$18 million in stimulus funds to design a Government website? Taxpayers treated like Monopoly money!
Friday, July 17, 2009 at 09:12AM 
YEP! That's exactly right! Smartronix, a technology company in Maryland was awarded an "initial" $9.25 million-dollars (of the $18 mill) to redo the Recovery.gov 2.0 website within 6 months. The purpose of the site is supposed to be able to track the $787 billion dollars for the economic stimulus. Many people have been raising their eyebrows at this deal. I have not seen the requirements document for this project so it is hard to cast judgement BUT even without that document, on the cover it seems to be a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a website. Now maybe we are oversimplifying the project, I mean it's going to be more about data management, data integration and mashups than it will be about creative design right? So that more than justifies at least $9.25 million-- YEAH RIGHT? This feels like yet another bloated deal to some large defense contractor!
I don't know how you personally feel but I don't feel comfortable with my tax dollars being used this way, are you serious? I have a different idea, how about the Gov't just make the data available and let entrepreneurs and developers create their own mash-ups. If you let the market just have the data you'll spur new businesses and be able to achieve the same goals at a fraction of the price, OR go this el cheapo route and just use Twitter to broadcast in real-time where stimulus funds are going. How much would that cost us taxpayers, ohh maybe just a full time gov't employee at $38k per year, but I digress!
I've been doing some research on possible subcontracts and found 1 sub so far, a Washington DC Ad agency called Synteractive. They will be a subcontractor to Smartronix on this effort and will apprently be tasked with Search Engine Optimization and other web 2.0 aspects. Funny thing is when I look at their site I almost fell out of my chair, you visit it and let me know your thoughts BUT there is nothing on this site that says they get Web 2.0, Social Media, or SEO in fact their site looks like a throw-back to the Netscape days. I thought this couldn't be right, I must be looking at the wrong site. So I decided to look for the company in social media spaces, if they are going to be a part of new web Gov't redesign effort and helping them specifically with web 2.0 technologies then surely they too are using the tools right?
WRONG! I went to the Synteractive Twitter account and literally heard crickets and saw that their twitter page had cobwebs all over it. They had a total of (wait for it, wait for it) 21 followers! That's it 21 followers, they only follow 6 people and the most shocking of all --- they only have posted 5 Tweets, that's it 5 tweets. The tweets start on Feb 2nd and end Feb 4th of the SAME year! And this is the subcontractor for web 2.0 efforts for an $18 mill Gov't transparency website? I can't believe I'm actually typing this. It sounds more like something the Onion would produce but unfortunately it's true. Ohhh and for those of you who may not like my tone, I'm not just some blogger with an attitude or a private firm who bid on this project NONE of the Above. I do however, have a Gov't background in my career. For 5 years I worked for the City of Baltimore Mayor's Office as the Technology Advoate and for 2.5 years I worked as the Dir. of Information Technology for the State of Maryland Tourism division, so I have witnessed 1st hand the types of ridiculous proposals sent in by companies to develop databases and websites.
I hope to be proven wrong and I hope to speak with these companies in the near future to uncover more details. Stay tuned to my tweets. OHH and PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGTS ON THIS ISSUE IN THE COMMENTS!
http://www.gazette.net/stories/07172009/businew173541_32523.shtml
WYPR 
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Reader Comments (12)
And how much do you want to bet that it'll end up costing even more.
stay on it! follow the money as they say...
And the developers must all have high security clearances. Special toilette seats are also being provided to senior officials, with reinforced stalls. This is all standard for contracts of this kind.
You are right about that company website though. I think they had better check for a mole in this operation. I'm changing my passwords tonight. Make sure your blog hasn't been infected as well.
http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/07/after_public_outcry_recoverygo.php
Oh, and the most hilarious quote from that article? Here you go:
"GSA spokesman Robert Lesino on Friday afternoon said 'procurement sensitivity and acquisition regulation' restrict GSA from divulging details, including the names of the other bidders and copies of proposals."
Isn't this supposed to be a web site about TRANSPARENCY?
Anyway, being a bit incensed, Claire and I did a bit of digging about both Smartronix and Synteractive. Here are a few initial observations/findings.
