Marketing Articles About Government

Marketing Articles About Government Search Results

Results for: government

67 items found:

How To Use Free Public Records Search . Public records are documents that people fill up when they need to make dealings with the government. While there are really many different types of these public records, each individual who needs to ... (09/05/08 09:00 PM)

The only viable solution to the nation's public infrastructure crisis is privatization..

As deficits impede the government from improving and repairing roads, bridges and airports, they are becoming increasingly amenable to the idea of a partnership with the private sector. Of late, big banks like Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse are starting to take an interest in financing massive infrastructure projects.

(09/05/08 09:00 PM)

Mad, Cloned Cows Fetter the Free Market. The world of livestock demonstrates the government’s mixed up free market–and food–policies: The New York Times (via Dean Baker) says that… …a federal appeals court has ruled that the government can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease. Because the Agriculture Department tests only a small percentage of cows for the deadly disease, [...] (09/02/08 09:01 PM)

The only viable solution to the nation's public infrastructure crisis is privatization. .

(08/30/08 09:00 PM)

The only viable solution to the nation's public infrastructure crisis is privatization..

(08/30/08 09:00 PM)

My Relationship With Apple Is Like My Relationship With The Republican Party.

Scott Converse has a wonderful post up titled Is Apple a Republican? After reading it, I pondered my relationship with Apple and realized that it is just like my relationship with the Republican Party - there are some things that theoretically appeal to me, but endless deal breakers that push me away and head fakes that leave me cynical.

If you are a long time reader of this blog, you know that every six months or so I try again. I go to the Apple store and buy whatever shiny new Mac toy there is. A G5 - yeah. A MacBook Pro. Sure. An iPhone - definitely. A MacBook Air. Yeah, this will be the one. After tens of thousands of dollars spent on Apple products, the only three I am using today are my Apple 30" Cinema Displays (I love them), my G5 in my office (which I'm running Vista on), and my iPhone 3G (which has now lasted three weeks notwithstanding the endless dropped calls and lack of Outlook Task synchronization.)

The Republicans promise me smaller government. Oops. Better fiscal policy (e.g. no deficits) - double oops. Distribution of power to state and local government. Um, yeah. Equality for all. Patriot act, immigration policy, wars, anyone. The list goes on. I've always described myself as "conservative fiscal policy, liberal social policy" where theoretically a "moderate Republican approach" would work for me.

Wrong. The big deal breaker for me is abortion. I couldn't ever vote for a pro-life president. Stay with me, you'll get the Apple analogy soon. There are plenty of others - war, immigration, protectionism, religion - but I still fantasize about that enlightened "conservative fiscal policy, liberal social policy."

Ironically, my friends the Democrats have always had the liberal social policy down and now appear to have a much better handle on the conservative fiscal policy side of it. I was a Reagan youth, but have voted Democrat ever since. And while many think I'm a hard core Democrat, I'm actually an Independent.

About the time I voted for Reagan, I had an original Mac. My first computer was an Apple II. I even had an Apple III for a while. My Mac had one floppy drive and 128k. I loved it even though it was basically useless. When I got my first IBM PC (two floppy disk drives, 64k) and started writing software on it (and making money with it) I became a PC / Microsoft user. My Apple fantasies continued unabated - every few years I'd buy another one and end up discarding it after a few weeks to go back to my PC. There were always "deal breakers."

The deal breaker for me with Apple for the past few years has been Microsoft Exchange support. Entourage 2004 was so inadequate that it never became an option for me and Entourage 2008 disappointed me so much that I punted. I don't really want to run Entourage - I want native Exchange support in all the Mac products. ActiveSync anyone?

I tried with the first iPhone - I really wanted to like it - but it just didn't get there for me. Remarkably, after resisting for many years, Apple finally licensed ActiveSync and integrated it into the iPhone 2.0 software. Voila - I dumped my Dash and am still using my iPhone 3G several weeks later.

But - Apple forgot one thing. Tasks. Apple syncs Mail and Calendar with Exchange, but not Tasks. For anyone that is a hard core Outlook user (like me) that manages to a zero inbox, Tasks are important. It's kind of like being pro-choice but being against birth control. Weird. Limiting. And intensely frustrating.

Third party apps are starting to appear that try to sync Tasks, but they are all weak. KeyTasks from Chapura seems to come the closest so far, but it's not server side sync (with Exchange) - you have to have a client side agent running. And of course, it doesn't have categories ("Category support coming soon.")

Theoretically wonderful, but always comes up short with a deal breaker. We didn't even get into religion yet, but ponder that as you think about the Cult of Mac vs. the PC / Microsoft.

I definitely have too much politics on the brain. I can't wait until 2009.

(08/28/08 09:01 AM)

2008 Technology Roundtable at the DNC.

I'm having my half day DNC experience this morning. At 10am I'm on a panel creatively titled 2008 Technology Roundtable. It's limited attendee (200 people at the Ricketson Theater) but appears to being broadcast live on the web.

It's an interesting experience. I really didn't want to deal with the traffic and people around the DNC, especially after running a marathon this weekend (and still being in a recovery phase), so I took advantage of my early wake up time and drove to downtown Boulder around 6:30. I'm now sitting all alone in the breakfast room (green room equivalent) waiting for them to pull together the coffee service. It's kind of tranquil in a weird way.

My session (one of three) - titled "Promoting the Next Wave of Innovation" - covers the following:

The second session will address the question of what strategies that the federal government can use to promote technological development and innovation. In particular, it will evaluate what public policies can best spur capital formation and protect the U.S. advantage in that area; what educations reforms, particularly as to math and science education, can prepare a next generation of engineers and business persons; and what innovation policies, be they support for basic research or patent law reform can spur greater levels of technological development.

My co-panelists are John Seely Brown (Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation), Charlie Ergen (CEO - Echostar), Bill Kennard (Carlyle Group, Former Chairman FCC), Honorable Zoe Lofgren (Congresswoman - U.S. House of Representatives), Don Rosenberg (General Counsel and EVP - Qualcomm), and David Thompson (Group President of Information Technology and Services - Symantec).

It'll either be really interesting or really dull. I'll work on "interesting" but I've been told "no swearing."

(08/26/08 09:01 AM)

"To build demand for hybrid vehicles, the government should implement tax incentives and not let fuel prices d. In an interview with Charlie Rose, General Motors Chairman and CEO, Rick Wagoner, discussed how upcoming Volts are to be priced. While final prices have not yet been decided upon, he indicated that they would probably be in the mid to upper 30s. He went on to underscore that he hopes the government will boost demand for hybrid vehicles by providing tax incentives, and also ensuring that fuel prices don't drop too far. (08/25/08 09:00 PM)

National security should preclude First Amendment rights when it comes to journalists handing over their records to the govern.

After the Federal Bureau of Investigation disclosed last week that they ?improperly? obtained reporters? phone records, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the ranking officials on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called for greater legal protection of journalists. The New York Times reports the senators? bill ?would limit the government?s ability to collect a reporter?s phone records and, in most cases, require a court to weigh the need for such material."

(08/13/08 09:00 PM)

Three Steps You Must Take After Being Accused of Something You Didn’t Do. Heroes star Hayden Panettiere’s father, Alan, was arrested today for hitting his wife. The International Federation of Journalists has accused the Chinese government of snooping. Two U. of Virginia students have been accused of plagiarism. Accusations, whether they’re accurate or not, happen all the time. Once in a while, they happen to us. We’re plodding along [...] (08/11/08 09:00 PM)

The U.S. Government should tax carbon emissions..

