The General Services Administration’s acquisition arm could learn a thing or two about customer service from Apple, Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Steve Kempf said Tuesday at a training conference in San Diego. Following a morning keynote by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at the GSA Training Conference and Expo, Kempf noted the partnership between Wozniak and Steve Jobs that birthed the Apple revolution and a loyal customer base. “At FAS, we want to have a partnership with industry partners and customers that’s like Apple” and its customers, Kempf said. “Think about the way people look at Apple products.” Customers clamor for…
Browsing: GSA Expo
So yesterday at the GSA Expo, Administrator Martha Johnson was walking around in a black and white outfit, if I remember correctly. But by the time she arrived at the Coalition for Government Procurement dinner to announce GSA’s new goal of eliminating the government’s carbon footprint (good luck with that, by the way), she had changed into — you guessed it — a green jacket. Johnson’s speech received what sounded like polite applause last night, from a crowd made up mostly of vendor representatives. And CGP president Larry Allen was fairly critical of Johnson today, even after he’d had a…
Green is the name of the game here at the GSA Expo in Orlando. The training session schedule is rife with the words “green” and “sustainable” and it’s all that any of the GSA folks here can talk about. It seems clear that new administrator Martha Johnson is taking President Obama’s green-government agenda to heart, and that Johnson’s commitment is trickling down to all levels. We’ll see whether government agencies and vendors are willing to get on board. The exhibition floor had its share of environmentally friendly stuff — many booths had green products prominently displayed — according to Federal…
Agencies’ plans for meeting the green government mandates outlined in President Obama’s October executive order aren’t due until June 2, but the Agriculture Department’s chief sustainability officer already has identified one of her top priorities: cutting energy consumption in data centers. Robin Heard, a lifelong conservationist who joined Agriculture in 1976, said she had no idea how much energy is consumed by data centers until she took on her new role as the department’s deputy assistant secretary for administration about a year ago. Speaking Tuesday on the opening day of the GSA Expo in Orlando, Heard said she wants to consolidate the…
GSA kicked off its 2010 expo today in sunny — and muggy — Orlando. Today was devoted solely to training sessions as the vendors set up to display their wares and stragglers continue to arrive. This year’s event is well attended, with an estimated 6,000 feds and 3,000 exhibitors, similar to last year’s numbers. Tomorrow the main event, the floor show, opens up and the expo really gets going in earnest. GSA Administrator Martha Johnson officially opened the festivities a little after 4 p.m., saying that this year’s expo and those in future years will focus on sustainability. There are…