Laura's Winning Ideas

I’ve been thinking about teaching Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) proposal writing skills lately.

The first assumption technical experts bring with them is that, what is obvious to them should be obvious to others. This isn’t correct, and loser proposals prove this. In many cases, your competitors are technically as qualified as your team. However, the winning proposal communicates value in a more illuminating way.

Chris Witt at Life after Powerpoint! said it best yesterday:

– Knowing something without acting on it is like having a candle without lighting it.
– Acting on what you know is like lighting the candle.
– Communicating what you know so others can use it is like using your lit candle to light other people’s candles.

That’s why “presentation and communication” skills are so highly rated, even for technical experts. The better able you are to share what you know so that other people can understand and use it, the more valuable you are.

This is a perfect analogy for proposal professionals. We tip the candles of our SMEs to light the candles of our clients.

Question: Hi Laura,
I read your posts about Fun at Work and loved your ideas. I am an Admin Assistant for a satellite office of a large company. Our satellite office has roughly 14 people, but there are usually around 7-8 people in the office at a time since many employees can work from home or are traveling, and I am the only means of Administrative support physically in the office. I am finding it difficult to keep spirits up with the sagging economy and such a small office — many of our employees tend to complain no matter what I suggest. I have planned a few potluck lunches which we all enjoy and will probably institute a chili or salsa making contest as well.
With limited space, budget, and employee numbers, I would greatly appreciate some ideas to put smiles on some faces.

Tough crowds. I love ‘em.

Here are a few ideas. The first two are holiday events (tuck them away for next year) and the third is good anytime, with a few random suggestions to get your own creative juices flowing.

A) Mystery Gift Exchange

Create descriptions of each person that does not identify them. You are the perfect person to know some tidbits about each person that are not generally known by the rest of their colleagues.

For example:
I once played pool with a professional pool shark, as his ?bait man.? I would start the play, and be good enough to be a challenge, but not good enough to be overwhelming. Once we had an agreement to bet on the game, I’d set up the table for the professional, and then step aside while he cleared the table.

When I was fifteen, I bought my first car. It was a drag racer, and my buddies and I were going to soup it up for racing. My Dad went along to sign the papers and drive the car home since I was too young to drive on the streets. When he drove it, he realized the car was dangerous because it was already very fast off the start. He made me agree never to drive this thing on the streets because it was so dangerous. I guess it didn’t occur to him that drag racing might be dangerous as well.

My sister lives in Nicaragua as a missionary.

My mother worked on an assembly line for a munitions plant during WWII.

Pass out the descriptions to folks as their Xmas gift exchange. No fair sneaking around trying to figure out who you have. You have to buy a gift based only on the description you have.

You’ll be surprised at the gifts folks come up with. Much more interesting than the usual desk calendars you see at office gift exchanges. Participation is pretty good because no one knows who has the boss’ description.

B) Xmas Pixies

You draw names for your secret pixie, and no one tells anyone whose name they got. Between the drawing, and your holiday party, the pixies get to work.

Secret pixies can be good (leaving a few pieces of chocolate on their desk while they are away at lunch) or nasty (emptying their trash can on their chair while they are away at lunch). Folks who witness a pixie can’t let on that they know who the secret pixie is. Most pixies vacillate between being good and nasty. (Leave a bowl of fresh popped popcorn one afternoon, pour a cup of salt on their desk the next afternoon with a note ?Forgot the salt.?

C)   Kidnap your bosses stapler, favorite coffee mug, favorite pen.

The purloined item will be traveling a good deal, so get a sturdy container for shipping it back and forth. Take several pictures of yourself with the item, holding, using, scrubbing or having the item in the background. Print the pictures to send along with the instructions. Include these instructions in the shipping container with your pictures:

Tag! You are it! BOSS’SNAME will be looking for me soon, but I am anxious to get out of that stuffy office. Thanks for letting me visit.
Take a picture for my vacation album, add it to my box, and send me on my way to someone else from the office who I haven’t yet visited. OOPS! Don’t forget to cross your name and address off the list, or I’ll end up back again to visit soon!

By the time the item has made the rounds, it will likely be a topic around the group, by email and phone. Your boss may ask about the item, and that is always helpful.

This is a nice stunt for the month or two before Boss’s birthday. Helps to knit folks together. If you have a WIKI for your office, the pictures could be posted there, in an album you’ve tucked away on the site.

Good morale boosters are designed around your own office antics, and avoid ridicule. For example, we had a PM who mentioned that they hated yellow M&Ms. When a big project was won by that PM, we awarded them a jar of M&Ms with the yellow ones picked out.

When a fellow retired from full-time employment but continued on as a part-time consultant, we gave him a “gold office key” as a retirement gift, rather than a gold watch. (Took an office key out and had it gold plated)

Once you get the hang of noticing things peculiar to your teamates, it gets easier to knit folks together with morale boosting events. Practice makes perfect.

Have fun!
Laura Ricci

P.S. Congratulations to you for leading organizational change. I hope your boss appreciates your efforts or comes to recognize them before someone else recruits you to their firm.

I’ve been using wireless headsets for several years, and I would urge you to get a wireless headset if you aren’t already wireless.

I started working with a wired headset many years ago. You can’t type and hold a phone, so I set up the entire team with headsets.

Wireless has a range between 50 and 300 feet from your desk, depending on the set you purchase and your environment. Being able to walk around while on the phone has been a big help, especially when I’m on deadline. I can run to another office to fetch something, get a cup of coffee, or finish a call while I’m putting on my coat and packing my case to leave.

Previously, most wireless headsets were a problem for office telecom networks, but there are several ways now to be wireless and not suffer interference. I’ve bought several and had some problems and successes. However, there is a common thread to my success, and that has been the vendor, Hello Direct.

Hello Direct specializes in headsets and business phones. The customer service is great. They’ve agreed to replace problem headsets, walked me through debugging phone problems, and been helpful whether I’ve ordered a $1,000 duplex speaker phone or $100 desk phone and headset.

On my last purchase, I called the manufacturer with some questions about how to get set up, and wasted several hours in aggravation. I didn’t think Hello Direct would be willing to mess with this inexpensive set, but I was wrong.

(I don’t get anything from Hello Direct. I’m just passing on my lessons learned the hard way.)

I also use headsets with my cell phone. I can look pretty foolish with each ear hosting a different line! Good thing we don’t allow cameras in the proposal area.

New Book Offers Quick Start on Linked In

If you are responsible for Business Development at your firm, Linked In will expand your network of contacts and impress your boss someday.

IMHO everyone with a career should get a profile up on Linked In for these reasons:

• You never know when you’ll want to investigate new opportunities.
• Prospects, contacts of prospects and other important folks for you to meet likely have profiles on Linked In.
• Head hunters and Recruiters use Linked In to find candidates.
• Linked In offers search capability so a developer new to your community can search for a Civil Engineering firm.
• When you aren’t finding a match with Google, Linked In may lead you to a member of the industry willing to answer a few questions so you can find what you need. “Oh. They call it remediation instead of restoration. That’s why my search didn’t turn up the right kind of help.”
• You never know when you’ll need to investigate new opportunities.

Jason Alba wrote this quick read, and it offers exactly the advice I would give if I were sitting at your elbow helping you get your first profile up on Linked In. This book is perfect for folks new to Linked In.

Well, and I’ve been on Linked In for years now, and I learned several things I hadn’t known, got some good tips to improve my own profile, and generally improved my on line presence.

Besides, who wants to have just their Facebook and MySpace pages show up when someone Googles you?
(or if you’re too old for FaceBook)
Besides, who wants to be considered old because you don’t have any Web 2.0 cred?