October 30, 2004
Wouldn't You Know...
I've come down with the dreaded airplane cold. I've spent two miserable nights trying to get some sleep in between blowing my nose every 3 minutes. My head has felt like it's going to explode. I have lost count of how many different kinds of cold pills and aspirin I've taken. But today (Sunday), I'm starting to feel a little less fuzzy. I may actually be able to eat something and get some work done today.
Despite the cold, I managed to get in a little shopping yesterday. There's lots of stuff to buy here in New Delhi. I picked up some chiffon scarves to give for holiday presents. Then I bought some Pashmina shawls -- one for myself, and a couple of others for family members. These are not like anything you can buy for a reasonable price in the U.S., and they are exquisite. Also, there's a shop here in the hotel that has some beautiful silver pieces. I haven't bought any of these yet, but we'll see.
Today I'm going to work here in my hotel room. I've got a lot to do, and I'm kind of behind because of this crummy cold. It's no fun being sick overseas because you don't have your normal things around you and there's no one to whine and complain to. Fortunately, the hotel is fabulous. I've just got to push a button next to my bed and a butler appears almost instantly to bring me whatever I need. There are butlers on each floor. I could definitely get used to that. Now if only I could get a consistent internet connection...
Posted by Deborah at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2004
Blogging From India
I'm in New Delhi, and it's around 3 PM on Friday afternoon. Since my arrival in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, I've gotten very little sleep. But that's not the main thing. The main thing is that I'm really surprised that I'm having so much trouble getting a reliable internet connection, seeing as India is well-known for it's technology capability. I'm staying at the Oberoi Hotel -- a fabulously elegant place. But the hotel's wireless internet connection leaves much be desired. Basically, it works only intermittenly. I'm paying about $20 a day for 24-hour internet access. But my guess is that out of that 24 hours, I really only have access for maybe 3 hours, on and off. I also tried connecting through Compuserve dial-up, which I often use when I travel. But so far, I haven't been able to get connected because the connection keeps being dropped. Very weird.
On the plane with my client, we went over the proposal outline. We decided that it needed to be changed, so now the outline is already in its second revision and writing hasn't even started yet. The day after I arrived, we had an all-day meeting with other members of our proposal team to review and discuss each section of the outline, and to make writing assignments. The first draft is due on Monday, and then there will be another meeting on Tuesday to review and discuss the draft. I don't have any substantive writing assignments, although I've offered to work on a few small generic sections of the proposal. My real job is to review everyone else's work and shape it into my client's vision of what the proposal should say. What that really means is that I will probably have to rewrite and reorganize everything in time for the second draft which is due a week from today.
Today I tried unsuccessfully to take a nap, and now I'm looking through some of my client's old proposals to see if there is any material in them that we can recycle for this proposal. I'll also do some quick and dirty drafts of the generic pieces that I've offered to write.
I'm going to try to publish this post to the blog now, since the wireless connection has been fairly steady for the past half hour. Hopefully it will stay on long enough for me to get this posted.
Posted by Deborah at 5:22 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2004
Outlining Continued
This post was supposed to be continued "tomorrow" (see previous entry), but tomorrow has turned out to be quite a few days later. I've just been really busy getting ready for my trip to India -- lots of personal and work-related stuff to get done before I leave for the airport this afternoon.
Also, something nice. Anita Campbell of the Small Business Trends website did a PowerBlog Review of my blog. It's a really nice review, and I hope it will bring me more visitors.
In my previous post, I explained how I used Sections L and M of the RFP to begin creating my draft outline. The next step involves incorporating information from Section C (scope-of-work) into the second section of the outline -- the Technical Approach and Methodology section.
To do this, I've got to go back and read Section C several times. On the first reading, I sort of skim through it. I read it more carefully the second time. Then, on the third reading I look for what might constitute major subheadings and sub-subheadings for my outline. This isn't easy. Because of the way in which Section C is organized, I am having trouble identifying what the RFP is asking the contractor to do. Nevertheless, I plug away at it. I copy and paste relevant sentences and paragraphs from the RFP into Section 2 of my outline and try to organize them into something that makes sense. When I'm done, I have a bunch of possible subheadings and bulleted points that I might need to do something with. It's starting to look like an outline, but I'm still not sure that I'm headed in the right direction.
