Some of you might recall when Time Magazine named YOU as their person of the year for 2006. My brother was applying for jobs at the time, and I suggested (partly in jest) that he should add to the resume that he was named Time’s person of the year for 2006. Sadly, the prospective employer was less than amused.

Washington Technology editor-in-chief Nick Wakeman isn’t anointing you person of the year, but what he did announce earlier this week is quite powerful: you the reader can be editor by suggesting story ideas or themes for upcoming coverage.

I like the way Nick has gone about this for a couple of reasons. One, I’ve always found, just by interacting in casual conversations with individuals at various levels of a government technology provider, that they often are seeing things the rest of us miss. As he references in the blog post, the editor-in-chief has always viewed Washington Technology as a community publication, and realizes that there is dynamic content and knowledge simmering out there in the government technology community - and this is a great way to tap into it.

So for those readers who have spotted a trend that you think the publication overlooked or perhaps another angle to approach an issue from, shoot Nick an email at the address he provides on the blog (or, has a few brave souls have done you can post them in the blog comments section). Skip the fluffy marketing pitch on why your company is the latest and greatest though, as no doubt his inbox is filled with plenty of those.

If you’ve got clients in the federal space, a Federal Computer Week piece, Government enters the blogosphere, should offer plenty of food for thought. The piece highlights a few benefits of the government opening up to the public through blogs. One of the main advantages: Greater transparency. “Strong reactions to government policies are not new,” writes FCW’s John Zyskowski, “but the rise of Internet-based public forums, such as blogs and social networks, means that such sentiments can spread quickly and dominate online conversations.” That’s where a quick counter-reply, by blog, comes in handy. So, how does an agency go about a tappig into the blogosphere. Here are some of the article’s key tips:

Be real
Blogs are probably the single most important interactive Web application that agencies can use to manage their online reputation because they let the blogger communicate directly with an audience, said Andy Beal, an Internet marketing consultant at Marketing Pilgrim and co-author of “Radically Transparent — Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online.”

Speak out, speak often
The more the merrier is a good rule for using interactive Web applications. Depending on the platform, that might mean more participants, more interaction, more content or all of the above. The best way to attract people to a community is by following the community’s rules.

Pick the right tool
Web 2.0 is a big umbrella that includes a diverse set of interactive Web applications. It is important to understand the problem you are trying to solve and the strengths and weaknesses of a particular application before trying to use it.

Back in 2001, Daniel Simpkins founded Hillcrest Labs with one mission: to create a revolution in entertainment. “People have been hungry for technologies that would let them interact with their televisions more than they can today,” says Simpkins. Today, his company stands on the cusp of reaching that goal; it has developed a sophisticated interactive television platform, HoME, which is a kin to an operating system for television. In the following Q&A, Simpkins shares the latest with this three-dimensional pointing technology, and how his company maintains its drive for innovation.

What prompted you to found Hillcrest in 2001?

Daniel Simpkins: I started a company called SALIX Technologies, a VoIP leader, in 1990 and ran if for a decade and sold it to a company called Tellabs in 2000 for $300 million. Then, I became a GM at Tellabs for a little over a year or a little and unfortunately the tech bubble was collapsing. I decided to leave.

I actually had a plan to write a book called “The 10 Laws of the Entrepreneur” about how to make a great start-up. But in talking to my Tellabs management team, as the bubble was collapsing, I saw a greater need to be filled; I didn’t think I could fill it with a book. As the bubble collapsed, it left many entrepreneurs without opportunities in a high tech world. I really wanted to create an opportunity for my former team at SALIX to stay in the technology world and to do something groundbreaking.

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“Our Good Name: A Company’s Fight to Defend Its Honor and Get the Truth Told About Abu Ghraib,” opens appropriately with the Victorian poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley. Experts have interpreted the work as a powerful expression of stoicism; that one must rely on his own resources and remain true to his convictions through the darkest of hours.

J. Phillip “Jack” London and the CACI team faced more than a few hours of darkness watching the Abu Ghraib prison scandal play out mercilessly on the front pages. Those who know Dr. London were likely not surprised by the choice of poems, and those who read the book - unveiled during a book signing hosted by ExecutiveBiz on behalf of Dr. London and the CACI authors last week at the Tower Club - will find a man whose conviction refused to waver during a crisis that threatened to unravel a company built over 40 years ago in a matter of weeks.

