Thursday, January 28, 2010

Updating company address in CCR

If you move the location of your offices, and try to update the information on the Central Contractor Registration, you might notice that the "physical address" fields are uneditable. If you call, the Federal Service Desk (866-606-8220) you may wait on hold for close to an hour, only to be told what I will tell you now:

Call Dun & Bradstreet directly at 866-705-5711.

The CCR gets their information from from D&B, which in turn gets their information from the relevant state registry. D&B will likely indicate that they can update the information manually, upon being furnished with appropriate documentation (e.g. a utility bill or bank statement for the company at the new address). But you should also update your company's information with the relevant state offices that handle registrations for companies and corporations. You will also need to login to CCR about 48 hours later, to confirm the updated information.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Come & Go

Last month I wrote about a social networking site for innovators, Boliven. Sad to say, I just received notification of the pending dissolution of the site:
After approximately a year of beta product releases and extensive user feedback, the Board of the company has determined that it no longer makes good business sense to continue to operate the Boliven website and associated services. We were happy that over 100,000 unique monthly visitors and over 6,000 registered members found utility from Boliven, but as of the end of last year we had fallen short of some of our other operational and financial goals.

We have decided to make our website and its services available until next Friday, January 22. ... We hope that you will be able to find a suitable substitute for the services we have sought to provide. ...
That's too bad, really. Sorry to see them go.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Kosher Pork?

I received a call today from a regional purveyor of business support services to small R&D businesses like mine. The CEO had been referred to me by a couple trusted advisors (two who had helped me along with my first SBIR Phase I proposal, and since). The call was to set up a meeting for later in the year to discuss the services they might be able to offer my company. What's been indicated to me is that they help small businesses like mine to obtain Congressional "plus-ups" to support Phase II+ and Phase III stage R&D.

Clearly, I'm interested in propelling my company ahead. I am committed to the research, and believe firmly in its potential to reach the broader commercial market. Importantly, I also believe that the results and products of this R&D will have a positive impact on people's lives. Else, I wouldn't be in this business in the first place. But something raises my hackles. It sure sounds to me like I'd be soliciting earmarks from Congress, pork in other words.

Now, I'm open to hearing what's on the table, what services they might offer my firm, what benefits might accrue. I don't want to be too hasty in judgment. Underlying the effort (at least in theory) is a desire to identify specific needs of particular agencies and to fill those needs with the R&D that we are best poised to offer. But part of my dilemma (as I've written before) is that I believe in a merit-based review process.

I fear that in pursuing the private interests of my firm (with horse blinders on), I might be violating a fundamental principle that I wish to uphold. The question (for me as for the Nation) is how to accomplish great things without sacrificing principles to get there. Do well by doing good, not the other way around.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Find Your Contract in WAWF

WAWF (Wide Area Workflow) is the Department of Defense's "Web-based system for electronic invoicing, receipt and acceptance". When you have need to refer to your contract, but you don't have it easily at hand, you can find the electronic document on WAWF. Here is what you do:
  1. Login to the system
  2. Expand the Vendor submenu
  3. Click on View Vendor Documents
  4. Select the appropriate location code (CAGE)
  5. Run a search for an active or archived document (i.e. an invoice)
  6. On the search results page, the relevant found documents will be listed
  7. If you click on the item in the Contract Number field, the relevant contracts and mods will be listed
  8. Clicking on any of them will open the document in PDF

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