So back to the RFP for a fourth reading. Ugh -- I'm getting sick of looking at this scope-of-work. But during this reading, I find that I've made a major error in my outline, because I've included items that are not actually contractor tasks; rather these items are really background information. I go back to my outline and delete all of the items that shouldn't be there. This makes Section 2 of outline smaller and more manageable. I make some revisions and reorganize things a little more until I have something I'm fairly satisfied with. My last step is to go back to Sections L and M to check to see if I've incorporated all relevant information from those sections into my Technical Approach and Methodology Section. Finally, the draft outline is done. It's taken me nearly 5 hours to do the whole outline, and we are talking a draft here -- there will surely be revisions as the proposal progresses. But it's a good start and I feel confident in sending it off to my client.
Posted by Deborah at 5:47 AM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2004
More on Developing a Proposal Outline
When I look at the site statistics for this blog, I can see the words that people have searched on that have brought them to my site. Quite a few people seem to be looking for information on developing proposal outlines. I wrote a previous blog entry on The Importance of an Outline, and thought I would expand a bit on the process. It's good timing, because today I have to develop such an outline for one of my clients.
So here I am with a 35-page RFP, which is rather short by government standards because it is actually a task order which has been issued under an existing contract. As a result, it does not contain all of the boilerplate forms and other contractual stuff that usually accompanies an RFP. But what it does contain are the essential sections that I need to prepare an outline for the Technical Proposal -- (1) the scope-of-work; (2) the instructions; and (3) the evaluation criteria. In most instances, these are all you need to construct the first draft of your outline.
Where to begin? I always start with Section L -- Instructions to Offerors. In this case, the instructions tell me that the technical proposal is limited to 45 pages using a Times Roman 12 point font. The instructions also provide a list of 10 bulleted items that are to be addressed somewhere in the proposal. But there's no real order to these items, so I don't know what to do with them. I need more information.
So I turn next to Section M -- the Evaluation Criteria. Lo and behold, they've divided the evaluation criteria into three sections:
- Key Personnel
- Technical Approach and Methodology
- Past Performance
So I've got my three major proposal sections and a bunch of bulleted items from both Section L and Section M. I go back to the bulleted list in Section L. I look at each item in the list, determine what outline section it relates to, and copy and paste it into to the appropriate section of the outline document. I do the same with the listed items in Section M. My new outline now has some possible subsections, but they are not necessarily in the right order and some of the items may eventually end up being subsections of the subsections. Thus, my next task is to look at each of the three sections and make some preliminary decisions about how the items under them might logically be ordered. I end up with something like this for each of my 3 sections:
1. KEY PERSONNEL
A. Subheading (1) -- from an item in Section L
B. Subheading (2) -- from another item in Section L
C. Subheading (3) -- from an item in Section M
Now comes the harder part: incorporating information from the scope-of-work (Section C) into the outline. More on this tomorrow.
Posted by Deborah at 5:39 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2004
Cross-Sector Partnership for Minority Entrepreneurship
Philanthropy News Digest, a newsletter of the Foundation Center, published the following article yesterday. One of the purposes of the partnership described in the article is to help minority businesses identify contracting opportunities.
The National Urban League, the Business Roundtable, and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation have announced the names of five cities that will spearhead a public-private partnership to encourage minority entrepreneurship and business development nationwide.
The Urban Entrepreneur Partnership plans to employ the resources of corporate America, major service organizations, the nonprofit sector, and federal, state, and city governments to expand entrepreneurship and jobs in historically neglected and underserved urban areas through the creation of economic empowerment centers housed at local National Urban League affiliates. The partnership initially will focus its efforts in five cities -- Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Jacksonville, and Kansas City -- with a goal of having the first five centers operational by early 2005 and up to fifteen centers in operation nationwide by the end of 2006. The Kansas City-based Kauffman Foundation, a leader in advancing entrepreneurship, and the D.C.-based Business Roundtable, an association of one hundred and fifty CEOs, will provide guidance to the project and work to create partnerships between large firms and urban entrepreneurs, including mentoring and identification of contracting opportunities, while the federal government will provide assistance through the Minority Business Development Agency and Small Business Administration. "Small businesses are the largest creators of new jobs in America, and the Urban Entrepreneur Partnership will help more minority-owned businesses find the technical assistance, financial investment, and corporate relation-ships they need to grow, develop, and create more jobs in the urban areas that need it most," said National Urban League president and CEO Marc H. Morial, who will chair the partnership. "Growing small- and medium-size minority-owned businesses is one of the best ways to close the wealth gap in America and provide real economic empowerment to our communities." "Unprecedented National Partnership Launched to Encourage Minority Entrepreneurship." Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Copyright (c) 1995-2004, the Foundation Center. All rights reserved. Permission to use, copy, and/or distribute this document in whole or in part for non-commercial purposes without fee is hereby granted provided that this notice and appropriate credit to the Foundation Center is included in all copies.
