The other day, someone said to me: "Hey, Dan, how is the BetterBuy Project like legendary recording artist Bruce Springsteen?"

"Simple," I replied. "You haven't really experienced it until you've seen it live!"

Happily, your chance to really experience the BetterBuy Project has arrived! The next executive session of the Industry Advisory Committee, one of the project's key sponsors, will feature the founders of BetterBuy live and in person, discussing the project and answering your questions about it. Here's the event info:

We are pleased to announce the next IAC Executive Session featuring The BetterBuy Project on December 16th, 2009 from 9:00am - 11:00am at The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), 900 7th Street, N.W., Suite 600, Washington, DC 20001. The BetterBuy Project, a collaborative initiative with GSA, ACT-IAC and the National Academy for Public Administration (NAPA), has become front page news and has captured the imaginations of both government and industry acquisition professionals. Come and learn more about this dynamic project and how it could dramatically change - for the better - the way the government buys products and services. BetterBuy Panelists:

• Chris Dorobek, Managing Editor of FederalNewsRadio.com and Co- Anchor of the afternoon Federal News Radio program (Moderator)
• Mary Davie, Assistant Commissioner of GSA's Office of Assisted Acquisition Services
• Peter Tuttle, Senior Procurement Policy Analyst with Distributed Solutions, Inc.
• Chris Hamm, Operations Director of GSA's Federal Systems Integration and Management Center (FEDSIM)
• Esther Burgess, SVP and Deputy COO of Vistronix, Inc.
• Lena Trudeau, Director of Strategic Initiatives for the National Academy for Public Administration (NAPA)

IAC Executive Sessions are great opportunities for IAC members to meet with key government executives and gain a first-hand understanding of the organization's plans, issues, and challenges. This event is on the record.

We hope you can join us for this great event. Register now!

Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. But the BetterBuy Project has been making some media appearances that we thought you might like to know about:

First, there's this Federal News Radio interview with our ringleader, GSA's Mary Davie. Speaking from the 2009 Executive Leadership Conference in Williamsburg, VA, Mary talks to FNR's Daily Debrief about the most exciting part of BetterBuy: The fact that GSA will actually be piloting some of the best ideas on real live acquisitions.

Mary also noted that part of the impetus behind BetterBuy was a great blog post by Andy Krzmarzick, formerly of USDA and now officially GovLoop's second employee, entitled "10 Ways Social Media Will Streamline Federal Acquisition". It's must-reading for anyone interested in what we're doing, or in Acquisition 2.0 generally.

Secondly: Our moms always said we had a face for radio, but I guess Federal Computer Week wasn't listening, because they went ahead and put BetterBuy on the cover! Check it out:

The full cover story, by FCW's ace Acquisition Editor Matthew Weigelt, reads, in part:

Although years of outsourcing and impending retirements threaten to drain the acquisition workforce of its most experienced contracting officers, the procurements that jam the inboxes of the remaining employees aren't getting any less complicated. They need new methods and faster ways to award contracts quickly and successfully, administration officials say.

As a result, the acquisition community is turning to Acquisition 2.0.

Described simply, Acquisition 2.0 is about thinking differently and putting new procedures into play. Government officials and insiders are gathering to pose questions -- both philosophical and practical -- to one another at conferences and virtual meetings. They are also turning to social-networking sites in search of others' expertise.

The ultimate goals are efficiency, cost savings and better performance, say those who are leading the movement.

© Copyright 1105 Government Information Group, used by permission

In a few moments, GSA's Mary Davie and the National Academy of Public Administration's Lena Trudeau will be holding a press conference on the BetterBuy Project from the 2009 Executive Leadership Conference. They'll be discussing how the project works, what we hope to gain from it, and how all this stuff is actually making government better. Assuming all the A/V stuff works out, we'll be live-tweeting the whole thing! Follow @betterbuyproj or follow the whole event at #elc09.

Update: Schedules being what they are, we're now slated to start a bit after 4:30. Sorry for the delay!

Update 2: Via the excellent GovCon (@GovCon), here's a very cool live twitter stream of the ELC action: The livestream has been moved below the fold, along with a transcript of our livetweets. Thanks for playing along!

Hello and welcome to BetterBlog, the official blog of the BetterBuy Project! I'm Dan Munz, and I'll be your host-slash-webmaster here on this site.

As you know (or can find out by reading our FAQ), BetterBuy is a project dedicated to surfacing innovative ideas for making federal acquisition more open, participatory, collaborative -- and, ultimately, making government an efficient and effective customer. My organization, the National Academy of Public Administration, is part of the BetterBuy team because we believe that, as our President Jenna Dorn often puts it, "none of us is as smart as all of us." Federal acquisition is an area of government that could really benefit from some fresh eyes. We're seeking ideas not only from those who oversee the federal acquisition process, but from experts who study it, as well as the real customers of the acquisition process -- the federal agencies and vendors who have to navigate it.

We're collecting those ideas over at our main site, a nifty little web portal where you can suggest ideas, discuss them, and vote on the best ones so that they rise to the top. The coolest thing about this all, in my humble opinion, is that we're not all talk; as part of this project, GSA (in particular, the truly awesome Mary Davie) will actually pilot some of the best ideas on real, living, breathing acquisitions. This, my friends, is government 2.0 in action.

Our recipe on this blog is simple: One part transparency, two parts great ideas, shake vigorously. This is the place where you can follow along as we select, implement, and report on how the selected ideas are really turning out and what lessons we're learning along the way. We'll also be inviting a whole bunch of exciting guest-bloggers - from renowned experts on federal acquisition to new leaders in the world of "government 2.0" - to share their perspectives and ideas about making the acquisition process more open and accessible.

So take some time to explore the blog, click around - and, more importantly, to head to BetterBuy and share or vote on some great ideas - and check back often as we document the process of making federal acquisition more transparent, less complex, and, well...just plain better.