Industry Day: Everything you wanted to know about GSA, but were afraid to ask

The speaker line up for our next Washington Technology Industry Day on the General Services Administration has grown quite a bit since my last update.

In addition to our lineup of keynote speakers at the Feb. 10 event, we also have two panels with GSA officials who are going to dive into the details of the schedules program and a variety of initiatives that are underway.

To remind everyone, our keynotes include Kay Ely, director of Schedule 70, Chris Fornecker, GSA director of GWACs, and Stan Kaczmarczyk, director of the cloud computing program management office.

One of our panels will look at how GSA is streamlining software and hardware acquisition. This includes topics such as strategic sourcing, cloud computing, cyber and other initiatives that are under way.

The second panel will focus on acquisition innovation and some of the ways GSA is making the schedules program easier to use. What’s interesting here is that GSA is looking at how to make it easier for both agencies to buy through the schedule and for companies to get on the schedule and use it to sell their products and services.

Here is a link where you can see all the speakers and read their bios.

I think between the two panels and the keynote speakers, we’ll have a half-day event that will answer just about any question you have about GSA, but were afraid to ask.

It’s remarkable to me how much smarter GSA has gotten over the last five years. The officials I talk to seem to truly understand who their customers are – agency buyers and private sector sellers.

I also think that the government is only gaining momentum in how it buys through the use of strategic sourcing and other efforts to streamline acquisition and save money.

Our GSA Industry Day is Feb. 10 at the Fairview Park Marriott in Falls Church, Va. The program kicks off at 8:20 a.m., but breakfast and networking starts at 7:30 a.m. We’ll wrap up by noon.

Click here for more information and to register.