In a speech to the House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, George David, chairman of United Technologies Corp. said, "we need to say to our world that we are going to have a cost of carbon, whether it's cap-and-trade or a carbon tax.? He added that the cost of energy will be high for a long time.

(08/03/08 09:01 AM)

Big Belly Proves That Simple and Green Can Make You a Profit. Picture this. You’re a mid-level bureaucrat for the City of Philadelphia. You wear the same tie every day, drink government coffee, and cohabit with dust-covered stacks of housing applications. Like everyone, you’re facing the looming issue of No Money. Enter BigBelly Solar. Since 2003, these guys have been enticing government operations types with their solar-powered [...] (07/31/08 09:01 PM)

How to Avoid TMI in Email: When Less Is More. It starts simply. You're setting up fields for your email signup form and instead of grabbing just the basics for information, you start to wander: What if I got all the information I want up front? So then it begins: name, address, home number, work number, mobile number, bag phone number, AOL IM, Yahoo IM, favorite band, favorite station, favorite team. Suddenly, users are looking at a form worthy of governmental consideration. (07/29/08 09:01 AM)

???When the government buys up empty homes, it???s only helping lenders and speculators, not the people who need help.???.

President Bush has continually expressed his opposition to a housing bill that proposes to include $4 billion in grants for local governments to buy and refurbish foreclosed properties.

(07/25/08 09:01 PM)

Fast Talk Question - Should the federal government bring back the 55 MPH national speed limit to conserve gasoline?. Should the federal government bring back the 55 MPH national speed limit to conserve gasoline? (07/25/08 09:01 PM)

500 Square Miles of Forest In Montana To Be Permanently Protected.

I'm a huge believer in land conservation. I believe one of the best ways to protect our environment is to take wide swaths of land permanently out of circulation. I was delighted to read an article Amy forwarded me from the New York Times today titled Deal Is Struck in Montana to Preserve Forest Areas.

The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land have put together a deal to pay $510 million to buy about 500 square miles of forest currently owned by Plum Creek Timber. Half of the money will come from private donations; the other half will come from a new tax-credit bond mechanism that was recently passed. I'm delighted our government is spending - via a tax-credit bond - $250 million on land conservation. I'd like to allocate 50% of my taxes next year to stuff like that.

I've been involved directly in some land conservation; we have a conservation easement on all of our land in Eldorado Canyon, I am a trustee for the Colorado Conservation Trust, I'm a huge fan (and beneficiary) of all the Boulder and Boulder County Open Space activity, and I've been involved in several very contentious land use issues. The political and economical dynamics of public property rights, land use and development rights, and conservation are incredibly complicated and often extremely polarized.

It's gets especially messy in areas that are fragmented (or "checkerboarded") like the land in Montana. In these situations, the amount of work to figure out how to get all the land in one contiguous area into an actual deal can be mindboggling. The Nature Conservancy and Trust for Public Land are pros at this and it looks like they've pulled off something amazing this time around that will have long term benefits for a beautiful part of our country.

(07/06/08 09:00 AM)

The Latest Pile of Books.

It's summer time and I've once again been powering through a bunch of books. Amy and I are heading to our place in Homer, Alaska tomorrow where I'll likely continue my pace of at least a book a day. Look for regularly updates and quick reviews here. In the meantime, here's the latest set from the last week.

The Turnaround Kid: What I Learned Rescuing America's Most Troubled Companies: This is the autobiography of Steve Miller, a well known turnaround executive. He started his career at GM and progressed to be part of Lee Iacocca's turnaround team at Chrysler (he was the CFO). After Chrysler, he has been involved in a number of turnarounds including Federal-Mogul, Morrisson-Knudson, Bethlehem Steel, Waste Management, and Delphi. Miller is a guy that's not afraid of a Chapter 11 filing and appears to have skin as thick as the steel that Bethlehem Steel produced. Good business history, especially if you enjoy reading about difficult situations.

Marathon: The Ultimate Training Guide: This is an update of Hal Higdon's classic. I picked it up at the Grandma's Marathon Expo and wolfed it down. I got a few new ideas from it - if you are a marathoner - especially a beginning, or aspiring, one - it's definitely worth reading.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto: I read this one on a trip last week to Raleigh Durham (started on the flight out; finished on the flight back). As I ate my Balance Bar on the plane, I realized that everything that Michael Pollan was saying rang gigantic bells in my head. The first half of the book describes the devolution of "food" from "food" to "nutrients" and has a scathing analysis of how the food industry and our government have completely screwed the American diet. The second half of the book tells you what you can do about it. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That's what I'm going to do for all of July - let's see what happens when I combine that strategy with > 40 miles / week of running.

My Life on the Run: The Wit, Wisdom, and Insights of a Road Racing Icon: A few weeks ago Dan Gannon at Newmerix told me to start running Yasso 800's to get my marathon times down. At Grandma's as I was wandering around the Expo (apparently buying books) I ran into Bart Yasso. I mumbled in a semi-star struck way something about Yasso 800's and bought his book. I also bought a copy for Dan that he should have by now. Yasso is a fucking running maniac / hero / star. I have a new running idol. The book is a great story for anyone that likes to run.

Masters Running: A Guide to Running and Staying Fit After 40: Yeah - I picked this up at the Grandma's Expo also. I'm 42 so the subtitle (something about running over the age of 40) appealed to me. This book was a no-op - Higdon seems to have slapped this one together and didn't really do anything substantive. I got nothing from it. Oh well - two out of three ain't bad.

Fear & Greed: After all the running books, I needed some mental floss. I can't remember when / why I bought this book (or maybe someone sent it to me) but it had reached the top of the infinite pile of unread books. I got to page 100 before I quit - it should have been called "Dumb & Stupid" with a subtitle of "Poorly Written Mental Floss".

(06/30/08 09:00 PM)

The Emergence of Defensive Patent Commons.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article titled Tech Giants Join Together To Head Off Patent Suits. It describes the efforts of a new organization named Allied Security Trust who's goal is to "buy up key intellectual property before it falls into the hands of parties that could use it against them." The named companies that have joined Allied Security Trust are Verizon, Google, Cisco, Telefon, Ericsson, and HP.

Allied Security Trust appears to be an example of the emerging construct of a "patent commons". There are already a number of existing patent commons such as the Patent Commons Project aimed at protecting open source software.

There are two types of patent commons - offensive and defensive. So far the folks that have been putting together patent commons for potentially offensive purposes have kept a very low profile and often have denied publicly that they will use their patent portfolio's offensively. However, I've heard directly from a number of people involved in some of these organizations that the long term goal is to aggressively license the patent commons once it is large enough.

I'm not a fan of the offensive patent commons. However, I am a huge fan of the defensive patent commons. As I've written in the past, I strongly believe that the entire ecosystem around software patents is completely fubared. The courts - especially in the US - are poorly equipped to deal with the software patent issues and the USPTO has demonstrated that it's either not up to the task or unable structurally to change the way things work. Our government - especially Congress - has demonstrated that it lacks the political will to address the situation. And, while the Supreme Court has finally waded in with a few key decisions, it still has an extremely long way to go if it really wants to address the underlying issues.

Having studied this for the last few years, it's my strong belief that the software / computer industry has to solve the problem. Recently, I've been advocating the idea of defensive patent commons - ones that are organized by clusters of large companies - but open to all that are interested. There are lots of challenges in organizing this, including determining who can join, what the price of admission is, and what the ongoing costs of supporting the organization are, but these are solvable issues if the broad construct is adopted.

