Laura's Winning Ideas

If you write proposals for a living, you MUST get to an Edward Tufte workshop.

Tufte is a master at explaining the right (and giving lots of examples of the wrong) way to display information. It’s a communication and graphics course.
He won’t be discussing measles charts or laying out tables.

And you will come away with ideas to better explain complex information in your proposals with a graphic that is worth more than 1000 words. And plenty of books to refer to when you are trying to solve a graphic dilemna.
The one-day workshop is $360, and includes four books on the topic. The books alone are worth $200.

His latest just came out and I’ll have to get it soon. I’ve never seen his books on sale anywhere, so there’s no benefit to waiting. These are collector books you’ll pass down to your children.

Edward, or ET as his staff are calling him, has the air of an Ivy League professor which is his background. However, you overlook the arrogance as he pulls out example after example of incredible historic artifacts. These items are priceless and so try to get close to the front row so you see them all up close.

His books are works of art, with publishing quality no one else (except FMR) uses anymore. In fact he became such a nuisance with his first book, the publishers balked. So he borrowed the money to publish it himself, and oversaw the process to get it just the way he wanted it. Meticulous is a gross understatement to describe Edward Tufte.

When I went to his workshop (and I’d do so again), I took my old copy of his first book with me to be signed. I explained that I’d won a $2 million contract with an idea I got from his book.

The only discount offered is to groups of 10 or more registering together. Send a note to your SMPS chapter to see whether you can rustle up a group to attend for the 25 percent discount. He is touring the Midwest and California this fall.

When I was in college, I missed an opportunity to hear Buckminster Fuller speak. That was the last opportunity I ever had. Tufte will retire sometime soon. Don’t miss a chance to hear him yourself.

www.tufte.com

Twice this month, someone asked me about fraud in proposal writing. Must be something in the air.

In case you haven’t had the pleasure, let me provide a primer on the consequences of fraud at the US State and Federal level.

One State audited our firm and most of the audit focused on possible fraud. As far as I know, there were no questionable practices going on, our number just came up, and we won the audit lottery.

The auditors were interested in several things in our department. They carefully reviewed our files on minority subcontractors. Evidently they were looking for possible “manufacture” of minority subcontractors. I’ve heard of companies setting up a sister-in-law as a small business, using them as a subcontractor to qualify for project funding, and then passing money around while the prime contractor performed the work. We didn’t do this, so they didn’t have many questions to ask after reviewing my files and checking that subcontractors were actual independent businesses.

They had copies of several of our proposals, had marked them up, and only asked a couple of questions. I think they were checking to be sure all parties named as key personnel were actually on the payroll at the time of the proposal, but I can’t be positive.

Consequences of a state audit going badly are several. Your firm can be banned from working on state projects (generally for a specific period). Criminal charges are unusual, but more usual is firing proposal team members who are suspected of cooperating in questionable activities. (Read on ...)