WASHINGTON TECHNOLOGY By Frank Konkel “The 20 largest civilian federal agencies collectively spent 63% less money in October 2025 — during the government shutdown — compared to October 2024, according to reported spending data pulled from the Federal Procurement Data System by Deltek in mid-November. _________________________________________________________________________________ Reported spending at some large agencies, including NASA and the departments of State and Energ

“ SMALLTOFEDS” By Ken Larson “Both the contractor and the government must come to an understanding regarding the scope of effort to be performed. Signing off on a poorly written SOW results in a difficult contract to manage and a high probability for disputes during the performance period.” _______________________________________________________________________________ “Part 1, Section C, is where the technical specifications and statement of work are located in your governme

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“FOREIGN POLICY” By Rosa Brooks “ Asking warriors to do everything poses great dangers for our country — and the military. Our armed services have become the one-stop shop for America’s policymakers. If Your only tool is a hammer then everything looks like a nail “ ______________________________________________________________________________ “When my mother came for lunch at the Pentagon, I shepherded her through the visitor’s entrance, maneuvered her onto the escalator,

“SCORE Southeast Minnesota” By Dean L. Swanson “Success requires consistent planning, grit, and strategic execution. You also need to recognize resources that can help you amplify your growth with continuous business planning and evolution for survival.” _________________________________________________________________________________ “A new CEO and reader of this column emailed me and said, “How can I grow my business and assure its survival? I started my new business seve

“WASHINGTON TECHNOLOGY” By Erik Swabb, Matthew Olsen and Stephanie Evans “The defense market offers an opportunity for significant commercial upside due to the geopolitical developments driving up demand. Companies that carefully evaluate the various factors at issue early—and establish robust compliance and contracting strategies—will be in a position to succeed.” _________________________________________________________________________________ “The surge of capital in defen

“ SMALLTOFEDS ” – By Ken Larson “ Involve the employees in the training process and encourage mentoring. “ _____________________________________________________________________________ “Involve the employees in the training process and encourage mentoring. The organization mission is conveyed by continuous organization training. Internal experts can be very entrepreneurial in training approaches. Recognize and reward them for doing so and place them in lead positions in trai

“The General Services Administration (GSA) is publishing Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Deviations as a part of their Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) . GSA has now published deviations for all FAR parts and new, non-regulatory guidance to contracting officers to help them navigate the changes. The “Coalition for Common Sense in Government Procurement” has submitted comments to GSA, which are published here, on each deviation” _________________________________________

“SMALLTOFEDS” – By Ken Larson “ SETA contracting is often utilized by the government to enhance small business contracting participation by firms that hold set aside designations who can offer quality services in support of internal agency facilities or operations. SETA efforts may involve long term contracts to perform acquisition assistance, project management, price or program analysis, independent estimates, administrative support, computer and data base operations, techn

“WASHINGTON TECHNOLOGY” By Scott Flesch and Joshua Drew of the law firm Miller & Chevalier “Coordination among Human Resources , Legal and Business Development is needed to understand post-employment restrictions and possible conflicts before they derail your contracting opportunities” _________________________________________________________________________________ “Current and former government employees have a wealth of knowledge and experience that provides a critical ad

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Although by far the most powerful country in the world, the U.S. is suffering from a lack of long term vision. The individual citizen is as much at fault for this condition as the politician or the military industrial complex. From our relationships with each other and with other countries, from corporate board rooms to Wall Street stock run ups, we must use long term strategic vision in lieu of pursuing short term gains. ______________________________________________________

The budgets for many federal agencies are shrinking. Decision makers are being forced to seek suppliers who can fulfill needs at the lowest price and still provide value with strong performance. Strategic planning is necessary for small veteran-owned enterprises in planning for the future, given these realities. _________________________________________________________________________________ With the budget ax falling hard, the smaller enterprise will have opportunity to per

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE With two decades in volunteer small business consulting, I appreciate the many individuals who have contacted me for advice. You have come from several venues – through the Micro Mentor and SCORE Foundations, LinkedIn and other social media sites. It has been a pleasure serving small business. _________________________________________________________________________________ My work with you has kept me active in retirement, in touch with my profession

“DEFENSE SCOOP” By Mikayla Easley “Artificial intelligence startup Luminary Cloud has developed a physics-based AI model for Northrop Grumman that will allow the defense contractor to more quickly design and build new spacecraft.” ________________________________________________________________________________ “The new partnership gives engineers access to a purpose-built tool known as Physics AI that can generate high-fidelity simulations of spacecraft subsystems in seconds

“SMALLTOFEDS” By Ken Larson “To effectively market a federal government services contract a small business must sell on the basis of having a business system as well as technical performance infrastructure ready to run the job when a contract proposal is submitted. Parallel thinking is required to plan for government project technical effort against a template of necessary business process infrastructure, driven by introducing Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) into the c

“BREAKING DEFENSE” By Jon Chung and Dan Berkenstock “If the goal is delivering new capabilities at the speed of relevance, then SBIR — and programs like it — must be aligned with the private-sector forces driving the next wave of national defense innovation.” _________________________________________________________________________________ ” What is the purpose of the $35 billion the Department of Defense has invested in Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) over th

“SMALLTOFEDS”By Ken Larson “When a government contracting specific market target has been identified and a proposal has been submitted, pre-award surveys and fact finding by the buying agency or the prime contractor often follow. With adequate preparation and understanding of what the processes involve, the small enterprise can succeed in passing government agency or prime contractor site surveys and fact finding.” _____________________________________________________________

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“BREAKING DEFENSE” By By John Ferrari “The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 , best known for reforming the combatant commands, also restructured defense acquisition. This created the system that we have today, breaking three things in the process.” ______________________________________________________________________________ “It’s often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. In this particular case,