I'll reserve judgement on the Allied Security Trust until I learn more about it, but it seems like it's a step in the right direction if the brief description in the WSJ is accurate. A key indicator to me will be whether organizations like Allied Security Trust vow to only use their patents defensively. The absence of this will always raise suspicion that it's a veiled effort to create a mega-patent-troll or that unintended consequences might result from future activity.

Ultimately, a defensive patent commons is analogous to the idea of patent insurance, which is also starting to emerge. I think a defensive patent commons is ultimately going to be a more powerful mechanism if organized correctly, but the analogy is a useful one to understand better how a defensive patent commons might operate.

(06/30/08 09:00 AM)

Being First, The Economy Doesn't Matter, and The Origin of TechStars.

I've got three great posts for you this morning to interrupt the long essays that my marathon addled brain has been pumping out.

First Mover vs Fast Follower - Who wins? Don Dodge reprints a story he wrote three years ago about whether being first wins or being a fast follower wins. He adds some useful nuances for any entrepreneur (or VC) that is obsessed with the "we have to be first to market to win", "#1 takes most of the market, #2 takes the rest, and #3 to #n don't matter", and other such cliches.

The Downturn Is a Rounding Error: Since I'm not a macro guy, I didn't notice we were having an economic downtown. I guess I noticed that the price of gas was higher, but as Amy is fond of saying, "don't bother me about it until a gallon of gas costs more than a gallon of milk." Oops - getting close (I think Amy meant "organic milk.") Plus, our government is telling us that there is no "core inflation" (where "core inflation" doesn't include fuel or food.) Tom Peters helps us understand what he thinks really matters.

You gotta start somewhere: David Cohen posts an email to his business partner David Brown dated 2/08/06 that was the origin of TechStars. I checked my calendar and the first time I met David was at 4pm on 6/06/06. I find history to be fascinating.

(06/26/08 09:00 PM)

Proposal Planning Issues.

I met with my recompete #3 client yesterday to discuss how we are going to proceed with this bid. Recompete #3 is a fairly large and specialized government contract (in the hundreds of millions) that my client has held for many years. I've worked on every one of the proposals for this particular contract so I'm pretty familiar with it. In our first planning meeting yesterday we discussed a few issues that we are going to have to deal with fairly quickly.

How much material can we recycle? The RFP for this bid is very similar to the RFP that we responded to five years ago. There are some differences, but on the whole they are very much alike. This was not the case with past RFPs for this same project, which differed extensively each time. So some of the questions we are asking ourselves are: How much of the previous proposal can we recycle? Can we re-use entire sections or just paragraphs here and there? Should we focus on paraphrasing as opposed to just lifting pieces verbatim?

My client will be required to subcontract a substantial amount of work to small businesses. The small businesses that have been working on the current contract have become large and are no longer eligible to participate. So the following questions now arise: How can the project be divided up into discrete chunks that could be handled by various small business subcontractors? How many small businesses should be part of the bid? What will these small businesses be responsible for?

Finally, of course, there are the issues relating to proposal preparation. Who will be responsible for preparing each section of the technical proposal? How best to communicate and coordinate with those who will be working on the business proposal? Who will coordinate with the selected small business subcontractors and what specific role will they play in preparing the proposal?

Just a few of the typical questions that need to be addressed during the proposal planning stage.

(04/22/08 09:01 AM)

Workweek.

Is "workweek" one word or two? I think it used to be two, but has now morphed into one. Or maybe not. Anyway, there's a lot going on out here in proposal land. Over the weekend I finished up revising the Corporate Experience section of my law firm client's resubmission and e-mailed it to her. Due to the nature of that resubmission, my client ended up with over 400 pages that had to be scanned and put on a CD to send off to the government. She also needed to reproduce the entire proposal and submit a hard copy to accompany the CDs. It took her all weekend to get everything together and then, of course, the scanner broke down. I could have told her this would happen.

I'm now preparing the technical section of a DOD proposal for a long-time client. Much of it is similar to a proposal I helped prepare for her late last year, so I can recyle parts of it. But I still need to do some background research and gather information on the local market for a couple of categories of healthcare specialists. My client doesn't like to do this research, and neither do I. But I'm doing it anyway.

Then on Monday, re-compete #3 arrived. Oh joy. It is due at the end of May, so we have six weeks to work on it. My client sent me the RFP, which I haven't read yet. I did open the file, but when I saw that the RFP was over 125 pages, I closed it up without actually looking at it. Maybe I'll read it today. My client and I have been playing telephone tag, so we haven't talked about the proposal yet. But this assignment will keep me pretty busy for the next month and a half.

Then maybe I can take a little vacation.

(04/16/08 09:00 AM)

Government Grants and Free Money.

With the economy in bad shape like it is these days, many people are experiencing financial hardships. As a result, the scammers are out in force, advertising their books and CDs that promise free money from the government for everything from paying your bills to getting out of debt, and more.

I'm getting a boatload of emails from people who want me to help them write a letter to apply for a government free money grant. Many others write to say that they need the right form to apply for a grant or that they have written a proposal but don't know which government agency to send it to.

If you need help, you may be eligible for various types of government benefit programs, which are often called grants. Most of these programs are administered at the state and local levels. You don't need a special book to find them, and you don't need to write a letter or a proposal to apply. But you will probably have to meet certain income or other types of requirements, and you'll need to be realistic -- despite what the scammers and books tell you, the government is not going to give you a handful of free money to pay off your credit card bills.

Below is a list of categories of benefits and assistance offered by the government. You'll find this listing along with links to specific programs in your state as well as federal agency programs and other resources. Just click on the link to go to the website.

clipped from www.govbenefits.gov

Select categories of interest.

Select categories of interest. (Check all that apply)

Career Development Assistance Child care/Child support

Counsel/Counseling Disability assistance

Disaster relief Education/Training

Energy Assistance Food/Nutrition

Grants/Scholarships/Fellowships Healthcare

Housing Insurance

Living Assistance Loan/Loan repayment

Medicaid/Medicare Social Security

Tax Assistance Veterans-Active Duty

Volunteer opportunities

(04/14/08 09:00 AM)

What Evaluation Criteria Can Tell You.

Many government RFPs and RFAs tell you how your proposal will be evaluated. These evaluation criteria are often found in Section M, and may specify how you will be "graded" on each particular proposal section or subsection. Sometimes the criteria have points attached to them (e.g., Technical Approach-50 points, Key Personnel-30 points, Corporate Capabilities-20 points); other times the RFP/RFA will tell you that the criteria are listed in decending order of importantce.

While we all try to do as good a job as possible on all sections of our proposals, the evaluation criteria and their associated scoring systems can tell you some very important things:

Where to put your emphasis: if your technical approach will be worth 50 points and your corporate capabilities will be worth 20 points, you should plan on spending much more of your time preparing the technical approach than on preparing your coporate capabilities. You can have great capabilities, but if you do poorly on sections that are valued higher, the capabilities may not help you overcome the lower scores you receive on other, more important sections.

How to assign your proposal staff: Similarly, you may need to assign more personnel to work on the higher-scoring sections than on those that will be scored lower.

How to alllocate your pages. If the RFP/RFA does not specify the exact number of pages for each individual section, you can use the evaluation criteria as a guide. If your proposal will be a total of 50 pages, for example, then at least 25 of those pages should be devoted to your technical approach (50 pages x 50 points). This is a very broad measure, however, and you will need to strike the right balance between the number of pages and number of points depending on how much material will need to go in each section. But it is a starting place.

