March 2, 2006

Fort Detrick Neighbors Jittery Over Expansion

Following up from the increasing concern over BU’s BL‑4 facility, residents around Fort Detrick are starting to get nervous about the Interagency Biodefense Campus that’s planned there. Technorati : Interagency Biodefense Campus, USAMRIID, biosafety, bl‑4, fort detrick…
February 28, 2006

Little data about response grants

GovExec has reported on GAO’s finding that Federal agencies don’t know enough about how well their emegency preparedness grants are performing. It includes a quote that really is applicable to every grant program on the face of the planet: Federal, state…
February 27, 2006

Job available: Chief, Financial Standards and Grants Branch at OMB

I see that OMB has posted an announcement an announcement for the position of Branch Chief of the Financial Standards and Grants Branch. There’s an ongoing debate about the relationship between financial management and grants management, and this position is…
February 24, 2006

Malcolm Gladwell’s started blogging

[Via BoingBoing] Malcolm Gladwell’s books, The Tipping Point and Blink, were extremely compelling, well-informed writing that I think should be mandatory for anyone interested in social change and better decision-making. He’s now started a blog to, as he puts it, “elaborate and…

Excellence.Gov Awards 2006, Top 5 Award Winners

Back on February 15, I attended the Excellence.Gov Awards which were organized by the Collaboration & Transformation SIG of the Industry Advisory Council. There were 20 finalists this year, with five award winners highlighted. Those five are: Bidirectional Health Information Exchange, Departments of…

A bizarre analogy for government contracting

This article on GovExec.com, about the reworked Alliant GWAC, contains a truly fantastic analogy about a problem that plagues many government IT procurements. A typical federal statement of work resembles a grocery list, when it should resemble a directory of food categories, he said.…

Congressman Wu: “Federal Dollars Should Benefit The Whole, Not Just Majority” — (Medford Article)

I see that Oregon Congressman David Wu has sent a letter has sent a letter about Grants.gov’s Mac compatibility issue to Joshua Bolten, Director of OMB: I am personally troubled by the overarching discrimination against Mac-users simply because they are considered the minority.…
February 21, 2006

Kentucky vies for NBAF

I see that Kentucky has thrown its hat in the ring for NBAF (National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility). in a joint effort sponsored by Congressmen and the governors of Kentucky and Tennessee, the University of Louisville, UT and Oak Ridge National…
February 13, 2006

Mac solution for Grants.gov

Over at my personal blog, where I mirror the grants-related posts I make here, Dave Schroeder of the University of Wisconin published this happy news: The University of Wisconsin has released a standalone package for using Grants.gov on Mac OS X as a service…

Grants.gov won’t be platform-agnostic

Yesterday I posted about a Washington Post article that was highly critical of Grants.gov’s inability to provide e‑forms for the Mac platform. One comment on that post really set me thinking. Claus Wilkes noted that while a Mac e‑forms client would help, the…