In brief but spirited remarks at the book signing, London relayed that the CACI team drew from the 1982 Tylenol scare (hence my cryptic title) in preparing its aggressive crisis response strategy - part of which included the book. During the Tylenol crisis, product tampering with Extra Strength Tylenol in Chicago led to several deaths, dropping Tylenol’s market share from 35% to 8%. But Johnson & Johnson was lauded for its quick and aggressive response to the crisis, and in short order Tylenol was dominating the market.

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All of Jim Regan’s basic leadership skills were honed in the Navy, and that’s something he’s carried into his role as CEO of Dynamics Research Corporation. A mid-sized company, DRC brings its A-game to every new business item on its hit list. In 2007, it booked $135 million in new business, and continued its win rate of 40 percent. Regan shares some of the secrets to DRC’s proven management support and logistics expertise, and what it takes for a small business to partner with his team.

Briefly tell us your background and what is going on now.

Jim Regan: I began my career in the technology management business with the United States Navy — I am a retired Naval Officer. I entered the industry in the mid-1980s during a pretty exciting time. A great deal of development was happening with technology during this time in the Department of Defense.

What does your company, Dynamics Research Corporation, look like today?

Jim Regan: DRC is a mid-sized, dynamic company, with about 1,400 employees; we’ve been a prominent player in the market for over 50 years. Headquartered in Massachusetts, our major customers are the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and other federal civilian agencies as well as state and local governments. We provide mission-critical technology management services to federal civilian, defense and state government agencies whether the technology is in development, acquisition or maintenance.

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As one of the government’s leading providers of innovative technologies and solutions, ManTech International’s success is apparent; this year alone, it is expected to bring in nearly $2 billion in revenue. A big part of that success comes down to its ability to recruit and retain the most talented professionals. In the following Q&A, Robert Coleman, president and COO of Mantech, talks about the future of the company, trends in A-Space and other applications, and emerging opportunities in the market space for ManTech and its collaborators.

ExecutiveBiz: Tell us the strategy of the company of where it was in 2001 and where it is today?

Bob Coleman: In 2001 we developed a strategy to focus on the high-end intelligence segment of the DOD community. That strategy, and our execution of it, has put us in an excellent position. Going forward, we will continue to broaden our base in Intel and DOD, staying focused there, but stretching those lanes a little to include the civilian agencies. For example, historically when we looked at acquisitions we would have only done an acquisition that was pure Intel or DOD. Now we are considering acquisitions, and McDonald Bradley was a great example, that have a strong Intel and DOD focus, but also a civilian component. We believe there are significant synergies between our DOD and Intel efforts, and a civilian agency business. With McDonald Bradley, for example, we have taken their civilian sector and merged it with our IT organization and have created a civilian IT component that we believe has significant growth potential. Diversifying our base to include civilian business will help to position us if the markets shift in that direction. It also helps us balance our resources and workloads. The current demand for our skills and services is very high – we have approximately 700 openings, most of them for cleared personnel. A civilian agency business would give us a mechanism to bring into the company non-cleared personnel who are highly skilled, allow them to work on non-cleared programs while they go through the clearance process, and then later when they get their clearance, to transfer to classified work.

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In the years since his entrance into the Intelligence community, Manny Wilson, an intelligence analyst, has advocated to senior leadership at CENTCOM on how to integrate Intellipedia and other social software tools into the community’s current business practices. In the following Q&A, Wilson talks about what’s on the horizon for Intellipedia, which recently marked its second year.

Describe your role with United States Central Command?

Manny Wilson: Right now I am an intelligence analyst. Since starting in 2006, I have been advocating to senior leadership at CENTCOM how we could integrate Intellipedia and other social software tools into our current business practices. One of the things we did to help promote this is the development of an Intellipedia course and, most recently, a social software course at the command’s regional training facility, which is modeled off others in the intelligence community. These efforts have really helped the command move into the Web 2.0 environment like Intellipedia.

What was the trigger for you advocating Intellipedia?