(04/10/08 09:00 AM)

Contending With Government Proposals.

There are some days when I wonder why I ever got into this business. Yesterday was one of those days. I spoke with my law firm client whom I hadn't heard from since the middle of last week. She has spent the past several days trying to figure out which of the personnel that her firm proposed a year ago for a government project actually have the qualifications that the government wants.

After hanging on to bidders' proposals FOR A FULL YEAR, the government finally contacted all of the bidders and asked them to submit revised proposals. Instead of telling each bidder exactly how their original proposal was deficient, the government apparently issued many of the same vague deficiency statements to all of them. So instead of saying something like this:

"John Smith does not appear to have 10 years of relevant work experience."

They have said something to the effect that:

"The team of people that your firm proposed for Task 1 do not have the required minimum qualifications. The team of people that your firm proposed for Task 2 do not have the required minimum qualifications. The team of people that your firm proposed for Task 3 do not have the required minimum qualifications..." And so on.

Moreover, in an amendment issued a year after proposals were submitted, the government set forth additional or revised qualifications that each category of personnel must have. They also changed the criteria for other (non-personnel) sections of the technical proposal. Then yesterday, the government issued another amendment that contained answers to bidders' questions and additional instructions on how to submit complete revised proposals.

It's all quite complicated and confusing and makes me wonder why any firm would want do business with the government when they have to put up with this nonsense.

Do you pay taxes? If you do, this is some of what you're paying for.

(04/08/08 09:01 AM)

Proposal Checklists.

Who likes checklists? Me -- I love them. I use checklists all the time for my proposal work. They are really the only way you can stay organized and remember all the different things that need to be done. I use checklists for pretty much everything, and I make checklists for others to use as well. Here are some of the the checklists I find most useful.

Overall Proposal Checklist. I created this checklist years ago and adapt it to many of the proposals I work on. It's a great starting place.

Personnel Checklist. If you're including more than just a few personnel in your proposal, you can use a checklist to keep track of all the personnel-related items that need to be gathered or completed for each individual -- resume, letter of commitment, blurb, salary and other cost-related information, etc.

Subcontractor Checklist. I often work on proposals involving several subcontractors and need to keep track of all the information that they are supposed to submit to the prime contractor -- resumes and other personnel information, capability statements, cost proposals, institutional letters of commitment, required forms, and other proposal-specific info.

Assignment Checklist. I use this to keep apprised of who is responsible for what section(s) of a proposal, how far along it is, and when it is due.

Right now, I'm working with a client to make revisions to a previously-submitted proposal and respond to questions posed by the government. To do this, we need to go through and make necessary changes to the qualifications and resumes that were previouly submitted for perhaps 50 or so people. It's a very tedious task. So I created a checklist/matrix for my client that contains all the categories of personnel and the specific qualifications that each individual is required to possess. It won't make the task any less tedious, but it will make it a lot easier.

I can't imagine doing a proposal without checklists.

(04/03/08 09:01 AM)

Private Bid Notification Services.

In addition to the government's bid notification services from FedBizOpps and Grants.gov, there are many private firms that provide these types of services. You can find some of these firms by doing a Google search on phrases such as "find RFPs" and "bid notification."

Although you have to pay for it, there are several advantages to using a private bid notification service:

Many of these services can also provide you with information on solicitations issued by state and local governments. While more and more state and local governments are putting their bid opportunities on the Internet, not all of them have geared up to do this.
Since FedBizOpps and Grants.gov may not cover all all bureaus and departments within each federal agency, you may be able to get access to these bureaus' bid opportunities via a private service rather than having to search for them by going to individual websites.
If you are interested in seeing bid opportunities at two or three levels -- federal, state and/or local -- you can may be able to receive these opportunities via daily e-mails or through online access. This can be a real time-saver.

One of the private serices that has been around for a long time is Bidnet (see clip below), which offers customizable packages to meet your specific needs and interests. However, since Bidnet is only one of many private services, it will probably be worth your while to research and compare these services with respect to their prices and offerings.

clipped from bidnet.com

With BidNet, you will have access to Government Bids from thousands of Federal, State and Local agencies, and see bid opportunities you won't find anywhere else. Our diverse network of agencies will give you the competitive intelligence needed to compete effectively for the nation's largest buyer of goods and services - governments across the nation and right in your hometown.

(04/02/08 09:02 AM)

Government Grants Notification Service.

When I wrote earlier about the FedBizOpps notification service for contracts, I should have mentioned that the Grants.gov website has a similar service for government grants. To sign up, go to the Grants.gov site and click on Grant Email Alerts on the right side of the page. You can then sign up to receive one or more of the following types of emails:

Updates to the website.
All grant notices.
Grant notices that you select based on specific criteria.
Grant notices by funding opportunity number.

These notifications are great timesavers because you don't have to keep going to the Grants.gov or FedBizOpps website to find or track the bid opportunities you are interested in. Instead, they come right to your mailbox.

(03/31/08 09:00 AM)

FedBizOpps Notification Service.

If you do business with the federal government or if you want to get into government contracting, you probably know about FedBizOpps or the Federal Business Opportunities website. FedBizOpps is where most, but not all, government agencies post procurement notices for goods and services valued at over $25,000.

At the website, you can look up procurement notices by specific agencies or you can search for them by key words or other criteria. If you find a procurement notice that interests you, you can sign up to receive e-mail notification when, for instance, a full solicitation is released or when an amendment is issued for that particular product or service. When I'm working on a proposal for a client, I always look it up on FedBizOpps and sign up for it so that I'm notified when an amendment comes out.

You can also sign up to be notified of all solicitations or synopses issued by a particular agency. For example, since I am interested in USAID contracts, I get an e-mail nearly every day that lists all new USAID synopses and solicitations that have been posted by that agency.

To sign up for the FedBizOppos notification service, go to the website and click on Vendor Notification Services on the right-hand side, under "Related Links." You'll then be taken to a page where you can select from the following options:

One of the problems with this notification service is that there is no option to receive notifications by key words. So, if I am interested only in USAID contracts that relate to HIV/AIDS, I can't tell FedBizOpps to just send me notices that have something to do with that topic. Instead, I receive all notices about USAID contracts, whether or not they pertain to HIV/AIDS.

One way to get around this problem is to sign up with a private bid notification service. That will be the topic of my next post.

(03/27/08 09:00 AM)

How Long Does it Take....

for a relatively small government contract to be awarded? The answer is: it can take a verrry long time.

One of my clients sent me an e-mail yesterday. The client is a law firm that does some very specialized work for the government. I've assisted them with their proposals on a number of occasions. The last time I worked with them was last March and April, on a proposal that was due in April 2007. Hadn't heard a word from them since, which is not unusual. Clients don't always inform me about the outcomes of their bids.

Anyway, out of the blue comes the e-mail. It says that my client has finally been contacted by the government agency and that they were notified that all of the proposals submitted by bidders contained some kind of fatal error. So the government will now be giving all all bidders an opportunity to submit corrected or revised proposals.

I don't know what this fatal error is, but if all of the bidders made this same error, it would seem to me that the government screwed something up. And to allow a year to go by before leting everyone know -- well, that is pretty outrageous.

I've just finished with recompete #2. So I agreed to help my law firm client with their revised proposal. Somehow I'll have to fit it in between working on recompete #3. And oh joy, the manual has now landed back on my desk again for more changes, additions, etc. This will supposedly be the final, final version. We'll see.

Just when I thought I could take a little break.

(03/21/08 09:00 AM)

Mystery Solved!.

