Laura's Winning Ideas

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!

Friskies Cat Food lassoed lots of buzz this week with release of some apps for the iPad (and probably most of the android tablets as well).

This is brilliant. If you are selling cat food, what does your target audience like? Watching videos of cute cats, but better yet, watching their own precious feline being cute.

What the heck does this have to do with your firm? Plenty.

The leaders in our industry are already developing their social media chops. Barton Malow has an executive focused on Social Media, and they are a Construction Management firm.

No, you don’t need to be tweeting your lunch selection to the ether. But if you were the FDA, you’d be a hot twitter feed by posting drug approvals via Twitter. They are now a must have app for Pharma execs. (search for @FDAMedWatch at Twitter.com)

Think about what would help and thrill your clients. Could a preview of an aspect of your proposal be put on YouTube? Saves your client having to manage a video file and you having to forego “showing them” how it would work. YouTube allows you to select Private settings so you send a link to your video and it doesn’t get displayed with Lady Gaga’s latest music video. This isn’t high security, but it is “good enough” for straight forward information that isn’t sensitive.

I delivered an electronic file to a client a few months ago. It is a pretty nifty file, which converts a Goals to Metrics chart to a Gantt Chart and allows them to use the file as a living document. We worked from a set of dummy data to design the file. I hired a consultant who turned my nightmare idea into a dream. He video taped his demo of the file so I could approve it. Once it was finished, we loaded the client’s proprietary information into the file and delivered the file. However, I posted the video for them to refer to as instruction when they started using the file. That was helpful for them since I couldn’t be there in person to demo the file.

Is there a helpful bit that could be made into an App? A lookup table particular to your industry? A reference document that could be interactive and distributed to clients?

The folks at Solar Roadways are making great headway, and they accomplished most of their publicity with social media. They do a great job on videos, even though they have a lousy website.

Can you turn a manual you have written for internal use into an eBook for clients and customers? <shameless self promotion> One of my books: The Magic of Winning Proposals is available as an iBook and at Amazon as an eBook for the Kindle. </shameless self promotion>

Proposal folks are creative souls. What do you have that would be better communicated with a video? What would help you stand out from the herd in a crowded competition? Cruise the app store of your choice and download a variety of apps to see what might spark an idea for your firm. Keep it simple at first.

When I discovered that the YouTube search engine is the second only to Google, I started shooting video for my husband’s small business. (As my friends say, tell’em what your husband does, because THAT’s interesting.) Take a look a few of our videos, shot by an amateur and edited by a professional. These videos helped his business close its best year during the worst recession of our lives.  These are the car guy equivalent of cute cat videos: Davids4Speeds – Restoring 4 Speed manual transmissions for 1960′s and 70′s muscle cars.

Can’t wait to see what’s coming next.

I’m speaking at the SMPS national conference this year.

The organizers are doing a good job of  managing we speakers.

I owe them an Executive Summary by Monday morning, so I did my final edits and uploaded it earlier today.

Prior to this deadline, we had two deadlines. First we delivered our presentation proposals, and then we owed them bios and photos for the conference promotional materials. Now this deadline for a 1000 word summary. Next will be our slide set due a few weeks before the conference.

When you are working on a proposal, it is important to manage the submittals from your subject matter experts (SMEs). If you set a single deadline, you have no idea whether the SME can deliver all you need until the deadline, and that may be too late to find a substitute if they fail.

So take a tip from the SMPS managers and divide and conquer. Split up the requests into a series of deadlines. You’ll know sooner if your SME has a problem getting what you need, and you’ll narrow the number of failure opportunities to just a few items near the end.

Don’t string them along, pestering them every few days with new requests. Tell them up front that you have a series of deadlines. Tell them all the deadlines you have on your schedule for them, and remind them that there may also be a few surprises along the way for which you’ll notify them as soon as you know. Once you get good, there will be no extra requests, and every request will be on your proposal schedule.

I like to get the data I need for the graphics earlier than the proposal text so we have some time for the graphics production. Your team may work differently and prefer the resume updates early.

I’m looking forward to the SMPS conference. In preparation, I gave a new pair of shoes a test walk tonight when we went out to dinner because I don’t try to wear new shoes when I speak. But that’s another blog post. . . .

Covers are on my mind this week. I just watched the movie “September Issue” about Vogue magazine and Anna Wintour the editor. The cover determines the news stand sales of magazines and is taken very seriously. Serious money rides on a good cover.

I also just finished reviewing a stack of proposals. One loser I could predict from the cover alone.

The cover can hurt you badly. On this cover, a smear of logos was at the top of the cover, more than a half dozen, some big firms, some unfamiliar firms. The client was mentioned in the fine print. The illustration was meaningless.

The story this cover told me is ugly: Our team is VERY important, more important than your agency and your project. We are all dedicated to maintaining our corporate identity, so we are less likely to be easily managed. In fact, a smaller firm is Prime, and some really big firms are sub, so it will be very interesting for the customer to deal with who is in charge. If they can figure it out!

Don’t do this.

Here’s how I like to work up covers, in order of preference:

• What is your Theme? Illustrate it. (some folks aren’t using themes yet, and if so, try the next approach.)
• What brilliant ideas are you proposing to the client? Can they be illustrated?
• What is your client most proud of? Can it be illustrated?

The cover should be all about the client and how your team brings something special to their project. If you don’t bring anything special, you’ll be just an also ran, so why bother writing a proposal doomed to lose?