Posted by BJ on 30 November, 2009 under Musings | 
I guess it’s a case of “The shoemaker’s children” when it comes to the tools I use. I say this because, though I recommend to our clients that they have work on a monitor that is of an appropriate size for the particular job (as in, if you’re a proposal writer, you should have a screen that is large enough to easily few two pages side-by-side and four pages on the screen. That said, I work on my laptop, even when in my office (and it is not for lack of a larger monitor as I have a full size monitor collecting dust in the corner).
On a recent (yesterday in fact) visit to a new client I had the opportunity to use a workstation that not only had a larger monitor (I’d guess it was 23” or so) but also had two of them. Using this set up, I was able to view my mail on one screen while working on a document on anther. I immediately realized efficiencies as I didn’t have to keep opening and closing windows.
Liking to believe I’m an old dog that can still be taught a trick or two, I’m having a two monitor (both 23”) set up put in this week. I’m looking forward to this allowing me to work in a much more efficient manner.
(I’ve also recently replaced my office chair and headset. This is a direct result of my having done a series of webinars that required me to be in my chair for some 30 hours over 3 days. Suddenly the chair wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it had been and I found the wired headset very restricting.)
Posted by Jon on 26 November, 2009 under Processes & best practice |
Am I making you envious with all of these posts about our Japanese vacation? OK, I promise to stop writing about it! But indulge me one more time…
I’d stayed in one of our hotels, in Kyoto, on a previous trip to Japan four years ago. As a devotee of one particular hotel chain (and its loyalty scheme!), we’d booked into the same place – but I’d warned Vic (my wife) not to have high expectations of the place. Back in 2005, it had just been taken over – and the whole place was slightly run down for a supposedly five-star establishment.
Still, we were determined to be positive, and stepped off the bullet train at Kyoto Station with hope in our hearts. We’d printed off the details from the hotel’s website of their “remote concierge” desk at the station, where our luggage would be taken from us and we’d be shown onto the free shuttle bus that would transport us to the hotel. Only one problem: said concierge desk was no longer there; there was no signage for the hotel anywhere to be found. (Later, it turned out that there’s a small typewritten sign taped to the wall).
So we took a cab, arrived at the hotel – and joined a long, long queue to check in. That done, we were asked to take a seat so that a member of staff could take us and our luggage up to our room. Nigh on fifteen minutes later, we were still waiting. And then our room key appeared in paperwork claiming we’d been upgraded given our ‘Platinum’ guest status; we actually hadn’t – we’d been given precisely the same Executive Room that we’d paid for.
So much, so bad. But then it got better – the room was great, the staff lovely, the facilities refurbished throughout, the hotel’s restaurants truly outstanding.
There’s a comparable initial experience for many proposal evaluators. They approach the task with pre-conceived ideas about the bidder – pre-disposed, in many cases, not to like the proposal. And then the document arrives in amateurish packaging, in boring binders bought off the shelf at Staples, with poorly-designed covers and a dull layout that makes them think that the evaluation is going to be hard work. By the time they get to read the text, is it any wonder that they’re looking for excuses to give you low scores? If, as a proposal manager, you don’t think through the whole of the customer’s evaluation journey, you’re rarely going to optimise your scores no matter how good your content.
Posted by Proposal Panda on 24 November, 2009 under Musings |
Proposal Panda visited CIBER, Inc. recently…
CIBER Defense Technology Systems, a branch of CIBER Federal, is headquartered in Peachtree City, GA, home of more than 90 miles of golf cart paths. While visiting, Proposal Panda survived the five inches of rain that tropical storm Ida dumped on Peachtree City!
During his stay with CIBER, Proposal Panda helped five members of the proposal team prepare for the APMP Practitioner Assessment:
Proposal Panda guarded the front entrance to the CIBER office and greeted our guests and the FedEx man with open arms.
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Proposal Panda travels the world visiting proposal teams. If you’d like to host Proposal Panda in your organisation, just email us to panda@theproposalguys.com
Posted by Jon on 20 November, 2009 under Musings |
Whilst we were in Japan, their navy rather unfortunately crashed a warship into a passing boat. Said vessel being rather large, the navy came off worse – and the destroyer caught fire. Fortunately, it wasn’t serious, and there were no injuries.