The other day, I wrote about some of the top websites that refer people to my site. One of those sites is the US House of Representatives, which has been sending people to my Guestbook page for quite some time. Well, yesterday I decided to try to find out where on the House site the link to my own site is listed.

It took me only a few seconds to find it using Google. I searched for "US House of Representatives government grants" and the first site listed on the search results was this one: Federal Funds Express - a site I'd never seen before. But apparently a lot of other people have.

Federal Funds Express may be a good place to start looking for government grants and other sources of funds, but it's not really an in-depth resource. However, there are some good links on the site (including mine, of course), which in turn can lead to other good resources. Links are listed under the following categories:

How to get and manage grants
Federal charitable and corporate sources of grants
Resources to help small businesses
State and local government funding, data resources and disaster assistance
Educational resources for students, schools and colleges
Property, surplus, donated and unclaimed
Family issues: health, housing and consumer protection

The website hasn't been updated since October 2007, but you may still find some good sources of information there. I checked a few of the links, but didn't have time to check them all.

I'm thinking about sending an e-mail to the Webmaster asking him or her to direct people to a page on my site other than my guestbook. But maybe it would be best to leave it as is.

(03/20/08 09:01 AM)

Referrals From Great Sites.

Every once in a while I take a look at the Google Analytics reports for my website. These reports provide detailed statistics about the number and type of visitors to a site, where they came from, what pages they visited, etc. The reports contain a lot of data and take a while to review, which is why I only look at them occasionally.

But one of the reports I do like to look at is the Referring Sites Report, which indicates which sites referred people to my site via a link. And if you are interested in grants (both government and non-government grants), grantwriting, or grant research, you'll want to take a look at some of the websites that send the most visitors to Proposalwriter.com . Among my top 10 referring sites are:

The Grants Information Collection at the University of Wisconsin. This fabulous site has a wealth of information on grants, funding, and other related topics. I'm delighted to say that they link to my site on four different pages. They have consistently been my #1 referral site.
My #2 referral site is The Foundation Center, which sends visitors to my site via links on 3 of their many pages. If you want grant-related information from the nation's leading authority on non-profits, The Foundation Center's site is one of the first places you should investigate.
The third site that sends the most visitors to my site is the US House of Representatives. Somewhere among the its many pages there has been a link to my site for several years. Except I don't know where it is, and oddly enough the link is to my Guestbook. I've never taken the time to try to figure out how people get to my site from this site.
#9 on the list is the University of Michigan's Proposal Writing Help Page, which of course contains info and links on proposal writing.

In addition to Google Analytics, I use Google Webmaster Tools to find out how many other sites have links to mine. At present, Webmaster Tools shows that there are over 4,100 external links from other sites to the various pages on my site. But this number seems to include quite a few dupicates, so it's hard to tell what the real number is.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty satisfied.

(03/06/08 09:01 AM)

Submitting Questions (Cont'd).

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of submitting questions as part of the proposal development process. One of the things that I mentioned was the need for the Proposal Manager to review the list of compiled questions before they are submitted to the government. This review is critical because you want to make sure that the questions you submit don't hint at or give away any information about the approach you are planning to take in your technical or cost proposal. So, for example, you would not want to say something like: "in our technical approach, we would like to propose an additional task that focuses on blah blah blah. Will this be acceptable to the government?" A question like this will only serve to give other bidders some good ideas that they may not have thought of before they saw your question.

Here are some additional points to be aware of when you submit questions on a government RFP or RFA:

When responding to the questions, the government does not identify the person or organization that submitted each question.
All questions and answers will be seen by all bidders, which is why the point I made in the first paragraph is important. The government usually issues an amendment to the RFP/RFA which contains all of the questions and answers. Anyone can read it.
Some prospective bidders may submit a long list of questions -- many of them unnecessary -- in the hopes that it will take the government a long time to answer them and then extend the due date for the proposal. This strategy can sometimes work, but it can also backfire, meaning that no extension will be granted. Don't count on it.
Don't put off working on your proposal while you are waiting for your questions to be answered. You can always make changes to your proposal based on the questions and answers, but you can't always catch up because you sat around and waited. Just keep going.

(03/05/08 09:01 AM)

Submitting Questions.

For the proposal I'm working on now, we are in the process of compiling a list of questions that will be submitted to the government.

Most government RFPs and RFAs will allow bidders to submit questions related to the content of the specific RFP and RFA. But there is usually a cut-off date for submitting questions and after that date, any questions you submit may not be answered.

The compilation and submission of questions is an important step in the proposal process. You can submit questions on just about anything in the RFP or RFA -- the content of the technical proposal, the content of the cost proposal, the instructions, contract clauses, etc. The way it usually works is that the Proposal Manager asks everyone involved in preparing the proposal to carefully review the RFP/RFA and identify statements or requirements that they don't understand, or that are contradictory, or that may require additional explanation from the government. When all the questions are compiled, the Proposal Manager reviews them and decides which questions should be submitted.

To make it easier for the government to answer your questions, it's a good idea to cite the page number and/or item number in the RFP or RFA that your question relates to. Therefore, the format of each of your questions might be as follows:

In the instructions on page 45, item L.8, the RFP states that bidders should submit 3 copies of their proposal. However, page 1 of the cover letter indicates that 4 copies of the proposal should be submitted. Please advise how many copies we should submit.

More on this topic tomorrow.

(03/04/08 09:01 AM)

It's Not About Proposal Writing, But....

a couple of weeks ago I was contacted by CNN Money/Fortune about an article they were preparing for Fortune Small Business on "Funding Sources for Women and Minorities." I gave them some info and resources on government grants and other sources of money and then promptly forgot about it. The author didn't contact me to let me know that the article had been published -- I only found out about it through some referral links from the article to my website.

If you'd like to read it, the article is here.

Oh, and they spelled my name wrong. You'd think that the author or editors would check this sort of thing. But I guess not.

(03/03/08 09:01 AM)

More on Re-Competed Contracts.

You might think that incumbents who will be bidding on a re-competed contract have advance knowledge of the ways in which the new RFP will be different from the old RFP. After all, they are currently performing the contract and hopefully have good relationships with government technical and contracting officers who might just give them a little advance information about the new RFP. But this is not always the case.

It's definitely not the case in the three re-competed bids that I am working on. For the food services contract I mentioned the other day, the government has split the current contract into two separate contracts to be bid: one contract for each of the two government facilities where the food services will be provided. Currently, my client is providing these services to the two facilities under one contract. The government has also substantially changed their menu requirements. So what does that mean for my client and me? More work on the proposal than we anticipated. In addition to addressing the changes in technical requirements, we have to prepare and submit two separate proposals.

The RFP for the second re-compete that I'm working on also has some substantial changes from the previous RFP, none of which were known in advance by my client. Fortunately, they have already begun preparations to deal with these new requirements. My third client is also anticipating major changes in the RFP when it is released (we not sure when this will be). But they don't know what those changes will be or how much more work it will take to address them.

Changes from one RFP to the next can occur because the government believes that improvements can be made in the way that work is currently being performed, or because they are not getting the outcomes and results they had anticipated. Other times, they make changes to an RFP because they have less (or more) money to spend. And sometimes, my clients and I think that they make the changes just to make life more difficult for us.

So non-incombents take heart. You're not always the only ones who aren't in the know about what's coming down the pike.

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

First Reading of RFP.

