Tool Tips: Intro

In the "Tool Tips" series, we will give helpful hints on using tools common to federal business.  Tools might include work processors, contact management software, websites, or spreadsheets.  We may even introduce new tools to help you succeed in federal contracting.

Tool Tips: Page Numbers

One of the most frustrating aspects of preparing a proposal or other document is page numbering. Anyone who has wrestled with page numbers will attest: you can do more harm than good if you don't know what you're doing. Part of the problem is that there are a few features in play here, which makes it difficult because they all inter-relate. In this article, we will discuss how to number the pages in the body of your document differently than other sections such as the table of contents or appendix.

Note: Menus and key strokes apply to MS Word 2007 or 2010. Other word processors have equivalent features, but may go by different names.

The first concept you need to master is sections. Sections let you define completely different settings for different parts of your document. Settings you change in one section do not affect the rest of your document (usually, but more on that later). Start a new section by adding a section break. There are two commonly used types of section breaks: Continuous and Next Page. A continuous section break starts a new section on the same page; a next page section break starts a new section on the next page. To have different page number on different parts of the document, you will need to have the different parts of the document divided into sections. To keep everything straight, you will want to see your section breaks by pressing CTRL-SHFT-8. Add section breaks from the Page Layout menu.

By using sections you can do all sorts of cool things with your document besides page numbering. For instance, you could orient a single page in landscape to better fit a table. Sections can also cause headaches if you are not aware of them, though. If you are making changes to the format of your document that does not seem to be applying consistently, check to make sure that sections are not the culprit.

Headers and footers are where you want to put your numbers. This is where it can get confusing because headers and footers have some behavior that is not obvious. First, they can be linked across sections. Linked headers or footers means that even if the section changes, the header or footer for the new section will match the previous section. Use linked headers or footers if you want to change some settings (margins, orientation, etc.) between sections, but you want the header and/or footer to be consistent. If you want different page numbers, though, you will want to unlink them. Link or unlink headers and footers on the Header & Footer Tools menu (this menu appears when you are editing a header or footer) under Navigation. Remember that headers and footers operate independently of one another.

Also, headers and footers have the option to show different information on the first page of the section than the rest of the section. This is useful when you want to have a different header or footer on your title page, but don’t want to go to the trouble of setting up a whole new section. For most sections, you want to turn this option OFF (it’s on the Header & Footer Tools menu under options). Again, if your changes don't seem to be applying consistently to your document, make sure this option is turned off.

Page numbers make it even more complex. The best way I have found to insert a page number is to put the cursor where you want the page number to appear, go to Header & Footer Tools , select Page Number, select Current Position. Page numbers can continue from section to section, or they can start new in a section. To change this behavior, select the page number, go to Header & Footer Tools, select Page Number, select Format Page Number. Then you can select to continue numbers from the previous section, or specify you own number to start at. You can also change the number format. The number format feature, combined with sections, lets you put roman numerals on your table of contents/title page and Arabic numerals in the body of your document.

Artificial Questions on Federal Solicitations

You probably know that federal solicitations require a question and answer period.  This is the time when industry can submit questions to the government about the opportunity and RFP.  Answers to all questions are published for all interested parties to see, usually in the form of an RFP amendment.

What you may not know is that government officials will often insert their own dummy questions into the list so that they can then answer them and add information to the RFP that they may have left out the first time around.  Because questions are anonymous when the answers are posted, industry never knows the difference.

This peek behind the curtain came to us by way of a small business official at a large federal agency.  And while we have suspected the government of all sorts of behind-the-scenes tricks in solicitations, this one never occurred to us.

If you have a Q&A you think was created by the government, send it along and we will publish it here.

HUBZone changes

HUBZones have been reassessed based on the 2010 Census.  If  you are not familiar with the HUBZone program, you can visit the SBA site.  Basically, it is a program designed to assist small businesses in geographic areas experiencing economic distress.  The designated areas are determined based on a number of factors such as unemployment rate and average income.  

There are several benefits to participation, and they are all extremely valuable.  First, there are many set-aside and sole source opportunities for participants.  Second, participants get a 10% discount on their price for evaluation in full and open competitions. Ultimately, the goal is to award 3% of the federal contract dollars to HUBZone companies.  So, no big deal.  That's only $12 Billion.

If your business has been HUBZone certified in the past, be wary: the zones are shrinking.  614 counties nationwide are coming off the list in 2011; another 67 in 2012; 83 in 2013; and 168 in 2014.  This PDF lists them by state.  The reduction is pretty dramatic.  Check out these unofficial maps of Louisiana and Mississippi:

You have an opportunity to contest your de-certification if you fall into that category, so be on the look out for notification from the SBA.  And if you are not a HUBZone company, check out the list above to see if you qualify and visit this site to learn more.