The press reported that the Japanese Prime Minister had been informed of the incident, and had ordered an immediate enquiry. His office confirmed that the PM had also issued orders to naval staff to do everything possible to contain the fire and put it out.
The second part of this rather amused me. I’m picturing the chain of events – a loud crash; flames; a call to the admiral; the message conveyed with urgency to the PM’s office. The ratings on the warship standing round confused, wondering what to do as the fire burned furiously… Eventually, the order arrives back from the PM: “put out the flames”; the naval officers realise that this is a great idea and rush for the fire extinguishers, saved by the politician’s brilliantly perceptive advice.
For Prime Minister, read all too many senior execs when it comes to bids: standing by, letting the flames burn as chaos reigns (with too few staff working too many hours to try to produce the proposal against the odds) – or, more usually, taking credit for a win where their involvement has been (at best) minimal.
Posted by BJ on 18 November, 2009 under Musings, Processes & best practice |
I recently presented at the APMP Southern Accents Proposal Conference – aka SPAC. This is one of my favorite conferences as the people involved put on a great event and the hospitality they provide is nothing short of amazing.
The theme for the conference was Little Shop of Proposal Horrors and my topic within that was Potential Problems (my presentation was titled “A Survival Guide”).
Within my presentation, as one would expect, I spoke about avoiding problems, containing them when and where possible and contingency planning.
During my presentation two problems occurred. The first was the projector over heating and shutting down. Though I had been prepared for a computer failure, having my presentation loaded another computer and having that one ready to swap in if/as needed, I wasn’t prepared for this eventuality. Fortunately for me, there was a projector in the next room that wasn’t being used at that time and we were able to quickly swap it in.
The second problem was the batteries in my microphone going dead while I was presenting. Again, I hadn’t prepared for this but here too I was lucky as someone nearby happened to have a couple of the right size batteries and we were able to swap them in. Both of these problems provided abject lessons in what could and in this case, did go wrong. I love when life works like that.
Posted by Jon on 16 November, 2009 under Musings |
I was away for most of October in Japan – it was my wife’s 30th birthday, and a long vacation was her big treat (along with the surprise party with 25 friends, the new iPhone,…!).
Now we’re back, I thought I’d share a couple of photos of things that made me smile on our travels. The first’s a rather confusing signpost in the beautiful gardens of the Hei’an Shrine in Kyoto, and the second’s a marvellous illustration of why one shouldn’t write documents if one’s not entirely fluent in the language concerned…
Perhaps the highlight of our Japanese trip was an afternoon spent with the samurai sword master who’d choreographed the samurai fighting scene in “Kill Bill”.
We were shown the basic movements, the correct posture, how to hold our sword… and then taught us a very simple sequence of movements so that we could act out a somewhat realistic looking “fight”. We then watched our efforts on video – and felt suitably impressed; I personally think I looked made for the role, don’t you?
Then followed an explanation of the routine that samurais followed centuries ago to improve their swordsmanship. That basic movement we’d practised a few times? They’d have done that 2,000 times each morning, until it felt like second nature.
Discussing this with colleagues after my return, I could see a parallel to proposals. Some organisations pay lip service to training – an occasional course for their bid or proposal managers, after much internal haggling to secure budget. And then there are those organisations that “get it” – training everyone involved in proposal work, so that the process is clear, practised and works perfectly each time…
Posted by BJ on 12 November, 2009 under Processes & best practice |
While sharing war stories, a participant in a recent workshop, Christina, told the group of the dangers associated with trying to do things from memory and not writing them down.
Christina said she had memorized several company numbers and didn’t bother to look them up when putting them into a proposal.
After submission, she learned from the client that she had apparently transposed the last four digits of the company’s 800 phone number. Fortunately, this client was laughing when he called to tell her that the response he received when he called the number was a bit surprising. The person who answered asked him, “Have you been a bad boy? Is that why you’ve called the Spank Me line?”
I’m sure this will act as a reminder for us all to double check the numbers in the proposals we submit. (I’m pretty sure Christina won’t need reminding in the future.)