Last night I got around to looking at the RFP for one of the re-competed contracts. Many people, when they first get their hands on an RFP or RFA, begin reading from the first page. They start with the cover sheet/cover letter, go on to the pricing forms in Section B, the scope-of-work in Section C, the Representations and Certifications, the incomprehensible list of government contract clauses, and so forth. By the time they get to the end, they often have no idea of what they have just read.

This isn't the way that I do it. Whenever I get an RFP or RFP, I immediately go to the back of the document. I don't even care what the subject matter of the RFP is. The first thing that I read is the Instructions to Offerors (bidders), which is often in Section L. This tells me a lot about the work that will need to be done -- how many pages the proposal will be, the type and extent of information that will be required in the technical and cost volumes, how that information should be organized, the deadline for submitting questions, whether the proposal will need to be submitted electronically or via mail or courier service, etc. Even after reading this stuff, I still don't know what the RFP/RFA is about. But at this point, I don't care.

After reading the Instructions, I immediately go to the Evaluation Criteria which often follows the Instructions. This tells me how the proposal will be evaluated by the government -- the number of points will be given to each section of the proposal, what the most important elements of the proposal will be, and any further elaborations on the Instructions that I just read.

Next, I go to Section H, which is sometimes called "Special Requirements" or something similar. Section H is often overlooked. But it shouldn't be, because this is where the government often hides important stuff. Things like insurance requirements, special security requirements, and the like.

Finally, finally, finally, I am ready to read the Scope-of-Work in Section C and to look at the pricing forms in Section B. All the stuff in the other sections can wait until later...

Try this technique in the next RFP or RFA that you receive and see if it doesn't give you a better sense of what's going on and what you'll have to do to prepare.

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Hour by Hour?.

I'm plugging along on the NIH proposal. I would say that I have about 75% of the Management Plan done so far and will hopefully complete the first draft by the end of the week.

In a conference call with my client yesterday we discussed the other sections. My client is basically handling the entire Personnel section. In addition to having to recruit Key Personnel, my client will have to fill out a lot of different personnel and staffing-related forms that are contained in the RFP. One look at these forms and you would almost want to run away from this bid. The forms require lots and lots of detailed info.

My client is going to start sending me some material and information that I can use in preparing the Technical Approach section. If the Management Plan alone is going to be 50+ pages, then the Technical section is likely to be 100+ pages. Details, details, details.

Here's an example of the extent of the detail required. I have never seen this before in an RFP. One of the subsections of the Technical Approach is a phase-in plan, where we have to discuss how my client will take over parts of project from an incumbent contractor. That's OK -- I have written quite a few phase-in plans. But in addition to the normal stuff we have to address in that subsection, the RFP says that we have to "detail every hour of proposed Government assistance as completely as possible."

Wha? Are they kidding? I can't even detail what I do every hour of my own day much less what the Government would do. What would they do? Stand around? Have meetings? Talk on the phone? Take coffee breaks? Nap? Have lunch? This is nuts.

I've just got to wonder who in NIH thought this one up. See what I mean by wanting to run away? Looks like there will be more than the usual amount of fictional writing here.

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Weather Watching and More.

I'm supposed to go to Virginia early this afternoon to meet with one of my re-compete clients who is in town for some other business. But here in the Washington, DC area, they are calling for bad weather -- some snow and possibly an ice storm. Right now, at 5 AM, it seems to be sleeting. No way am I going to travel with ice on the roads. So I'll be watching the weather closely to see how things go. I suspect that I'll be staying in today and talking with my client by phone.

I also have to start work on one of the other re-compete proposals that is due on the 28th. I've put it off because it is very similar to the prior proposal that I worked on three years ago. But still, there will be some changes. This particular proposal is for food services for a local government agency -- operating a cafeteria and coffee bar, and providing as-needed catering services for special functions. It is kind of interesting because, as part of the proposal, my client has to submit a detailed menu and prices for each of these services.

I've been doing work for this client for a number of years. She's a wonderful client except for one thing -- she doesn't use a computer or e-mail. Instead, she comes to my office to bring me RFPs, review and pick-up the proposals I've prepared for her, and drop off or discuss anything else needed for the proposals. It would just be so much easier if we could e-mail things back and forth. But she has no time or interest in learning how to use a computer, so this is the way things have worked for the past five years or so. On the other hand, when she comes to my office, she often brings yummy food that she's made.

I'm hoping for some bulgogi when I see her next week.

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Done and Gone.

The food services proposal is finished and gone from my office. I'm not exactly sure why, but we decided to put it together here so that my client could deliver it to the government in the morning. She got here around 4 PM yesterday and we spent a couple of hours making changes to the text. Then for the next two hours we printed out a total of 16 copies of two separate proposals each of which was over 100 pages (she had brought copies of the cost proposal separately).

We stuck them in binders, inserted a few dividers, and they were done and ready to go. Amazingly, there were no serious glitches. She loaded them up in her car and took them home. But not before she paid me on the spot, as she always does.

What's not to like about a client who gives you immediate gratification via an immediate payment?

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Keeping Up (Not).

I'm behind with everything, and this blog seems to get pushed down on my priority list. I don't want it to, but even so, I just can't seem to find the time to get the blogging done. Still, people keep reading it and signing up for my subscription notification form. So now I feel guilty for not writing anything here for a while.

I have been bogged down with work and more work. First, I finished the little sole source proposal that I wrote about earlier. My client submitted it to the federal agency, which liked the proposal but didn't like the cost. So my client is having to revise his numbers and re-submit. One of my colleagues, a CPA who specializes in government costing, is working with him on this. My client is certain to get the contract, but not before the feds make him jump through a few more hoops.

Second, I've been working on a USAID proposal. Somehow, I got assigned to prepare the largest section of that proposal and it took longer than I anticipated (no surprise there). As soon as I finished it, USAID issued a one-week extension. My client is happy to have this extension, but I'm not because it means that I might have to do more work. I'm waiting to hear from them maybe today. In the meantime...

I've moved on to starting yet another assignment that I put off because I had to finished the USAID stuff. This is what I am behind on now. It is a very large proposal for NIH -- a services project, not a research project. The technical section consists of 5 separate volumes: Personnel, Technical Approach, Management Plan, Past Performance and Work Samples. I'm almost done with the Management Plan and it is about 50 pages in length. My client is working on the Personnel Section, and I am going to have to move on to the Technical Approach section probably beginning tomorrow. NIH wants lots and lots of details about everything, and there are no page limits to any of the volumes.

So, I just continue to plod along here in my little world of proposals. Sometimes I wonder how I ever thought that this would be a good career. A lot of people think it is, but frankly I'm not sure. It's a good career if you want to be under a lot of stress all the time and if you like having one deadline after another -- deadlines that rarely slip. Ugh, I can't really even think about it right now because I have to get back to my writing. I have a conference call with my NIH client later this morning.

Later...

(03/01/08 09:01 AM)

Done and Gone.

What's not to like about a client who gives you immediate gratification via an immediate payment?

(02/28/08 09:01 AM)

More on Re-Competed Contracts.

So non-incombents take heart. You're not always the only ones who aren't in the know about what's coming down the pike.

(02/25/08 09:01 AM)

Weather Watching and More.

I'm hoping for some bulgogi when I see her next week.

(02/22/08 09:01 AM)

Free Help With Government Contracting.

Are you an entrepreneur? If you are, you can get FREE assistance to help you learn about government contracting and how to sell your products and services to this huge market. My guest blogger, Kurtis Clark, gives you the scoop.

