Outsourcing.  The speaker said that the Agency or company should identify and keep core competencies in-house and outsource all other tasks that could be done better by a contractor.  To help preserve your job, he recommended professional certification (visit the General Service Administration's page on certification programs at http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/channelView.do?pageTypeId=8203&channelPage=%2Fep%2Fchannel%2FgsaOverview.jsp&channelId=-13166 ).  He also recommended remaining on the cutting edge of your expertise.  When considering outsourcing, it is important to obtain an accurate measure of performance of the unit being considered such as accurate measurements of volumes of mail, cost per piece, and quality initiatives.  Primary customers should be called to determine consequences of outsourcing.

Postal One.  This is a new method of payment that is being established to replace the Centralized Account Processing System http://caps.usps.gov/capshome.asp.  This new system of payment is for Government agencies that use a commercial system of payment.  Currently, the Department of Commerce is on the Official Mail Accounting System and would not use Postal One.  For commercial payments, Postal One is a way to pay for Permit Imprint, Business Reply and Express Mail that is more convenient.  In the past commercial customers had to place money with each Post Office that used Permit Imprint Mail or Business Reply Mail before using the service.  Under Postal One the customer has a national account that can be drawn by the local Postal Office for those types of mailings.  The Postal Service hopes to put all mail including meters on this system in the future.  At this point only 2,600 local Postal Offices allow Permit Imprint mailings to be on the Postal One account.  If the local Post Office is not on Postal One, the customer would still have to place a local account with that Post Office prior to mailing Permit Imprint mailings.

Postal Service Business Service Network (BSN).  This Network provides help to large Postal customers of which most Government agencies are included.  Shirley Melendez, USPS,  was one of the speakers and is the BSN representative for NOAA in Silver Spring, Maryland.  She said that the BSN can help at any mailing location in the country.  She mentioned to Mr. Champion, after the seminar, that if NOAA has a mail problem at another location, to contact her and she would call the local BSN office where the problem exists to solve it.  You can access the BSN site at http://www.usps.com/ncsc/locators/find-bsn.html.

Electronic Stamps.  In addition to the seminars, some vendors had booths that Symposium attendees could visit.  Mr. Champion met with several meter vendors and spent time with two companies, Stamps.com and Endicia, which provide a service to place stamps on envelopes or labels through a local personal computer.  Several years ago NOAA conducted a pilot program with selected field office locations.  At that time, the service was slow and did not allow postage for international mail.  The program has since been upgrade to allow printing of international mail stamps; it is still a slow process and would work best in small NOAA field offices that have very small volumes of mail. 

Henry Maury, who is Chief of Government Mail within GSA, announced that they would sponsor another symposium sometime in 2007.  It has not been determined whether the symposium will be held in Washington, DC or another city.  If you deal with mail issues or matters, it is advisable that you attend the next seminar, if funding is available.  The topics are varied enough that anyone working in mail would find something of interest.

If you have questions on mail issues, you may contact James.L.Champion@noaa.gov or Rita.E.Argueta@noaa.gov by e-mail or telephone (301) 713-2220, ext. 152 and ext. 128, respectively.  Although Jim and Rita include information that they feel could be useful, you are welcome to make suggestions on future topics.