Manny Wilson: Reading a paper by Dr. Calvin Andrus of the CIA. I was working as a summer intern at the Office of Force Transformation [at the Office of the Secretary of Defense] at the Pentagon, and thought Dr. Andrus was on to something. Additionally, since Sept. 11, the intelligence community, Congress and the President had been trying to get the intelligence community to share information. They were trying to get the different agencies to cooperate and collaborate. There has been a lot of difficulty in how to do that. So, from a research perspective, I was interested in how to do that, and I thought that Intellipedia could help the Director of National Intelligence foster the kind of collaboration that he was looking for.

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When Tom Campbell first started his firm, DC Capital Partners, he and his partners laid out a five-year vision of where they wanted to invest. Today, that strategy is paying off, with six transactions closed last year and two pending. “We follow our own strategy, our own plan, and our own tactics and focus on execution,” says Campbell. In the following Q&A, Campbell tells us about his winning strategy, and the rewards that come when you let go and trust your team to see your vision through.

Tell us about DC Capital Partners.

Tom Campbell: DC Capital Partners is a private equity firm focused on making controlling investments in middle market companies operating primarily in the United States defense, aerospace, and government services sectors. There are three partners: myself, Gail Dady and Doug Lake. We all have worked together in the past. We are a very complementary, cohesive team.We founded the firm in 2007 and spent last year organizing the firm and making six acquisitions under the umbrella of a company we christened National Interest Security Company (NISC). Right now we are using our own capital to acquire companies, but we are in the process of raising a small fund ($150 to $200 million) where we will commit a meaningful amount of our own capital side by side with the fund and continue to make investments in the government sector.

Within those sectors there are a number of key areas that we are focused on. They are areas where we believe there will be higher budget growth, such as information management, technology consulting, and training within the intelligence community, DoD, and Homeland Security. We also see some attractive opportunities with the defense electronics sector particularly in components. Underlying those general areas of focus, we have identified more specific areas of interest such as cyber security, open source intelligence and biometrics.

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What often makes it challenging for investors and stakeholders to identify a market bottom is that the signs of rebirth can be invisible to the naked eye. And then you have deals like the one announced last week that whacks you like an ice cream migraine. Carlyle Group’s purchase of a majority stake in Booz Allen Hamilton’s U.S. government consulting business for $2.54 billion was a big deal - not only in size but for what it might signal about the credit market’s attempt to pull itself out of the abyss.

In a Wall Street Journal article (subscription required), Carlyle co-founder David Rubenstein offered that, “We think that the bottom has been hit in terms of private-equity investing activity and you’re now beginning to see the upward swing.” If that is in fact the case then the M&A specialists may be in for a busier summer than anticipated as, on paper, it will go down as the biggest buyout deal since last July.

McLean, Va.-based Booz Allen, will separate the corporate consulting unit into a distinct company, while CEO Ralph Shrader will run the government-focused unit now owned by Carlyle in a transaction expected to close later this year assuming it receives shareholder and regulatory approval. Booz Allen’s government consulting unit (one of the largest private government contractors) currently employees 18,000 worldwide and has experienced significant growth post 9/11 relative to the commercial unit - which some suggest led to the deal.

Booz clocked in with $2.4 billion in prime contracting revenue last year, and Shrader - CEO since 1998 - has orchestrated steady double-digit growth for much of that time. In pre-buyout comments to Washington Technology regarding the rumored deal Shrader stated firmly that it would only happen if the best interests of the firm were served.

Brian Lustig is co-founder of Lustig Communications, a Rockville, MD-based communications firm that works with growing technology and government IT firms. Lustig is also a contributor to local business and industry publications.

Start your engines. This is the year of accelerated “organic” growth for Unisys Federal Systems, says Greg Baroni. Baroni is a senior vice president of the corporation and has served as an officer since 2004. He also serves as president of Federal Systems, which delivers a broad range of services and solutions ranging from consulting and systems integration to managed services and outsourcing. In the following Q&A, Baroni talks about recent successes — his organization saw orders grow nearly 20 percent this past quarter — and what it takes to build a winning culture.

Where do you spend a lot of time?

Greg Baroni: The Transportation Security Administration Information Technology Infrastructure Program competition consumes a lot of my time; making sure we stay front and center with successful continued service to TSA. Other than that, I’m focused on keeping my team energized for our ongoing change journey — becoming more services-focused and continually increasing the value we bring to our clients. I also spend a lot of time positioning Unisys to respond to the inevitable transition we’ll face as we go from one administration to the next and tracking some of the emerging technology trends like security convergence and information sharing.

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