abroad on reasonable criteria such as cost, functionality, security, and so on. Let's keep an eye on how public policies promote exports and appropriately protect American products abroad.

Any other responses to the State of the Union speech?