Most small businesses don’t realize the tremendous opportunities there are to contract with Federal, State, and local government entities. Although selling to the government can be more challenging than selling to the general public or even to other businesses the sheer size of this market justifies at least looking into the potential. Last year, all levels of government combined purchased a staggering amount of goods and services. Experts estimate that figure to be over $1 trillion. Where can you find assistance to help you break into the complex world of selling to the government? Several excellent sources of free assistance are available.

The Small Business Development Center program (SBDC) is a nationwide network of independent centers funded in part by the U.S. SBA. They have counselors who can help business owners complete application and registration forms and deal with the bureaucratic process. Counselors usually know local agency procedures, which agencies are preparing for large construction projects, and may even know many of the persons responsible for local government purchasing. All SBDC’s offer free consulting services and low-cost training classes. Most SBDC offices host annual or bi-annual government contracting seminars often in conjunction with government procurement experts free of charge. Check with your local SBDC for upcoming seminars in your area. For a listing of local SBDC offices visit the SBA website.

One of these experts and another excellent source of assistance are Procurement Technical Assistance Centers or PTAC’s. They are located throughout the country, with many of the larger states having multiple offices. These Centers are funded by the Department of Defense but most offer assistance on state, local and federal procurement opportunities. Several excellent websites for Federal procurement information are Business.Gov and FedBizOpps. Also check our Deborah’s small business page for excellent information on programs for disadvantaged-, minority-, women-, and veteran-owned business procurement opportunities.

Kurtis Clark is the Director of the Alliance Small Business Development Center, one of 5 SBDC’s in the U/C Merced Regional SBDC network. The network serves a 15-county area in Central California and last year assisted over 3,000 business entrepreneurs.

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Small Diadvantaged and Women-Owned Businesses.
If you are interested in government contracts and you're a small disadvantaged business, you might want to look into certification. At the federal level, you can apply for certification through the Small Business Administration (SBA) website. For certification at the state level, you will need to contact your state government to find out which department provides certification services. There are also companies that will (for a fee), help you prepare and submit your certification application.

Even though the federal government has what they call "size standards" for small businesses, most of us pretty much know what a small business is. Small disadvantaged businesses -- often called minority businesses -- are a different story, and many people and companies are not really aware of what constitutes a minority business. The same goes for a women-owned business.

As defined by the SBA, a small disadvantaged or minority business is one that is "owned and controlled by one or more socially and economically disadvantaged individuals who are of good character and citizens of the United States." This means that at least 51% of the company must be owned by person(s) who are considered to be disadvantaged. Socially disadvantaged or minority groups include Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Pacific Americans and other groups specifically designated by the SBA. In addition to being a member of one of these groups and owning 51% or more of the business, you must demonstrate that you are also economically disadvantaged; that is, your net worth cannot exceed $250,000 (excluding equity in the business and in your home).

The federal government does not consider women to be a minority group (hey, don't yell at me - I don't make the rules). If you're a women-owned business and want to bid on a federal contract or be a subcontractor on one, you can self-certify your business. To be eligible as a woman-owned business for this purpose, your business must be 51% owned by one or more women. It is possible to obtain formal certification as a woman-owned business at the state level -- again you need to contact the appropriate office in your state to get information on this.

Clear as mud? Probably not. Head over to the SBA's website for more information:

Small Disadvantaged Business Programs and Frequently Asked Questions .

Office of Women's Business Ownership and Frequently Asked Questions.

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

First Reading of RFP.
Last night I got around to looking at the RFP for one of the re-competed contracts. Many people, when they first get their hands on an RFP or RFA, begin reading from the first page. They start with the cover sheet/cover letter, go on to the pricing forms in Section B, the scope-of-work in Section C, the Representations and Certifications, the incomprehensible list of government contract clauses, and so forth. By the time they get to the end, they often have no idea of what they have just read.

This isn't the way that I do it. Whenever I get an RFP or RFP, I immediately go to the back of the document. I don't even care what the subject matter of the RFP is. The first thing that I read is the Instructions to Offerors (bidders), which is often in Section L. This tells me a lot about the work that will need to be done -- how many pages the proposal will be, the type and extent of information that will be required in the technical and cost volumes, how that information should be organized, the deadline for submitting questions, whether the proposal will need to be submitted electronically or via mail or courier service, etc. Even after reading this stuff, I still don't know what the RFP/RFA is about. But at this point, I don't care.

After reading the Instructions, I immediately go to the Evaluation Criteria which often follows the Instructions. This tells me how the proposal will be evaluated by the government -- the number of points will be given to each section of the proposal, what the most important elements of the proposal will be, and any further elaborations on the Instructions that I just read.

Next, I go to Section H, which is sometimes called "Special Requirements" or something similar. Section H is often overlooked. But it shouldn't be, because this is where the government often hides important stuff. Things like insurance requirements, special security requirements, and the like.

Finally, finally, finally, I am ready to read the Scope-of-Work in Section C and to look at the pricing forms in Section B. All the stuff in the other sections can wait until later...

Try this technique in the next RFP or RFA that you receive and see if it doesn't give you a better sense of what's going on and what you'll have to do to prepare.

(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Hour by Hour?.
I'm plugging along on the NIH proposal. I would say that I have about 75% of the Management Plan done so far and will hopefully complete the first draft by the end of the week.

In a conference call with my client yesterday we discussed the other sections. My client is basically handling the entire Personnel section. In addition to having to recruit Key Personnel, my client will have to fill out a lot of different personnel and staffing-related forms that are contained in the RFP. One look at these forms and you would almost want to run away from this bid. The forms require lots and lots of detailed info.

My client is going to start sending me some material and information that I can use in preparing the Technical Approach section. If the Management Plan alone is going to be 50+ pages, then the Technical section is likely to be 100+ pages. Details, details, details.

Here's an example of the extent of the detail required. I have never seen this before in an RFP. One of the subsections of the Technical Approach is a phase-in plan, where we have to discuss how my client will take over parts of project from an incumbent contractor. That's OK -- I have written quite a few phase-in plans. But in addition to the normal stuff we have to address in that subsection, the RFP says that we have to "detail every hour of proposed Government assistance as completely as possible."

Wha? Are they kidding? I can't even detail what I do every hour of my own day much less what the Government would do. What would they do? Stand around? Have meetings? Talk on the phone? Take coffee breaks? Nap? Have lunch? This is nuts.

I've just got to wonder who in NIH thought this one up. See what I mean by wanting to run away? Looks like there will be more than the usual amount of fictional writing here.
(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

It's Done.
I finished my book proposal. Actually, it's not totally "my" proposal, since the book (if it ever comes about) will be written by me and a long-time colleague and friend. So we worked on it together and sent it off yesterday. We thought it looked pretty good, but what do we know? Neither of us has ever written a book proposal. It will be interesting to see what happens. I suspect it will be a while before we hear anything

This is a really busy time of year for us proposal people. The government's fiscal year ends on September 30, so agencies are often in a rush to spend their money. Thus, the release of many RFPs. I am getting numerous e-mails every day from people who need proposal help and, as usual, they are waiting until the last minute to get that help. I am already swamped with work, so I'm taking on very few new projects. In addition, I'm still waiting for three RFPs from two clients that I've committed time to. Plus, in a couple of weeks I'll be starting on the next phase of my workplan project. In the middle of all this, I'll be taking a few days off to go to Maine with my husband who will be attending a conference there. Lobster!!

Yesterday, a client who I haven't heard from for about 5 years called. In fact, she called four times. I wasn't answering the phone because I was working on the book proposal and didn't want to be interrupted. But she left messages. Apparently she needs a proposal done for a local government agency here in Maryland -- pretty much the same kind of thing that I've helped her with before. But she is somewhat difficult to work with, and with my current workload I don't know if I will really have the time. Still, I hate saying "no" to existing clients, although I'm not sure I would consider her an existing client after a gap of 5 years.