1. It's very difficult to find out any information about Smatronix's management. There's nothing on their web site and some Googling only turned up three names: M. Arshed Javaid, John Parris, and his brother Alan Parris. Here's a short article on their new headquarters from 2007: http://www.somdnews.com/stories/080307/entemor190007_32105.shtml
2. Synteractive has its roots in the investment banking and private equity industries...kinda weird when you consider that they're the "ad agency" for the same web site that's tracking stimulus money going to the very same companies they used to work for. Their "History" page (http://www.synteractive.com/AboutUs/History/Pages/History.aspx) reads in part:
"The core team behind Synteractive has worked together since 1996, having founded and built netDecide Corporation. netDecide developed an orchestration platform tailored on the specific challenges of brokerage, private banking, and asset management firms. The cost of trading equity had undergone a radical reduction over 20 years, which culminated in traditional stock brokerages transforming themselves into wealth management firms, compensated on the basis of performance and insight, rather than proprietary information and transaction execution. The netDecide Wealth Management Platform was a vital element in this transformation for venerable firms such as Bank of America, Legg Mason, Ernst & Young, Mutual of New York, and State Farm, bringing together cutting edge architecture, data aggregation and analysis, workflows, web-based user interaction, and sophisticated financial modeling and optimization. netDecide was sold to Informa Investment Solutions in 2003."
3. The leadership team of Synterteractive (http://www.synteractive.com/AboutUs/Leadership/Pages/default.aspx) has deep, deep ties into the investment banks that got us into the mess that the stimulus money is supposed to get us out of.
4. If you want to see just how "innovative" and "Web2.0-y" Synteractive is, go read the code on their homepage. Yikes! It's coming out of Sharepoint and seems pretty badly formed and sloppy.
5. When you Google them, their page title shows up as "Quick Launch." I wonder how "quickly" they had to get the site up.
I'd say if you really want to find out about how this all came about...follow the money.
http://dorobekinsider.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/dorobekinsider-recovery-board-responds-to-questions-and-even-posts-the-recovery-gov-statement-of-work/
http://www.sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/07/21/recoverygov-contract-coming-week-board-says/
BUT - you do realize that implementation of such Gov't Funded activities is LIMITED to those technology vendors who are approved gov't sub-contractors.
And... um... cause my brother's an FBI comp forensic specialist, I figure I can say with some (albiet weak) 'authority' that it is incredibly difficult for Gov't groups to find Tech Savvy Sub-Contractors willing to sign confidentiality clauses.
SO - all you entrepreneur-minded folks out there... you don't like it? you want a gig? looking for some gov't/public action?
Then get a gov't vendor security clearance! Please!!
BTW - I understand the site is supposed to be highly interactive with a serious data analysis back-end. Can't wait to see it. Given the price tag, it better offer me a car wash.
What's also discouraging is the fact that recovery.gov is currently a pretty good site. Businesses overhaul their websites every two years, not 8 months after launch. This site doesn't need a redesign, it needs to share more data on government spending.
In March, the Baltimore Sun interviewed some of us web consultants, asking what we thought of recovery.gov. Overall, the reviews then were positive, and the site has continued to improve. Here's a link: http://www.periscopeup.com/recovery-dot-gov-seo-review/
Bottom line is that then and now, Recovery.gov seems to me to be fulfilling its mission of providing more transparency to government spending.
Transparency is about access to data, not design or social media. If anything, the government should open its books more, not redo a functional website.
Mario, I liked your suggestion on the Digital Spin that the government should just make the data available to the public as an RSS feed. I'm sure dozens of innovative web developers will find better ways to display and disseminate this information than Synteractive, at no cost!
And speaking of cost, to give this a little perspective, I spent 16 months as a government contractor managing the entire eLearning website platform for a major cabinet level agency. We had 1,500 administrators, high security hosting, etc, and our annual budget was never even 1/4 of this cost.
Mario, what do you think would happen if you clicked on the "REPORT FRAUD, WASTE & ABUSE" link on the top of Recovery.gov and submitted your thoughts?