Companies that do lots of business in the defense space want to build their civilian businesses as a way to protect themselves against shrinking defense budgets.

The Obama administration will formally submit the entire 2015 federal budget next week…but the Defense Department has been conducting a sort of “soft-rollout” this week, starting with a speech on Monday by defense secretary Chuck Hagel and numerous followup appearances by senior defense officials. Mackenzie Eaglen, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute hosted the acting deputy defense secretary, Christine Fox for one of those discussions yesterday. Eaglen talked with Jared Serbu about the details the Pentagon’s revealed so far.

Earlier this month, the Defense Department signed a more than $40 million, three-year deal with Adobe to consolidate thousands of separate agreements the military currently has with the company. It’s the second successful contract negotiation in DoD’s effort to move toward enterprise software licensing. The first was with Microsoft. Barry Leffew is the vice president for public sector at Adobe. He talked with me about the terms of their deal with DoD.

Allegations of purging veterans case files at Los Angeles and Dallas offices of the Department of Veterans Affairs are spotlighting accountability issues at VA. The Senate is considering legislation that would increase the number of vets eligible for benefits and the number of benefits they can get. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is against the bill. Federal News Radio’s Francis Rose asked him how to get around the idea that if you vote against veterans legislation, you’re voting against vets.

Your agency’s brand is more than just a logo or a plaque above the door. Tweaking it in just the right way can help new recruits fall in love with your agency before they walk in the door.

A June deadline is fast approaching for agencies to use only cloud computing services that meet governmentwide cybersecurity requirements. New data is coming to the Office of Management and Budget in the next week through the PortfolioStat effort that will highlight this progress. Maria Roat is the General Services Administration’s director of the Federal Risk Authorization and Management Program or FedRAMP. She gives Executive Editor Jason Miller an update on the FedRAMP program.