FCW on the radio... Jim Williams

So we are doing our final FCW on the radio show this week. We think that the show will be picked up next year. In the meantime, we'll be figuring out something else interesting to do.

Anyway, our show that will be airing on Thursday will be a little bit different then our other programs. Most of our shows, which can be heard on our FCW.com multimedia page, involve FCW reporters and editors talking about features and various issues.

On Thursday, we'll be doing a FCW Interview with a news maker: Jim Williams. Of course, earlier this year, Williams was named the new commissioner of the General Services Administration's newly created Federal Acquisition Service.

Here is FCW's recent interview with Williams where he lay out some of his goals.

Clearly there is a lot to talk about it because there is so much to talk about. Just a few weeks ago, FCW named GSA as the most important organization to watch in terms of its influence on the government IT community:

GSA has had a rough couple of years and it is rebuilding. It has a new administrator, and one of Lurita Doan's first actions when she became administrator was to name Williams as the FAS commissioner. Williams has had an interesting career. He was at the IRS overseeing its massive modernization system and most recently he was heading the Homeland Security Department's US-VISIT initiative, which seeks to create a system for visitors entering and exiting the country. Even though they are relatively new to their jobs, Doan and Williams are credited with really changing the totally dispirited morale within GSA. So they have had an impact already.

But GSA has some big issues on its plate:

* Reorganization… The Senate just last week approved GSA's reorganization. Why does this matter?
* Customer focus… Many GSA customers started to go elsewhere to do their business in part because they didn't feel GSA was focused on what they needed to do. How has this changed?
* Competitiveness… There is a lot of competition for contracts out there. Why should one do business with GSA? GSA has also made some moves to unify contracts within GSA. Why?
* Finances… Parts of GSA have been bleeding red ink. What's GSA's current financial health? How is GSA turning that around?
* Networx… GSA is working on a big telecom contract, which is slated to be awarded next year. Is that on track?
* Small business… We talked about the small business issue last week, but GSA recently has targeted some business to small businesses that some companies say they just can't do. So what is the role of small businesses.

So we will have hours of stuff to talk about in 30 minutes.

The show airs on WFED 1050 AM here in Washington at 10:30a ET on Thursday and we'll post it on our Web site soon thereafter.