Week three: two proposals out, nine in the queue, and a federal registration

A round wooden table at WeWork Rosslyn dressed for fall: an orange runner, small pumpkins, a dispenser of cider, trays of bagels and muffins, Tazo tea bags, and a sign reading Fall Into Feedback, with office towers through the window behind. — The fall spread in the ninth-floor common area at WeWork Rosslyn, Thursday morning.

Every Friday I write down what LFW actually did that week. Week one, week two.

This is week three.

Two proposals out

Two went out this week. As before, each one leads with my own record and the work LFW has built.

I don't name or describe a buyer while it is deciding.

Nine more in the queue

Five proposals are written and waiting on deadlines. Four more are in progress.

Some ask for five years of history from the firm itself, not from the person doing the work. LFW submits anyway, with its founding date on the cover. A buyer can waive a requirement; a bid that was never sent cannot win.

Registered and joined

On Monday LFW.com LLC became active in SAM.gov, the federal government's vendor registration system. Federal agencies can now award to LFW directly.

It matters locally too. Any agency spending federal money, a housing authority or a transit agency for example, has to check SAM before it awards a contract.

That is where exclusions live: the list of companies barred from federal work for fraud or default. A buyer confirms you are not on it, and their forms ask for your SAM number.

Some of the proposals in the queue are with agencies spending federal money.

The same day LFW joined the Arlington Chamber of Commerce. The member listing went up the next morning.

On Tuesday it joined ASAE, the association for association professionals, as an Industry Partner, with a listing in ASAE's Solutions HQ. Associations are one of the groups LFW builds for, and that is where their staff gather.

Both memberships are now listed on the About page.

On Thursday I went to the Chamber's orientation for new members, Chamber 101.

It was also my birthday. There was no cake, but the orientation was worth it.

An Arlington Chamber of Commerce name tag reading Leland Fiegel, LFW.com LLC, stuck to the pocket of a plaid shirt. — Chamber 101, Thursday afternoon.

Pumpkin spice at WeWork

On Thursday morning the WeWork in Rosslyn dressed the ninth-floor common area for fall. The announcement promised "the ultimate fall aesthetic" and "the lively team of sweet cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove."

In practice: cider, pumpkin muffins, bagels, small pumpkins on an orange runner, and a sign asking for a Google review. That is the table at the top of this post. I had a pumpkin muffin, a bagel and a cup of cider.

A paper plate with an everything bagel and a pumpkin muffin beside a cup of cider on a steel table at WeWork Rosslyn. — My share of it, at the desk.

The shirt

The WeWork team also left me a birthday gift bag this week, with a shirt in it that says Do What You Love. Very thoughtful. I wore it Friday, and I highly recommend WeWork Rosslyn.

Leland in a hallway mirror wearing a black WeWork T-shirt that reads Do What You Love, with a backpack on. — The shirt, Friday. It reads the right way around in person.

WordPress Accessibility Day is next week

WordPress Accessibility Day starts Wednesday, October 7, at 11 a.m. Eastern and runs for 24 hours: talks for designers, developers, content editors and project managers on building WordPress sites everyone can use.

It is free, online, and the replays stay up through October 31. Register here.

LFW signed on as a sponsor on September 22, two weeks ago, and is on the sponsors page. A small thing to be proud of in week three.

The organizers asked everyone attending to spread the word, so: consider it spread.

Join me, I'm attending! WordPress Accessibility Day 2026. October 7-8 #WPA11yDay — The organizers' share graphic. Register.

What changed on LFW.com

198 commits this week. Three changes worth a closer look.

Monitor now reads your PDFs

Monitor scans a website every night for broken links, slow pages and accessibility regressions.

As of Friday it also opens every linked PDF and checks the three things a screen reader needs first: a tag structure, a document language and a title.

PDFs are the largest accessibility exposure most public websites have, and the Department of Justice's Title II rule covers them.

A document that fails now gets its own section in the monthly report, so the person who uploaded it can fix it at the source.

A free plugin: LFW PDF Check

The same check now runs inside WordPress, at upload. LFW PDF Check flags a PDF that is missing tags, a language or a title the moment it lands in the Media Library.

That is the moment the person still has the source file open, which is when the fix is cheap.

It is free, open source under the same license as WordPress, sends the file nowhere, and does not need an LFW account.

It is the first of several small plugins LFW will publish rather than keep.

Fewer false alarms

Monitor used to report a few things as broken that were not: share buttons, links to Facebook and LinkedIn that answer a bot with an error, and redirects that were put there on purpose.

It no longer does. A finding should mean someone has to do something.

Next week

More proposals go out, and WordPress Accessibility Day is Wednesday and Thursday.

If you know an organization whose website has nobody looking after it, I would be grateful for the introduction.

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