Posted by BJ on 15 May, 2007 under Word play & writing | 
A good friend of ours sent us this response to an RFP question (and I could hear her infectious laughter as I read it!) Italics have been added to the question for your enjoyment.
The RFP question:
If your administration office(s) were to be destroyed in a hurricane, where would you relocate, what functions would be resumed in 24 hours, 72 hours, and 1 week?
The response:
(Company name, withheld to protect the embarrassed) would only be mildly inconvenienced if a tornado were to hit the building.
Posted by Jon on 11 May, 2007 under Musings |
The Times recently presented extracts from the latest book by Robert Sutton, a professor of management science. His new theory is called “The No A**hole Rule”.*
Apparently, so the new theory goes, it’s important at work to:
‘distinguish people who are having a bad day or a bad moment (”temporary a**holes”) from persistent nasty and destructive jerks (”certified a**holes”).’
I offer this up partly for your amusement, but also with a cynical view that it could prove useful when categorising team members on some proposal efforts!
*The newspaper uses asterisks throughout the article – then, oddly, quotes the book’s title in full. I’ve gone for the tamer version, to spare the blushes of our more delicate readers!
Posted by BJ on 9 May, 2007 under Musings |
Researchers have discovered that we have two distinct types of “attention” (and actually use different parts of our brains to process each.) One type is the one we use when we are focused and anticipating what is coming next. The other is when something comes along unexpectedly and our focus is drawn to it.
To have the greatest impact, the proposals we develop have to address both types of “attention” of the reader/reviewer. We need to maintain the interest of those who are highly focused as they read/review our response and we have to capture the attention of those who are skimming it or flipping the pages.
This is why we so strongly emphasize the need for considering both the “information” (what the response says) and the “presentation” (how the information is presented) aspects in the development of strategic proposals.
Posted by Jon on 7 May, 2007 under APMP & accreditation |
BJ and I are starting to look forward to next month’s APMP Conference in Savannah; we’re swapping notes feverishly as we finalise our session, “The Church of Proposal Excellence”. We’re particularly flattered that APMP has invited us to present in the main auditorium again this year, to the conference as a whole.
One of the innovative sessions planned for this year’s event is a “Grass Roots Market”, which will see every exhibitor capturing comments on a discussion on a topic of interest to proposal professionals. We’ve just chosen our theme:
20/20 Vision: What will proposals be like in the year 2020?
We hope this will stimulate some creative debate, and we’re really looking forward to capturing delegates’ ideas. In the meantime, if the topic sparks your imagination, do send us through your comments and we’ll add them into the melting pot in Savannah!
Posted by BJ on 3 May, 2007 under Word play & writing |
In “It’s Not Funny If I Have to Explain It”, a collection of Dilbert cartoons which caused me to laugh out loud* and which I highly recommend, Scott Adams uses the word “permiscuous” (page 135).
Now, many of the readers here will know that Mark Twain is a favorite philosopher of mine and have heard me state that I subscribe to his concept “It’s a simple mind that can only come up with one way to spell a word.”
In this particular case, I think Scott’s choice of spelling actually improves upon the standard/accepted spelling and highlights the concept of “permission” within the definition. I’ve added it to my dictionary and plan to use this version from now on.
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* Note to self – Do not read books which cause me to laugh out loud while on a plane. (Especially a very full ‘red-eye’ on which the passenger next to me is trying to sleep.)
Posted by Jon on 1 May, 2007 under Word play & writing |
I’ve been helping a proposal centre to pull together a style guide recently. The team’s writer (hi, Jen!) unearthed a quote that I love:
Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
Sam Brown
Sadly, I’ve evaluated more than a few proposals that seem to taken that advice on board.
A few days later, Graham Ablett (one of our Strategic Proposals colleagues) pointed me to the wonderful website for the Hotel Foz do Iguacu in Brasil. It’s so bad that I had to resort to Google to make sure it’s not a spoof.
The introduction page (do watch the introduction!) is full of cool graphics effects; the layout is highly professional… it’s just that they seem to have run out of money after all the work with the designers to pay a competent translator. Almost every page made me laugh aloud; my favourite runs as follows:
Our Business Center consist with one reserved room, equipped with the computer connected on the internet, telephone, fax machine and a specially project table for you to make your own work reunion. Here you didn’t stay disconnected of the world that are around you.
Catch it now, before they rewrite it!
