More strangeness on $18 million Recovery.gov redesign contract

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
07/16/09 7:08 PM EDT

Just when you think it couldn't get any weirder, something else pops up concerning that $18 contract issued by the federal government last week to redesign Recovery.gov - the web site that is supposed to show people how their $787 billion of tax money is being spent on economic stimulus.

Seems that a Washington, D.C. advertising agency known as Syneractive is going to get a piece of the contract for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Web 2.0 work on the project. It's not clear if this is as a sub-contractor to Smartronix, the Southern Maryland defense firm that won the overall contract last week from the General Services Administration (GSA), which oversaw the bidding and award process.

In addition to the $18 million bottom line for the redesign project, the contract also has generated significant attention in the mainstream media and the Blogosphere as a result of The Examiner's report that the three top Smartronix executives have contributed a total of $19,000 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer since 1999. Smartronix is located in Hoyer's district. A Hoyer spokesman said her boss had no role in determining who won the $18 million contract and called the campaign contributions coincidental to the contract award.

The Syneractive selection prompted some less-than-flattering commentary on the Internet, with a blogger at the Tribble Ad Agency site offering this scathing assessment of the D.C. firm's own web site:

"Here’s where it’s get’s funny, their own site ranks horrific in the search engines due to some buggy code that bounces a 302 redirect when you first visit their site.. and for the record, this is how Google is caching their site…. In any normal environment I’d offer my services to teach them the basics on Social Media and Search Engine Optimization so they may do more than just bill for the services.. but actually do the services…… but clearly they don’t need to improve their rankings… their bank account already just got improved."

Ouch!

That post in turn prompted this observation from an industry insider:

"Like many, I have long believed that the government should be in the business of providing data, even in its rawest form, for others to mashup. Designing glorious websites, optimized for SEO, with sexy user experiences should not be on the menu; that should be left to media and the private sector for interpretation and presentation."

In other words, just give us the data, Uncle Sam, and leave the rest to us. I can just hear the response from Recovery.gov officials, who will no doubt respond to that criticism by claiming that the SEO input is needed to maximize public awareness of the site's capabilities.

There are also concerns now about whether the redesign will be finished before the New Year. With multiple vendors providing services and input, the integration tasks confronting the project's managers are significant. In order to have the new version of the site up by October 10, somebody is going to have to do some miraculous integration work in the next 60 days.

But then failing to meet that October 10 date will set the stage for contract revisions. So anybody who thinks the $9.5 million portion of the $18 million total to deliver the redesign in six months, as required by the award schedule, won't be getting fatter in the near future is ust being, shall we say, optimistic. This is, after all, a government contract and you know what they say about being "close enough for government work."

There is just something not right here with this contract. You will find previous Beltway Confidential posts on this issue here, here and here. And go here for an excellent summary of the state-of-play by Information Week's J. Nicholas Hoover.

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More strangeness on $18 million Recovery.gov redesign contract

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
07/16/09 7:08 PM EDT