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
