C-SPAN has never been known for their riveting programming line-up. Even die hard political junkies like myself shun the channel these days in favor of alternative sources of news and analysis. But C-SPAN’s value changes dramatically if you can cut out the bloviating and get to the meat of what you would like to see. With their revamped video site, C-SPAN now has searchable archives of every program they’ve aired since 1987. That amounts to a massive 160,000 hours of footage (which would take over 18 years to get through if you sat down for a marathon viewing session).

What’s this have to do with spend management or supply chains? Plenty.  Often times, we catch soundbites on issues that are directly relevant to  our industry, company or supply chain in the news coverage of  Congressional hearings, Presidential candidate’s speeches and government  agency meetings. How often are you left with more questions than  answers about what really was said? And wouldn’t being able to see the  relevant comments in context help? Now we can.

The best part is that everything - transcripts, speaker bios and programs - is indexed and searchable. For example, if you search for “bidding process”, you’ll get 922 videos whose transcripts are a match. Clicking on the top one, a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on stimulus spending impacts on infrastructure that occured last Friday, brings you right to the relevant “bidding process” section of the 2+ hour hearing (video here - sorry, C-SPAN’s embed feature seems to be acting up).

For anyone who’s asked for more visibility into government decisions - from policy wonks to sourcing pros tasked with complex categories influenced by trade policy and regulations - this is a great leap forward. If you have a spare few minutes (although you’ll potentially get sucked in for hours) today, I’d suggest browsing the archives. If you come across something interesting, please share it in the Comments below.

Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.

Also posted @ Ariba Exchange.