No matter how much makeup we put on the federal procurement system (pig), the underlying animal is still a pig As I wrote this piece, the United States Air Force was sponsoring a conference on innovation. The meeting was held in Las Vegas and those attending were folks who can make a difference in the acquisition of war fighting material for our front line warriors. The reports I received on the meeting were encouraging, but I have horrible memories of countless meetings, conferences and consortia dealing with exactly the same set of issues I first encountered over 30 years ago...