Posted by Jon on 8 August, 2008 under Word play & writing | 
I’ve been working recently in an office that displays a notice prominently in the restrooms, stating:
Please leave these toilets as you would wish to find them.
Every time I go in, I wish I’d remembered to bring a pot of paint, some nice fluffy towels and a bottle of Molton Brown handwash.
So, I wondered: what’s the equivalent irritating phrase in the world of proposals? For me, it has to be the RFP instruction that runs something like:
Please submit 4 (four) copies of your proposal.
‘Cos I didn’t realise that “4″ meant “four”, you know… Procurement folk so often seem to get hide behind pseudo-legalese, thinking it makes them sound clever – when in fact it merely serves to underline how little training they have in developing effective RFPs that entice their prospective vendors to submit the best possible proposals.
Posted by BJ on 6 August, 2008 under Word play & writing |
I heard yet another new term recently. The term was, “Coopertition”. In case it’s not immediately clear to you, this is, I assume, a combination of cooperation and competition.Perhaps this has been around a while and I just haven’t come across it before (I’d be interested in hearing from readers who have heard this term previously.).
Normally I don’t care for such terms, considering them to be “corruptions”. However, I can see the usefulness of such a term given how many companies both cooperate and compete with other companies. On one occasion you’re bidding against them, the next minute your company is a sub to them or vise versa.
What do you think? Should this be a term we propagate?*
*I ask because I believe that we have the power to influence the usage of words. After all, if the term is used in multiple documents by several different companies, pretty soon it will be accepted.
Posted by Jon on 4 August, 2008 under Musings |
Killing time as I wandered along the street, early, towards one of my new favourite restaurants – Antony Worrall Thompson’s Windsor Grill – my eye was caught by the menu of the China Town Takeaway. (See, I was hungry!)It proudly proclaimed:
We specialise in Cantonese, Pekinese, Szechaun & Thai cuisine.
Now, I don’t know what that says to you, but to me it gives out quite the opposite message to the one they intended. I can’t believe that they can ’specialise’ in so many different cuisines, from locations so distant from each other. And so I end up not believing that they specialise in anything much at all.
And, of course, some proposals are like that: the bidders claim to be so perfect, expert in so many things, that the reader’s credulity is stretched beyond breaking point. Evaluators deduce that your story is all spin and no substance, and pass over your offer for something more believable.
Posted by BJ on 1 August, 2008 under Musings |
Ok, when developing a document and waiting for specific information (a date, name, link, etc.) it is fairly standard practice to put in a “marker” where the information is to be inserted once it is known. This typically takes the form of xx/xx/xx, or insert XXXXX here. Using this method, you’d use logically www.xxxxx.com to indicate a link, right.The intention, of course, is that these be filled in before submitting the document and ideally and as we teach our clients, these are highlighted to ensure that in fact they are filled in prior to submission and NOT overlooked.
However, as we all know, despite all best efforts (or for lack of them!), once in a great while that doesn’t always happen and one of these ends up in the final document as is.
Very unfortunately, that’s just what happened recently: A document went out with www.XXXXX.com in it.
As you might have guessed, though unbeknownst to the person who quite innocently used this as a marker, this is actually a working link. And like the title says, it’s not a link to which you want to be directing your client. (And I strongly suggest you DON’T GO THERE!)
