From The Acquisition Corner As the devastation unfolds in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, it is clear that rebuilding the country will be one of the greatest nation-building exercises ever undertaken. To that end, federal agencies have started turning to contractors to support the missions of recovery and relief, and ultimately, reconstruction. WhatRead… Read more »
I used to say “If I” a lot… If I was the boss. If I had a million dollars. If I was the president. If I was the head coach of the team. As I get older, I keep on thinking it’s easy to criticize those with “If I” Now I’m focused more on gettingRead… Read more »
This past weekend I had the good fortune to attend an un-conference on Social Media, Collaboration and Social Enterprise. It was great to be around my peers from other sectors.The government sector is rarely at this table as a partner. I think this is a problem.There is a convergence of thinking and emerging collective intelligenceRead… Read more »
One of the aspects of social media and collaborative work environments that people have a lot of trouble with is this “sharing” aspect. Many people aren’t comfortable letting others into “their” space, to learn about “their” knowledge. They feel that “their” job might be threatened by someone else. This goes along with our traditional viewpointsRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner As the federal government continues to find ways to move contracted work back in-house, it must overcome some major obstacles. One area that has been significantly neglected is effective human capital planning. As a result, the government’s lack of in-house resources has increased its reliance on contractors to help it performRead… Read more »
True Confession: Yes, I’m bureaucrat. I prefer the term, civil servant — though that implies work is civil, doesn’t it? Au contraire. If I could give you one visual image to describe my experience in the government, it would be this one of Catherine Zeta-Jones from the 1999 movie “Entrapment”: No. I don’t look atRead… Read more »
From The Acquisition Corner As 2009 is now in the books, the year ended with plans submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by the 24 federal agencies that account for 98% of contract actions. As reported by NextGov, these agencies have identified $19 billion in acquisition-related savings, also announced by OMB inRead… Read more »
From The Better Buy Project blog After attending the recent Better Buy Project panel this past week, I blogged about my observations and some issues that came up from that conversation. That lively discussion continued on the GovLoop Acquisition 2.0 community. Although many commentators took different takes, I think we all agreed that one ofRead… Read more »
Since launching the moderated wiki, Whorunsgov has, on a couple of occasions, created projects to entice people to contribute. We try to focus these projects on narrow topics that people have strong opinions about. The projects include: 1) Tracking Blue Dog Democrats’ stances on the proposed health-care bill 2) Highlighting advocates and lobbyists that workRead… Read more »
I’ve been following the activity around climate change, sustainability, and cleantech especially closely, in recent weeks. Part of it is due to some specific sustainability and cleantech related events I’ve been involved in, including the GreenXchange and the Austin Clean Energy Venture Summit. Also, it’s because I’m thrilled at the pace with which social media,Read… Read more »