Q As.docx

1. Is there an incumbent or is this a new opportunity? If there is an incumbent, please identify that company. No. Done in-house.

1. If there is an incumbent, how many FTEs are historically working this project? N/A.

1. Is SEC interested in content originating from international news sources? Yes, but limited to English-language sources only.

1. Is SEC interested in content originating from Social Media? No.

1. Could you specify what you expect from the summaries? Are these summaries written by the analyst or copied from the article? Summaries should be written by analyst.

1. Does SEC expect volume, tone, spokesperson visibility or any other type of analysis on the presented articles? No.

1. What is the preferred file format for the daily summary? Any format accessible to SEC employees.

1. Does SEC expect that the daily summary is delivered in the form of an email attachment or could the daily summary be formatted into the email body? No preference.

1. Does SEC expect the analysis to include graphics or other data visualization tools or just text? Only text.

1. Could you please specify the number of daily briefings expected? As part of the technical proof of concept, offerors must demonstrate the capability to deliver all three briefings (5am, 7am and 3pm).

1. What is the process for requesting optional briefings? The SEC will issue a modification to exercise the optional CLINs.

1. What is the difference in content between the 5am daily briefing and the 7am executive briefing? See SOW; additionally, 5:00 am briefing should be comprehensive; 7:30 am and 3:00 pm briefings should be focused on news primarily involving the SEC and usually limited to no more than 20 of the most significant articles.

1. Can you please confirm that the mandatory daily briefing is to be delivered by 5am? Yes. See question #10.

1. Does SEC prefer that content focuses only on media coverage that was captured and included in the daily summary or should it include historic data for trend analysis? SEC is not doing “trend analysis” or any other historic data analysis; see SOW.

1. Full text versions are typically unavailable when the publishing outlet requires paid subscription. Does SEC expect the contractor to subscribe to sector-specific publications in order to retrieve full text of relevant articles? If so, could you list them? See SOW; SEC expects vendor to provide full text of all relevant articles.

1. What is the estimated total number of individuals for the distribution list? All SEC employees and onsite contractors with SEC Intranet access (approximately 6,000); however, news briefings can be disseminated to select employees by email and all employees and onsite contractors via a posting on the SEC’s Intranet.

1. What email client (Outlook, Gmail, etc) is used by the majority of individuals on the distribution list who will be receiving the daily summary? Microsoft Outlook.

1. Regarding full text: (a) The SOW requires that vendors “provide full text versions of articles when links to full text versions are not available.” Please confirm that vendors are not required to supply full text from source such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, etc.; that a link is sufficient, and (b) Does the SEC maintain a license to Factiva and/or LexisNexis? If so, would the SEC prefer that certain sources, such as the WSJ or trade publications, link to those databases rather than to the web? Link is not sufficient unless vendor provides link to entire news article that is fully accessible to all SEC employees. If vendor is not able to provide such link, then vendor must provide full text of news article in news briefing. SEC maintains license to Factiva and LexisNexis; however, vendor should not count on utilizing such subscriptions as subscription is to SEC, not vendor. Additionally, vendor’s link to the full news article in briefing should not require viewer to “log in” to view each full news article.

1. When the SEC describes a “summary” of the news, offerors may interpret that differently. One form is a literal summary of each story, while the other focuses on information that is unique and relevant. For example, regarding John Patrick O’Neil: the first approach (we’ll call it “story-by-story summarization”) might look like: “Story 1: The Boston Globe reports the SEC charged John Patrick O’Neil with … Story 2: The Financial Times reports the SEC charged John Patrick O’Neil with … Story 3: The Wall Street Journal reports the SEC charged John Patrick O’Neil with … Story 4: Wicked Local Belmont reports the SEC charged John Patrick O’Neil with… etc.” It is simple but repetitive, given that most stories have similar core information. The other approach (we’ll call it “meta-story”) is to consolidate the core facts, and focus on unique information. That would look more like: “More than two dozen outlets reported on the John Patrick O’Neil story. The Boston Globe’s story noted that [fact one, fact two, fact three], which was representative of the core facts reported by most outlets. The Wall Street Journal also noted that [unique fact], while the Wicked Local Belmont, citing a local source, was unique in noting that [other unique fact].” We assume from the SOW that the SEC prefers the second (“meta-story”) approach. Is that correct? No Preference.

1. Related to news that does not mention the SEC but is still, as stated in the SOW, of interest to the SEC: we assume it would be appropriate to provide awareness of issues facing other members of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets; Congress and relevant legislative proposals; relevant work being performed by the White House and other federal Departments and Agencies; relevant, high-level coverage of the exchanges, etc. This list is not intended to be comprehensive. We are primarily interested in confirming that we understand the SEC’s intent at a high level. Correct for 5:00 am full briefing; focus of 7:30 am and 3:00 pm briefings should be primarily on SEC.

1. Can you confirm that it is accurate that the Full Briefing has a 5:00 a.m. deadline and the Executive Briefing has a 7:30 a.m. deadline? Yes. Based on other similar solicitations from government clients, it strikes us as possible that those deadlines have inadvertently been reversed. These deadlines have not been inadvertently reversed.

1. Regarding the Afternoon Briefing, would the SEC like the next morning’s briefings to include (repeat) or exclude stories that were already covered in the previous afternoon briefing? 5:00 am briefing should include latest versions of articles in prior afternoon briefing.