FEDERAL
SECTOR REPORT
July 1999
(c) P2C2 Group,
Inc.
My Best Contributions
as a Consultant
Every good
consultant has a few unique talents, and it’s important to know how
well these match your specific requirements. Despite the tendency to
pigeonhole people in labor categories—like proposal developer or
management consultant or writer—you’re buying talent. Just like
10 popular tenors or sopranos have different styles and strengths, so
do consultants. To illustrate, I’ll share some observations about my
own consulting toolkit.
Over a Szechuan lunch, a longtime friend and former client
observed, "You take chaotic information, make sense of it, organize it,
and present it in an understandable and marketable way." That does seem
the case regardless of whether the topic is information technology,
government regulations, or higher education.
The book that I wrote last year was based on a somewhat
meandering "dialogue" by national leaders. It was difficult to sort out
the issues and facts. But after reading my draft, one of the sponsors
and meeting leaders said, "That was an interesting discussion. I wish
that I’d been there."
When developing proposals and plans and books, a lot of my
time is devoted to coaxing information out of technology types,
managers, and college professors. Much of the information is in their
heads, and some is also in their file drawers. Some of the facts come
from background research. A variety of individuals have different
pieces of the puzzle, and it can be challenging to fit the pieces into
a coherent picture.
Creating an effective report or proposal requires a sense of
"document architecture." I design the structure first … designing a
style that pursues the intended results; and then I use information
selectively as the "bricks and mortar" that build the document. This
approach is radically different from cutting and pasting boilerplate
together. The results are the difference between architecture and tents.
1999 Scorecard (Mid-Year)
- Contract
Competition Award: Electrical and Mechanical Infrastructure Services
(NIH)
- Grant Competition Award: Robert E.
McNair Post-Baccalaureate Scholarship Grant (Department of Education)
- Writing of Thirty Y2K Statements of
Work for Y2K Systems Renovations, Replacements, and IV&V (Executive
Office of the President)
- Grant Competition Award: Lucent
Technologies
- Book Publication: The Children
of 2010
