Transforming Advocacy

DoW Memo: https://tinylink.net/ywuEc

When pursuing government work, the constraint is not technology, but the contact density during the period of performance.

Innovation ecosystems reward proximity long before they reward performance. 

• Who returns calls?

• Who understands timing? 

• Who can translate ambition into a funded line item?

Historically, access depended on knowing the right program office, the right colonel, the right intermediary. That model advantaged incumbents and punished technically credible newcomers who lacked political capital.

The emerging structure signals a shift away from relationship arbitrage toward institutional choke points. Fewer interfaces. Fewer escalation paths. Fewer places where a conversation can drift without consequence.

For companies seeking funding, this does not eliminate the need for relationships, but it changes which relationships compound.

The value of contacts is slowly shifting from influence to alignment. The most valuable contacts are no longer those who can advocate endlessly, but those who sit close to:

• portfolio-level funding logic

• cross-program integration authority

• capital transition mechanisms

Access is becoming narrower but clearer. Funding paths are fewer but more explicit. For companies seeking government funding, the opportunity is not to learn the maze, but to recognize that the maze is being flattened into corridors.

Contacts still matter. However, they now anchor you to a system, not because contacts personally vouch for you.