Terminate for Convenience

By Chris Cochran

Boy did I go down a wormhole the other day. Mea culpa.

As a former federal government library manager and Contract Officer’s Representative (COR), under Democrat and Republican administrations, I was responsible for organizing competitive bidding solicitations for information services, products, and specialized research databases; evaluating proposals, and managing contracts once they were in place. The decision to acquire a product was based on historical and current needs of agency staff – my internal clients – and the budget situation. Budgets for those products were submitted annually, approved or denied or adjusted as needed from monies appropriated by Congress and approved by the president, and contracts were reviewed annually to make sure the service provider was delivering the products and services we paid for – that the U.S. taxpayer paid for. Just as an informed public is ideal, an informed government and informed government staff is ideal, too.

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Taking A Closer Look @ … Department of State Investment Climate Statements

By Chris Cochran

The U.S. government (USG) compiles enormous amounts of information each year, documenting the history and the health of the United States – statistics covering the economy, population, industrial production, mortality rates, and consumer demand among many other data points. This information is freely available and easily accessible if you’re patient, know where to look, and know how to extract the information you need.

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Five Simple Ways to Get Free (or “Almost” Free) Company Information

By Chris Cochran

Finding information about publicly traded companies in the US has never been easier. For the most part, companies want to share information about themselves as both a marketing tool and a way to bring in more investors. Publicly traded companies are also required to provide their financial and other regulatory information to the US government. In this blog post, I’m focusing on open information resources about publicly traded companies in the US for the general researcher and knowledge consumer.

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My Top 10 Morning Briefing Resources

By Chris Cochran

I’ve been a current affairs and news junkie for most of my life. Since I was about 10 years old, I found myself driven to know what’s going on in the world daily or weekly. It was easier to do before the internet exploded our access to vast information resources and created even greater volumes of content producers. That’s not an inherently bad development – just a challenge to be met.

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