Posted by Deborah at 5:41 AM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2004
Elements of a Management Plan
Government RFPs and RFAs often require that you submit a Management Plan as part of your proposal. In many instances, the RFP/RFA will specify what this Plan should include, but in other cases, no guidance will be provided. In general, however, the purpose of a Management Plan is to demonstrate to the government that you know what it takes to effectively manage the project that you are proposing. Basic questions you may need to address include:
How will your project be organized? The best way to show how your project will be organized is to prepare an organization chart showing how the project will be staffed, and the relationships among the various staff members (i.e., who reports to whom). You can also show the project's relationship with the Government, your company's senior management, and/or with external bodies or committees. Once the org chart is drawn, you can provide a more detailed explanation in writing.
Who will be responsible for what? For some RFPs/RFAs, you may need to prepare full or mini job descriptions for some or all of your proposed staff. Full job descriptions can often be put in an appendix, while mini job descriptions might just be a series of bulleted items that highlight each person's primary responsibilities.
What management functions will be performed and how? Basic management functions usually include but are not limited to those listed below. For each of these functions, you may need to provide information on the techniques, systems and procedures you will use to perform these functions.
- Planning, scheduling and directing project activities.
- Managing personnel (e.g., recruiting, retaining, supervising, evaluating).
- Ensuring quality control -- processes, procedures and checklists that will be used to ensure quality products and services.
- Financial management -- systems and processes for managing project budgets and financial resources.
- Contract/grant management -- procedures and systems to ensure that contractual or grant requirements are met.
- Subcontract management -- processes and techniques that will be used to manage subcontractors and their activities.
Posted by Deborah at 5:58 AM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2004
New Feature & Miscellaneous Stuff
I've finally gotten around to installing a new feature on this blog that some of you might like. At the bottom of each posting, you'll find a link that will let you e-mail that individual blog entry to a friend or colleague. So give it a try. Of course, if you want to e-mail a link to the entire blog, you can do that by clicking on the link at the top right of each page.
Things are pretty quiet here right now. I'm still waiting for more comments on the draft final report that I prepared, and I've started on the outline for the new India proposal that I am working on. I've got to get moving on preparing for my trip to India -- I haven't done anything except for getting a visa. Maybe today I'll start digging out my travel stuff and stick it in a corner of the bedroom. I also have to get an absentee ballot. I hate getting ready for trips, and after all these years of travel I'm still a terrible packer.
Aha! This weekend I found a new computer program that loads all of the icons in my system tray. I've been having trouble with getting the icons to show up when I start the computer, even though the programs are running in the background. Sometimes all of the icons would show up; other times only some of them would be there. This new program -- Startup Delayer -- lets you control the timing of each startup program so that all of the icons load properly. It's free, too.
That's about all I have to say today.
Posted by Deborah at 6:29 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2004
What Have I Got Here?
Grants, contracts, cooperative agreements, RFPs, RFAs -- what are these things anyway? It can get pretty confusing at times, but then again, we're talking about the government here.
When a government agency decides that it needs something (a service or product, for example) that is to be provided by an outside firm, organization or individual, the agency must also determine how it will acquire the product or service. The method by which a service or product is acquired depends on its purpose -- will it be used for the government's direct benefit, or will it be used for a public purpose? The type of solicitation (RFP or RFA) issued by the government reflects these decisions.
- Contracts are used when the principal purpose of the relationship between the government and the contractor is the acquisition of products or services for the government's direct use or benefit. When this is the case, the solicitation will be an RFP (request for proposals), RFQ (request for quotations), IFB (invitation for bids), or other contracting method. Bidders for government contracts are usually for-profit firms.
- Grants are used to accomplish a public purpose of support or stimulation. When a grant is given to an organization -- usually a non-profit -- it involves the transfer of money (and possibly other things of value) from the government to the organization (grantee). Additionally, the government is not substantially involved in the grant activity. Basically, the government serves as a "patron" to the organization, although it does perform routine oversight and stewardship functions. If the solicitation that you've received is an RFA, that means it is a grant, as opposed to a contract.
- Cooperative Agreements are also grants. That is, they are issued to accomplish a public purpose. But the difference between a cooperative agreement and a grant that is not a cooperative agreement is the degree of involvement of the government. If you have an RFA for a cooperative agreement, it means that the government will be "substantially involved" in the grant activity via some stipulated type of collaboration, participation or control.
It all seems pretty clear, but in reality it may not be. I've seen RFPs for contracts that seem more suited to grants, and vice versa. So there's sometimes a fine line where the decision whether to issue an RFP or RFA is known only to the government.
