Elliot Volkman's Blog (42)

(Original Image: The Pentagon, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) David B. Gleason)

Secrets and the Pentagon go hand…

During the final session of the online communities 101course we tackled the one question that every online community manager wants answered: What is the magic formula to motivating your members so that they engage with and create…

Next week's release of President Obama's budget for fiscal year 2013 won't be great news for the government contracting industry, especially as we finally get to see specifics on the long-expected spending cuts. But the information technology (IT) industry has less to fear than what might be expected. In fact, there are opportunities for growth even as federal spending contracts.

That was the takeaway from a conference call for investors, organized by …

Here's an all-too-common occurrence: The government issues a Request for Proposals (RFP); companies respond with their proposals; the contracting officer (CO) requests a technical analysis of the proposals to help guide the decision... and the technical report that comes back, in plain terms, stinks.…

Originally published by Anthony Critelli on GovWin

Following the success of the Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse blog in May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office of Public Health…

If you had the opportunity to speak with VPs from Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing simultaneously, what would you say?

If you attended MED Week, you would have had the opportunity to figure out how your small businesses could align and even team with these primes. A panel discussion on supplier management -- moderated by the Director of the Army’s Office of Small Business Programs,…

This article was originally posted by my coworker Anthony Critelli

September 21 marks the maiden flight of three different U.S. military aircraft made by Boeing or firms now part of Boeing: the…

I originally published on GovWin

Communication is an important aspect of any business, but how do new media tools affect government contractors seeking to team with others? In addition to social media tools like LinkedIn and Twitter, there are additional tools like company blogs and webinars that all play a part in extending the voice of your brand.

Individual…

This article was originally published by GovWin's Anthony Critelli

August 25, 1916 is the day President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill creating the National Park Service (NPS) within the Department of the Interior. Interior had previously lacked the organization to effectively manage the then 14 national…

This was originally published by our assistant managing editor Sean Tucker

The federal government is expected to cut spending and reduce the number of contracts it issues in coming years -- even in fields that have seen rapid growth over the last decade. For architecture, engineering and…

I originally published this on GovWin. As an aside, NGGS11 was an excellent event and every government related employee can learn from it.

Though government contractors and federal employees have their differences, one certainty is that the workforce will soon go through an employee transition as baby boomers retire. This means that a younger workforce is now…

I originally posted this on GovWin for the release of Harry Potter, and realized a lot of this still connects to federal employees as well. For the broad information that does relate to just contractors, it will at least provide some insight from our side.

As J.K. Rowling's boy wizard franchise prepares to close with last week's release of…

Authored by Anthony Critelli

June 16, 1911, was the founding of government contractor and corporate giant IBM. The company was formed via the merger of Tabulating Machine Company, Computing Scale Company of America and International Time Recording Company into Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) by trust organizer Charles F.…

Authored by GovWin's Sean Tucker

What will it take to survive in the federal IT market in fiscal year 2012? The smartest companies are already gameplanning for the new reality.

The 2011 federal budget process was one of the messiest on record. Political battles left the government operating without a true budget for most of the year. A series of Continuing Resolutions, each different than the one before, shifted spending priorities from week to week. Budgets…

Originally published on GovWin

As reported in many news sites today, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has released a new document that highlights the potential concern of a zombie invasion occurring in the future.…

Authored by Sean Tucker

"The metrics say we're the best large-scale health care organization in the world."

"But if you look at Facebook posts, it turns out we're not universally popular for the services we provide." That, Department of Veterans Affairs Chief Information Officer…

Authored by Anthony Critelli

While the hoopla around the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton will not do much to help U.S. contractors battling shrinking government budgets, we have detailed the many opportunities existing for their British counterparts. It should be noted that the only major cost…

Authored by Jeff White

How well do you know your teaming partners?

Do you know what government agencies they’ve worked with? What contracts they’ve held? What actions the government may have taken against them in the past?

And are you taking their word for it?

You might not recognize the risk you’re taking if you’re not verifying what you’re told. It can…

Authored by Micheal Mullen

Government’s long list of acronyms often comes with unintended (or perhaps intended) double meanings. While our first role is to help GovWin members find new opportunities that best suit their company’s specialties, here are a few program names that caught our eye as we were searching through the INPUT database. 



For instance, we were…

Authored by Sean Tucker

It's a simple question – if the government shuts down, should I still go to an event where the speaker is a government employee? – but no one seems to have a simple answer.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) referred us to the…