Posted by BJ on 12 July, 2007 under Musings | 
In a previous posting I talked about the Hillside Su, a wonderful hotel in Antalya, Turkey along the country’s south coast.
As you might imagine, given my description of the place, the clientele at the Hillside Su draws a pretty upscale and rather attractive crowd. (For those of you who might not have had the chance to visit there yet, think the Delano in South Beach. And if you haven’t been there either, think any of the pool scenes on C.S.I. Miami.).
Poolside was a constant parade of beautiful women in very skimpy bathing suits. (There might have been some men, I didn’t notice.) As these women passed by, the people with whom I was sitting would occasionally make a comment; on that person’s figure, their hair, their choice of suit, etc. (Oh come on, admit, you’ve done, or at least thought, the same thing!)
As they passed by, on a fair number of the women, we’d notice the tag on the bottom of their suit would be hanging out. And interestingly, even if this was a strikingly beautiful, incredibly fit, perfectly suited (pun intended) woman, the errant tag immediately became the center of focus and topic of conversation. Try as we might to stay focused on the whole package, we were drawn to that silly little tag.
You get the connection right?
Posted by Jon on 10 July, 2007 under APMP & accreditation |
Barbara Esmedina mailed me a link yesterday to her fascinating survey, canvassing views of those involved in the proposal process. The findings will be presented at this year’s Pragmatech User Forum.
If you have a spare ten minutes (and, hey, proposal people are always short of things to do, right?), it’s well worth clicking through the questions, and then scanning through the current status of the results online. A couple of interesting data points so far from the first 100 or so respondents:
- Less than a third of those surveyed are members of APMP, the professional body for proposal folks.
- Of those who are in APMP, 77% get their membership fees funded by their employer. (Hey, that’ll give some of you some useful evidence for a negotiation with your boss today!)
- Only around half those surveyed regard their roles as ‘well-respected’ in their organisation.
- Nigh on 80% of proposal teams handle fulfilment (printing, binding, shipping) in-house rather than passing it to a specialist third-party.
Obviously you need to handle the data with caution, as the survey has only just gone live and the sample size is small. But do head over and add your own responses to what looks like a really thought-provoking exercise.
Posted by Jon on 6 July, 2007 under Processes & best practice |
Charles Campion, the London Evening Standard’s quite wonderful restaurant critic, has just announced the winners of his “Great Menu Outrage” competition. Top of the list:
“Cured carpaccio and tartare of red tuna, spring onions marinated in sesame seed oil, tomato tartare with vanilla, yoghurt and Sichuan pepper ice cream”
“Fresh calamari linguini ‘blanco y negro’, black paella paint, candied garlic and lemony mayonnaise sponge”
“Cinnamon rubbed pork tenderloin cooked at low heat, pureed leeks, mangosteen, wasabi and rose froth, wild rocket and salty caramel”
Now, eating in good restaurants is something of a hobby for me. (OK, BJ, I know you think the word ‘addiction’ would be more accurate). And I have rather a loathing for the trend towards menus so complex that they read more like recipe books than descriptions of the dishes.
A similar challenge applies for proposal teams as they present their “menus” of options to the customer. How much detail do we include? Too little, we get scored down. Too much, we bore the readers – and get scored down. There’s the eternal challenge – a great proposal should be complete, comprehensive, yet concise.
As ever, getting the account manager to ask the buyer up front – “how long are you expecting our proposal to be”, or “picture the ideal proposal for us” – is no bad thing. And as a default to aim for, the praise one team I worked with recently garnered from a client sums up the ideal outcome:
“Your proposal was half the length of your competitor’s, but said twice as much.”
In the case of these menus, of course, the solutions themselves (the dishes) sound fundamentally flawed – and no amount of wordsmithing could have saved the day. Again, like a few proposals I’ve read…
Posted by BJ on 4 July, 2007 under Musings |
“This paper is largely a work of fiction, bordering on fantasy.”
That’s the handwritten note that a college professor put on a paper submitted by a friend of mine (Howdy Dawne! How’s things in Sunny CA?). This was in 1995.
And many of you will be familiar with the statement made by Ken Olsen, the head of Digital Equipment Corporation, in 1977:
“There is no reason for an individual to have a computer in his home.”*
It seems more often than not a new idea or concept is met with this kind of thinking. “You must be crazy”, “That will never happen” or “What have you been smokin’ mate?” are typical responses to a new, “outside-the-box” concept.
This topic came up during a recent meeting wherein I was discussing the future of proposals (this was the question we posed at the APMP conference as part of ‘Grass Roots’ session). A few of the ideas brought up were met with such statements. Among the ideas were – Proposals that emulate the very best, most interactive web pages. Embedded video. Self opening links (they open when the page senses you are reading that line, etc.) and even more ‘far-fetched’ ideas.
The topic of Dawne’s paper and the comment that drew the professor’s remark? The internet, web and the her contention that, “In the not too distant future people will be making hotel and airline reservations, buying tickets to events and speaking with people around the world.”
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* Interestingly, absolutely demonstrating how far off the mark the professor was, I ‘googled’ the Ken Olsen quote (it’s true!), on a computer (one of 4) in my home (in my jammies no less).
Posted by Jon on 2 July, 2007 under Musings |
I was rather amused by the following sign in Savannah, when we were there for the APMP conference:
I’m guessing there’s not much to do if you head to the right…
I sometimes read proposal content like this: the authors know what they’re trying to say, but the message ends up looking a little confused.