Posted by Deborah at 7:05 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2004
Latest Grant Scam
In the past couple of weeks, I've received 4 or 5 e-mails from people who have been offered several thousand dollars in "free grant money." All the e-mails are pretty much the same -- here's the one that came to me late last night:
My name is xxx and recently I've gotten a phone call with someone telling me that I was chosen to get a grant of 8,000 dollars. The man on the phone had told me in order to recieve this grant I would have to give him my bank account number. My quection to you is how do I know if this grant is real??? I didn't give any info out, the man said he would call me back tomarrow. I just want to be safe. Please do feel free to call me (xxx)-xxx-xxxx. Thank You.
Again, I will tell you: this is a SCAM! No government agency or foundation is going to call you up to tell you that you can get grant money to pay your bills, go to school or whatever. NEVER, NEVER give out your bank account number, credit card number, or any other personal or banking information to these people. You'll wake up the next day to find out that your bank account has been cleaned out, or that thousands of dollars have been charged to your credit card. HANG UP THE PHONE!
Here are a few links to information about this scam. You can find more links by doing a google search on "telephone grant scams."
- West Virginia Consumer Affairs Department
- WNDU-TV story
- WROC-TV news
- National Association of Student Financial Aid & Administrators
- Kansas Attorney General's Office
Posted by Deborah at 6:06 AM | Comments (2)
October 13, 2004
Proposal Graphics: Getting Started
I've got a guest blogger today -- Heidi Mirka. Heidi is a freelance consultant with 20 years of experience in creating proposal graphics for public and private sector firms. Actually, what Heidi does is much more complex. She is a Technical Content and Visual Development Specialist, meaning that she analyzes, interprets and translates technical data (verbal, sketched and text) into graphics that communicate meaningful, concise messages. Heidi has done work for several major government contractors, including Boeing and Northrop Grumman. And here's what she's got to say about developing proposal graphics, always a challenging task:
Typical scenario: The outline has been signed off, the volume managers appointed, and you've been assigned to write a 5 page section. Not only that, you've just received a directive mandating that all graphic concepts must be done within 36 hours, with at least one graphic per page.
You stammer, mumbling something about how the heck can you even begin to draw something when you haven't figured out what to write yet. You walk back to your desk and begin plowing through manuals, old emails, and recent presentations, scrambling to find something to submit, never mind if you will use it or not . . . just meet the deadline and you can change it later . . . . .
It may seem somewhat overwhelming to create graphics right up front. Here are some tips to get you going. These will not only benefit the quality of the graphic you'll create, but will help you when you begin to construct your text.
- Create an outline for your section, even if your section is just one page. This will begin to reveal where a graphic might work.
- If you don't know where to start, pull graphics from relevant data (presentations, manuals, etc.) Begin to write ABOUT the graphic. As you do, the changes and 'holes' of the story will start to become evident, both in the graphic and the text.
o Use the same terminology in text and art -- if box A in the graphic is called a "Current Plan", use "Current Plan" in the text, not "Recent Project". (You can't believe how many times this escapes a writer.) Incorporate changes that create consistency between the text and art so they "TALK" to one another. BE CONSISTENT!
- If you're finding it hard to write to the graphic, explain the graphic OUT LOUD to someone. This is a KEY process to begin to develop the CONTENT and the message. Let your listener ask questions -- this will help reveal what information is either confusing or missing.
- Can't find any graphics so you're starting from scratch? Use pencil and paper to develop your concepts. It's easier to scribble out a few ideas and redraw them 3-4 times vs. spending hours creating a computer-generated graphic that will likely be trashed at first review. AFTER you've finalized your idea, or your manager buys off on it, THEN create it (or have it created) electronically.
Posted by Deborah at 6:42 AM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2004
More Programs That Make My Life Easier
A while back, I compiled a list of programs that I often use in conjunction with my writing activities. Here are a few more.
- ScanSoft PDF Converter. Like many people, I often receive PDF files that I need to refer to or use when writing a proposal or report. Although I can select and copy text from these files using Adobe Acrobat, I often find it easier to convert an entire PDF file to Word. That's what ScanSoft does. If you're working in Word, you can just open the PDF file you want to use and ScanSoft will convert it to a Word document. Then you can cut, paste, insert, or whatever to your heart's content. But if the PDF file you want to convert has been scanned, you're out of luck. I don't think there is any program that can convert a scanned PDF.