I just need to have more hours in a day.
(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Keeping Up (Not).
I'm behind with everything, and this blog seems to get pushed down on my priority list. I don't want it to, but even so, I just can't seem to find the time to get the blogging done. Still, people keep reading it and signing up for my subscription notification form. So now I feel guilty for not writing anything here for a while.

I have been bogged down with work and more work. First, I finished the little sole source proposal that I wrote about earlier. My client submitted it to the federal agency, which liked the proposal but didn't like the cost. So my client is having to revise his numbers and re-submit. One of my colleagues, a CPA who specializes in government costing, is working with him on this. My client is certain to get the contract, but not before the feds make him jump through a few more hoops.

Second, I've been working on a USAID proposal. Somehow, I got assigned to prepare the largest section of that proposal and it took longer than I anticipated (no surprise there). As soon as I finished it, USAID issued a one-week extension. My client is happy to have this extension, but I'm not because it means that I might have to do more work. I'm waiting to hear from them maybe today. In the meantime...

I've moved on to starting yet another assignment that I put off because I had to finished the USAID stuff. This is what I am behind on now. It is a very large proposal for NIH -- a services project, not a research project. The technical section consists of 5 separate volumes: Personnel, Technical Approach, Management Plan, Past Performance and Work Samples. I'm almost done with the Management Plan and it is about 50 pages in length. My client is working on the Personnel Section, and I am going to have to move on to the Technical Approach section probably beginning tomorrow. NIH wants lots and lots of details about everything, and there are no page limits to any of the volumes.

So, I just continue to plod along here in my little world of proposals. Sometimes I wonder how I ever thought that this would be a good career. A lot of people think it is, but frankly I'm not sure. It's a good career if you want to be under a lot of stress all the time and if you like having one deadline after another -- deadlines that rarely slip. Ugh, I can't really even think about it right now because I have to get back to my writing. I have a conference call with my NIH client later this morning.

Later...
(02/21/08 09:01 PM)

Parallels: Investment Portfolios | Marketing Portfolios.
As many a marketing manager and media planner turns their focus to 2008 (in fact, I'm better that a fair number of you have already turned in some preliminary budget numbers for '08, if not your entire budget and marketing plan) we're all challenged with where we're going to allocate dollars for our anticipated returns and ROI.

An intriguing post over at Get Rich Slowly and a story on NPR about David Swensen, who, for the past 21 years been Yale Universityâ??s investment portfolio manager, garnering an average 16 percent annual return! This is astonishing in that most of us are fortunate to sneak by with an average 7 percent across our investment and retirement stockpiles.

What's more interesting is the connection that's made in the blog post between what David feels is a intuitively balanced portfolio and the types of index funds (ETF - Exchange Traded Funds) that the everyman (or woman) could safely invest in and secure a comfortable return.

The chart below represents Swensena's basic formula for creating an investment portfolio likely to give you good returns while still managing risk: (via Get Rich Slowly)

This got me to thinking, what's your marketing portfolio look like? When you look at how Swensen's investment percentages break down with 20% in Real Estate and another 5% in Emerging Markets, I can't help but think that there are parallels in our marketing portfolio to things like brand building and awareness (long-term, stability investments) and new media and social media (emerging markets, high risk, potential for high return) and the list goes on..

ACTION ITEM: What's your marketing portfolio look like? Do you have enough invested in stable, slow growth areas like branding and awareness building for the long term or have your been bit by the latest marketing trend bug and shifted your investments into higher-risk marketing vehicles? Are you investing enough in customer retention, referral and reactivation like we invest in government bonds to renew our country or have those areas fallen out of favor because of their seemingly modest returns?

Take another look at your marketing portfolio before the ink dries on next year's budget!

(10/04/07 09:01 PM)

IAC Ditches DoubleClick (Google) for Atlas (Microsoft). Atlas Cabbage Originally uploaded by Protagonist Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp (IACI) is dropping DoubleClick as a supplier of online ads for its properties like Citysearch, Evite, and Match.com. Instead, it's going with Atlas, a division of aQuantive to serve up ads to its collective audience of 60 million people. DoubleClick, of course, might be sold to Google (GOOG), if the deal can pass the government's scrutiny. And aQuantive is being bought by Microsoft (MSFT). Losing the IAC account cannot be going over too well at Google HQ. But with IAC also owning competing search engine Ask.com, what did they expect? Barry Diller picked his poison, and decided he is better off helping Microsoft than Google.... (08/02/07 09:00 PM)

What Will You Ask On The CNN-YouTube Debates?. Tonight's questions for the Democratic presidential debate on CNN will all come in the form of YouTube videos. Whether this comes off as a leap forward in participatory democracy (and participatory media) or just as a stunt will depend on how good the videos are. Most of the nearly 3,000 videos uploaded so far simply show someone sitting at a desk or in their living rooms asking a question. That is not going to make for good TV. But some uploaders have been a little more creative. I've picked a few questions I'd like to see tonight. Here's a good one about Iraq: Here's one that uses cleverly-edited CNN footage to ask a question about government surveillance: Here's one in the form of a music video, asking, Who would you pick as your running mate?:... (07/23/07 09:01 PM)

Government regulates sneezing. John points us to: FTC Moves to Unmask Word-of-Mouth Marketing - washingtonpost.com. It asks more questions than it answers, but maybe it will put transparency a little higher on the agenda. One sure winner: lawyers.... (12/13/06 09:01 AM)

Free Help With Government Contracting.
Are you an entrepreneur? If you are, you can get FREE assistance to help you learn about government contracting and how to sell your products and services to this huge market. My guest blogger, Kurtis Clark, gives you the scoop.

Most small businesses don’t realize the tremendous opportunities there are to contract with Federal, State, and local government entities. Although selling to the government can be more challenging than selling to the general public or even to other businesses the sheer size of this market justifies at least looking into the potential. Last year, all levels of government combined purchased a staggering amount of goods and services. Experts estimate that figure to be over $1 trillion. Where can you find assistance to help you break into the complex world of selling to the government? Several excellent sources of free assistance are available.

The Small Business Development Center program (SBDC) is a nationwide network of independent centers funded in part by the U.S. SBA. They have counselors who can help business owners complete application and registration forms and deal with the bureaucratic process. Counselors usually know local agency procedures, which agencies are preparing for large construction projects, and may even know many of the persons responsible for local government purchasing. All SBDC’s offer free consulting services and low-cost training classes. Most SBDC offices host annual or bi-annual government contracting seminars often in conjunction with government procurement experts free of charge. Check with your local SBDC for upcoming seminars in your area. For a listing of local SBDC offices visit the SBA website.

One of these experts and another excellent source of assistance are Procurement Technical Assistance Centers or PTAC’s. They are located throughout the country, with many of the larger states having multiple offices. These Centers are funded by the Department of Defense but most offer assistance on state, local and federal procurement opportunities. Several excellent websites for Federal procurement information are Business.Gov and FedBizOpps. Also check our Deborah’s small business page for excellent information on programs for disadvantaged-, minority-, women-, and veteran-owned business procurement opportunities.

Kurtis Clark is the Director of the Alliance Small Business Development Center, one of 5 SBDC’s in the U/C Merced Regional SBDC network. The network serves a 15-county area in Central California and last year assisted over 3,000 business entrepreneurs.

(12/12/06 08:42 AM)