http://goo.gl/tjr4A

Here’s a great idea to make presentations more mobile.

In most meetings, folks are carrying smart phones,  iPads or laptops. Why not use that feature to expand your ability to present anywhere you meet?

Here’s how it works:

1) Post your presentation slides to SlideShare.net

2) Create a short URL for your presentation slides.

Search “short URL” for sites that convert long URLs to a tiny URL all free. If you use Google’s service, you can save yourself a step below.

3) Create a QR code that points to your slides on Slideshare.net

Search “QR code create” for sites that create a QR code from a URL. If you used Google’s service above, just add “.qr” to the end of your short URL and click to get your QR code.

4) provide the QR code and short URL to your meeting members.

If they are on a smart phone, they’ll scan the URL and be instantly looking at your slideshow. If they are on a laptop, they’ll type in your URL and be instantly looking at your slideshow. If they are on a tablet, they’ll do either, depending on whether they have a camera or browser.

You could print these on businesscards you hand out, you could offer the scan from your phone, you could email the short URL with QR code.

I didn’t think of this, but I wish I had. Todd Ogasawara at SocialTimes thought of this when he was asked to speak to a group, but they met in a restaurant without AV support. His commenters added the suggestion of having a URL alongside, so folks without cameras could also join in.

Proposals can use this idea: Think about building a set of pages with additional detail/illustrations/animation for which QR codes could be created and printed in your proposal. Do you honestly think a technical reviewer will pass by the opportunity to check out what is behind the QR code?

Is huddling around a big laptop to show a presentation more professional than allowing each person to see the presentation on their own device? I’ve seen folks lugging in laptops for meeting presentations, but that limits the audience to one person or maybe two if they are comfortable snuggling up to one another.

For confidential materials, you can get a short URL that is time limited. Search for “URL shortener temporary time limit” which allows you to reach pages you don’t want them seeing again after you are out of the room.

Would it help if you knew whether they were showing the materials to others? Many of the short URL sites provide tracking so you can see how many folks visit the link.

All the examples here are free services, so you have no excuse not to try it out and noodle about how it might help your organization.

I’ll stop here. Lot’s of interesting opportunity to expand your ability to reach prospects. Go get’em!

1. ‘Who Represents’ is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is:
www.whorepresents.com

2. ‘Experts Exchange’ is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at:
www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a great pen? Look no further than ‘Pen Island’. It can be found at:
www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try ‘Therapist Finder’ at:
www.therapistfinder.com

5. Then there’s the ‘Italian Power Generator’ company. Check it out at:
www.powergenitalia.com

6.’IP computer’ software, there’s always:
www.ip_anywhere.com

7. And the designers at ‘Speed of Art’ await you at their wacky Web site:
www.speedofart.com

http://www.usaspending.gov

Very nice interface. I’ve played around with it a few minutes and easily found contracts for clients and their competitors, as well as which agencies are contracting.

Tuck this one in your bookmarks and backup your bookmarks!

Technorati Tags: proposal database,contracts database,competitor data

As reported in the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Blog this week, acronyms must be translated into something meaningful for the recipient.

The time it takes to write with clarity and full explanation, multiplies your effort.

Time saved by your readers X  Number of readers being addressed = Value of your time spent editing for clarity.

When sending a proposal, the importance of the clarity is multiplied by the dollars involved in your proposed contract.

He also uses the same template I teach for mass email. Begin the message with “ACTION NEEDED:” so the responsible parties know whether they are personally holding up progress or just being informed of progress. In the case of Kimberly Clark, they begin with: If you use this system (fill in specifics here), Please read on.

Scrum is taken from a term in Rugby, a sport similar to Proposal writing.

A scrum project is organized into sprints, just as proposal teams organize around individual proposals.

Team members are divided into Pigs and Chickens:

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. However, while chickens make a contribution, pigs are fully committed.

Chickens include the SMEs, salespeople, management, technical staff and stakeholders in your organization. The pigs are the ones who must get the proposal out the door. Chickens can edit the “Product Backlog” (AKA the proposal storyboards) and provide input to pigs as requested. However, the Pigs are fully committed to the effort and will make the proposal happen.
At the daily status meetings, only pigs are allowed to speak, though chickens may attend. The daily meeting is “time boxed” to 15 minutes, and everyone arrives on time or suffers the team punishment. This meeting is held standing.

The Sprintmaster (aka proposal team leader/proposal manager/proposal coordinator) keeps a Burn Chart, detailing what remains to be done before the end of the sprint (proposal delivery).

Every “sprint” (proposal) is followed by a debrief meeting called a Sprint Retrospective.

When trying to explain what and how we work, having other examples is helpful.

Some estimate that as much as 40% of the initial contacts to your web site will be via mobile devices within 5 years. Humm.

I was skeptical, until I caught myself. I sat in an SMPS meeting, listening to 3 speakers from various companies. As the panel got warmed up, I surfed to each of their web sites on my iPhone. The two medium sized firms had reasonable web sites. Nothing fancy, but I got an overview of what they do and who their market is.

However, the third firm is very large. In fact, they are one of the oldest privately held firms in the U.S. However they have a web site that is probably fancy because it would not render on my phone. (Let me go check from my desktop… Oh yeah. very nice dancing baloney on every landing page.)

I didn’t think it was important when I read about testing your web site for mobile devices, but now I’m convinced.

Check your own web site here: www.iPhonetester.com

Imagine your client sitting in a meeting reviewing proposals for THAT BIG JOB, and they pull out their mobile device and surf to your web site to check some detail. What do they get?

Notice that I didn’t bother to visit the big company web site once I returned to my office. It wasn’t a high enough priority for me. If I haven’t had this post to write, I would have moved on without a second thought about that company.

Which company would you rather be?

One more datapoint. This week, Forbes Magazine cited another study estimating that at least 50% of first visits to web sites are coming from mobile devices. Run fast.

Technorati Tags: mobile device,surfing,iphone,website,Marketing Sherpa,Forbes

Here are two with material you can use to help technical professionals improve their ability to win work:

Rhetoric for Engineers
http://www.tcnj.edu/~rgraham/rhetoric/

As a field of study, rhetoric has enjoyed a popular resurgence in at the college level, and when deployed effectively, various rhetorical devices can make any piece of writing much more compelling. Ron Graham has created this site designed to help engineers and “other practical people” with the practice and art of rhetoric. The site includes a summary of basic rhetoric, along with some “Two-Minute Drills”, which are designed to help engineers with developing answers to questions like “Are engineers made or born?” and “Define ‘reliability’”. Visitors can also look over the site’s complete contents via an interactive guide which covers everything from abstraction to workplace distractions. [KMG]

Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students
http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/

Crafting meaningful and articulate lab presentations and correspondence can be difficult for anyone, including engineers and other scientists. This particular set of resources is deigned to teach engineering and science students about creating and writing materials such as resumes, formal laboratory reports, presentation slides, and so on. The guidelines are gathered into several different sections, including “Introduction”, “Presentations”, “Correspondence”, and “Formal Reports”. There is material for instructors here as well, and the offerings include pieces on the design
of writing assignments, the interactive teaching of writing, and the evaluation of writing assignments.  Finally, the site also contains a number of writing exercises on grammar, punctuation, and word usage. [KMG]

From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2008.
http://scout.wisc.edu/

Technorati Tags: Scout Report,writing,engineers,science,rhetoric,resumes,proposals