- Filehand Search. I found this nifty little program through one of the TechnoLawyer Mailing Lists. It finds files or documents on your computer when you can't recall something you wrote before, need to find it, and can't remember what file it's in. I usually search by a short phrase that I remembered writing for something or other, and Filehand comes up with the document and the excerpt from the file where the phrase was used. This works much much better than Windows XP search function, which is perfectly awful. And it's free -- can't beat that!
- TraxTime. It's not writing-related, but if you're a consultant, you need some way to keep track of your time on various projects. TraxTime has a punchclock that you click when beginning and ending work, and can generate various reports. I've used this program for many years. The only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't generate invoices. I've tried quite a few other programs that do generate invoices, but they either have too many bells and whistles, are too expensive, or are too complicated to use. So I've stuck with TraxTime.
Posted by Deborah at 6:51 AM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2004
My Latest Project
A few weeks ago I was wondering what I would be doing in October, since I didn't have anything lined up. Well, surprise surprise -- a nice new project has come my way, thanks to one of my international clients. I'll be starting on it tomorrow. This has worked out very nicely, since I've just finished my work on the DoD proposal. I've also just sent another client the draft of the final report that I've been working on for them. I'll have a few more things to do on that report, and then I will be done with it.
My new project involves another international proposal, and I'll be spending a couple of weeks overseas -- in India -- working on it. It's been over a year since I've done any international traveling. For many years, I spent 30-50% of my time traveling overseas in conjunction with my international development work. I've worked in nearly 30 countries. But after spending so much time in airports and planes, coming down with various intestinal ailments, and my body trying to figure out what time it was, I got tired of it. It's certainly not as glamorous as it sounds and after a while it gets kind of old.
But this is only one trip, and since it's pretty short, I've agreed to do it. Plus, the assignment overall -- both here and in India -- will last from now to around December 1, although I won't be working full time for all of those days.
I'm now waiting to get more specifics from my client and will be attending a kickoff meeting at their office tomorrow. So it looks like October will be a good month, workwise.
Posted by Deborah at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
October 8, 2004
Proposal Production Woes
I mentioned the other day that I was thankful that I wasn't involved in the production phase of the proposal that I just finished working on. Why? Because I hate production. It all sounds so easy: just copy or print your proposal, bind it up, and send it off. What could be simpler?
In my experience, production rarely goes smoothly. There always seems to be a glitch somewhere along the line. The copier jams, the printer won't print, pages are missing, pages are out of order, you don't have enough binders, etc., etc. Practially anything you can think of related to production can go wrong. And compounding the problem is the fact that production is often rushed because you are down to the wire and the proposal has to get in on time.
Here are some tips for reducing the number of production-related problems:
Pre-Production
- Make sure you have all supplies on-hand and that you know where they are. This includes extra printer cartridges, regular paper, letterhead paper, proposal covers, special appendix materials, tabs, binders and binding supplies, labels, envelopes or boxes, tape for packaging.
- Schedule or make sure there will be people available to assist with the production process -- copying, printing, assembling, reviewing.
- Get advance information on alternate sources of production such as a 24-hour Kinkos that you can turn to in an emergency.
- Try to organze the production process by ensuring that each person involved has a specific task to perfom.
- Make sure you know beforehand where the proposal is going and any special delivery instructions that you need to follow with respect to mailing or hand-delivery.
Post-Production
- Check all pages that will go into each binder. Are they in the right order? Are any pages missing? Are any pages upside down? Are all pages clear and readable?
- You will always find at least one page that has an error. If it's a major thing, try to fix it. If it's minor, let it go; it's likely that no one will notice.
Posted by Deborah at 6:15 AM | Comments (0)
October 6, 2004
What's Going On With Me
I've been keeping busy with a financial services proposal for one client and a final report for another.
The financial services proposal is due tomorrow, so we are in the process of finalizing, editing, and formatting. I met with my client on Monday to review where things stand and to decide upon next steps. Actually, the proposal is in pretty good shape at this point. Yesterday I reviewed the technical and management sections, made some changes, and sent both sections back to the client. I expect a call from them this morning, and then perhaps a little more work today to get things into final-final form so that production can begin this afternoon. Thankfully, I do not have to deal with production.
The final report is turning out to be a bit more complicated than I expected, but I'm continuing to plug away on it. I'm hoping to get it to my client on Friday, but may not finish until Monday.
I'm also hoping to hear from this same client today about a new project that we discussed last week. They may or may not go forward with it, but if they do, it will keep me quite busy for a while. If not, I will have a chance to catch up on some things here at home and a writing project that I've been working on with one of my colleagues.
Posted by Deborah at 7:17 AM | Comments (0)