Miami is not one of the places I would have thought about spending the day honoring Saint Patrick. I remember it traditionally as a raw early Spring day up north, with luck accompanied by some sun and a light jacket, and without luck, gray and wet both inside and out.

In Chicago they have turned the river green with dye; looking down from the tower of the Hilton, I can imagine the Biscayne Bay far below shimmering green. I will give you the complete forecast for the week in just a few words: “partly sunny, 81.”

I was crashing through a bunch of stuff to get the conference business wrapped up. The Government was remarkably forthcoming about all sorts of stuff, and had paraded a whole bunch of experts to explain the social goals contained in the Federal Acquisition Regulations, the famous FAR. They even had a witty and earnest man from the SBA there to tell us about an energetic new policy approach to woman-owned, minority-owned, HubZone and Service Disabled Veteran-owned activities.

It all sounded sort of complex, but I have alway felt that compliance with the Government’s social goals made for a more competitive product. They seem to take this seriously, and consequently, I do, too.

The culmination came with what was billed as a “Forecast to Industry: The Road Ahead,” and I was afraid that there would follow a bunch of platitudes and not much substance. I was pleasantly surprised to find I was wrong.

Karen is probably the hottest senior executive in the Acquisition Community, and she did most of the reading, and I scribbled frantically. Her briefing walked through the usual boilerplate but then began to address some real meat.

She literally drew gasps from the crowd when she described one of the contract vehicles for information technology as being worth more than six and a half billion dollars. Then she began to talk about the follow-on contract to the one I am working as being well over $5 billion.

There are nearly thirty separate contracts with values in excess of $100 million dollars, so the vast ballroom became remarkably silent in anticipation.

Karen said that they are submitting their plan next week to Frank, who is Principle Deputy Director for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics to ensure compliance with the FAR, and to ensure that Small Business gets a slice of the pie.

I will be interested to see how that works out. I closed my notebook and walked out of the hall, passing small knots of clearly not disadvantaged people who were scheming to cut up the pie in entirely new ways.

Considering that I am so apprehensive about the markets, and the impact of the Japanese disaster, I don’t know if I am living in science fiction or fantasy. But it is OK.

I had to smile at the unreality of the whole enterprise, but this is the way it works.

I had an idea of how I was going to do it, and walked toward the pool deck to get some late afternoon rays.

As they say, “Game On!”

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com