Watch this space for more news on the HUBZone program.

FedBizHacks Dictionary

The dictionary is now up!  The dictionary is where we will try to decipher the code words, acronyms, and inside jokes you will run into while pursuing federal contracts.

Check it out and let us know what you think.  From time-to-time we will update the list, highlight a term, or answer reader questions via the blog.

Ads on FBO: UPDATE

Movement in the breaking FedBizOpps story on two fronts:

First, the vendor.  I spoke with the proprietor of Enlightened Software on Friday (10/14/2011).  He confirmed most of our suspicions:

• They are inserting HTML code into the fields for vendor name and company.  This technique accomplishes two things, both of which are designed to draw attention to the vendor's product.  First, it pushes the vendors entry to the top of the list, no matter which column a user sorts on. Second, it allows eye-catching formatting to be applied to the text.
• They are inserting their entry into the interested vendor list using automated means.  Enlightened Software told us they have a process that runs at night which inserts their ad into "300 or 400" opportunities on FBO.  They don't advertise on all of the opportunities, targeting service contracts using keyword filtering.

Enlightened Software was careful to point out that as a software development company, they were willing to partner with other interested vendors to pursue any of the opportunities on which their ad appears.  They also seemed to be aware that the technique was questionable at best, stating that they had to be careful of the entries would be removed by the government. 

They mentioned another company that was doing something similar to their ad called "Fed Design Services," but I haven't been able to find any of those ads.

Second, the government.  In response to our inquiry to the Federal Service Desk, the government has "disabled the vendor account abusing the FBO site."  

I can't say I'm surprised by the result, but I am surprised that they were not already aware of what was going on.  The ads were blatant and on a large number of opportunities.  Does this mean that the government does not read the interested vendors list?

I really don't have a problem with the HTML insertion.  If FBO was not stripping HTML out of the fields, then why not add a bold tag to your entry?  Even making the entry rise to the top of the sort each time is borderline.  But the fact that the "first name" field contained "FREE Trial" is a blatant disregard for the intention of the system.  Enlightened Software seemed to justify the ads by saying that they are first looking for partners and second looking for software sales.  I'm not buying it.

Keep a look out for any changes to the FBO Usage Agreement or policies.  We may see some blowback from this one.

Conference call game

A must for your next telecon...

http://www.lifesize.com/bingo/

Ads on FBO?

While perusing FBO today, I noticed something strange on an interested vendors list:

Someone appears to have exploited the interested vendors list to display ads for their products.  The link leads to a company out of Florida called Enlightened Software selling marketing and procurement tools.

Not sure how long it will be up, but you can view the posting here:  http://tw.gs/46Ra  There are plenty of other postings with the same ad, however.

A couple of things are striking about this:  First, I can't imagine that the government does not know about this.  Second, I can't believe that the government would allow this type of thing.  The can of worms this opens up is almost unimaginable.  There is some piece of the puzzle that is missing.

We have contacted both the Federal Service Desk and the vendor.  Stay tuned for updates.

UPDATE:  Our inquiry with the Federal Service Desk has been escalated to Tier 2.  Things are moving quickly!

UPDATE:  New post.

Introduction

In the inaugural post of the FedBizhacks blog, I'd like to introduce how this is all going to work. I chose to use the 5 Ws, because why not? (stop giving me a hard time, we just got started)

What: This blog is a small business perspective on the federal government market. The US Government is big, real big and so are many of its prime contractors. Fortunately there is a vast amount of information available for small businesses. Much of it is like reading the tax code, heck, much of it is the tax code. Unfortuately you don't have all day to sift through all of the noise because you are busy running your small business. On this blog we try to sort things out and most importantly share experiences.

Why: This blog is designed to help people. When I entered the world of federal contracting, I had a great group supporting me. There were a number of things, however, that I was afraid to ask or didn't know enough to even ask. I hope that by sharing all the things mentioned above, we can cut through some of the mystery of Federal contracting and increase our value as federal contractors.

Who: We are Mark Stevens and Joel Lawhead; We work for a small business in Mississippi whose primarily source of revenue is government contracts. We both started out as software developers and then transitioned into technical writing and proposals several years ago. Our technical background leads us to approach proposals and contracting in structured, logical methods.

From time to time, we would like to have guest contributors on the blog. We have a wealth of knowledge here in our office, with over 70 years of combined experience. We would also like to have readers contribute, as well as seek out federal employees who are willing to let us peek behind the curtain a little.

Where: Keep up with the blog here. You can also follow us on Twitter (@FedBizHacks) or subscribe to a feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/FedBizHacks).

When: I'm not going to make any promises, but I'd like to post here at least once a week. Readers, keep me honest.