We continue to win competitive contracts and grants for our clients, but an increasing portion of our work in competitive communications is for other types of tasks: Powerpoint shows for oral presentations, scripts for video tapes, design and copywriting for marketing brochures, technical documents for marketing, and product information for selling GSA catalog items. This reflects the federal governments trend toward BUYING products and defined services from generic contract schedules and IDIQ agreements, rather than issuing RFPs for unique procurement. This means that we spend more time working with technical marketing representatives and sales personnel, and less time with R&D staffs.

For a communications consultant such as myself, this is a noticeable change. Issues like perceived reputation, convenience of ordering, past performance, ease of implementation and use by the customer, and service commitment become dominant issues. The elegance of the engineering solution often becomes a de-emphasized consideration, provided that the solution offers specifications that are marketable and acceptable.

 Most companies will need to put sales and marketing people in charge of these types of procurements. The technical guru who was so successful in past proposal competitions may have an important role at oral presentations but can often be deadly in actually closing sales.

 During recent months, several clients have asked me to "write copy" for a brochure and a presentation. That is, I was to supply the words, and the client organizations would worry about the graphics and layout later. I have discovered this is a nearly impossible task today. Please note that I have a fair amount of printer's ink in my veins and academic studies in print journalism under my belt. I was writing about competitive bids for the construction of the then-new National Defense (Interstate) highway system back when JFK was just starting to find his way around the Oval Office.

But today's messages are different, even for government communications, which are about two generations behind WIRED (magazine). Particularly if you want to persuade, market, sell, or affect opinions, your communications will be carefully designed to encompass layout, visual images, and words. And maybe sound. Audiences have come to expect the combination of stimuli. You won't achieve your communications objectives without considering the gestalt.

 So I invented "straw man" graphics which were rough but, nonetheless, communicated the overall message. There may be printer's ink in my veins, but Disney and the Web injected multimedia in my brain.

 I have a very successful partnership at Coppin State College, where I have won nearly 100% of the proposals for competitive grants and contracts that I have produced. Lately, however, I have been working with "fundraising" for the Maryland Center for Thinking Studies at Coppin State. While I have written a number of proposals to foundations and other nonprofits, this is the first time in 25 years that I've actually developed brochures and presentations to ask for "contributions." In general, you don't simply arrive on a doorstep of a Fortune 500 corporation or major foundation to ask for money. You can try that, but you will receive a "So Sorry" letter faster than a political candidate can kiss a baby.

You begin by finding funding sources that have a history of contributing to your type of program or organization. Some corporations earmark gifts for nonprofits in communities where they have major plants or offices. Some foundations deal only with medical research, and you're wasting your time if you approach them with a request to help restore the covered bridges of Beanblossom, Indiana.

Then you should identify individuals you know (who will help you) who already know the decision makers in the funding organization. These contacts will introduce you.  When you meet your prospect, be cool. Don't say, "Buddy, can you spare a quarter of a million?" Your initial job is to establish credibility, because there are 100 fundseekers for every one that gets money.  Usually, you will need to find out who, within the funding organization, manages projects such as yours. You will need to work with this individual, because he or she must become your advocate for funding.

 The above are only the initial steps. The quality of your activities, cost efficiency, community support, and past performance will definitely be taken into consideration. In general, you must also have potential for achieving nationally or regionally significant results ... where the contribution promises to make a real difference.

The P2C2 Group is now preparing proposals for the "GSA Schedule," and we have been working with ADP and telecommunications products and services. About half of our work focuses on consulting about effective product mixes and how to use the FSS schedule in direct selling. The other half of the effort, of course, is making certain that (1) the document will fly at GSA and (2) the terms and conditions are structured so the contractor can be both competitive and profitable.

At the P2C2 Group, we work in a Windows 95 environment. There are a lot of fine things to say about the operating system, but there are problems as well. This has become particularly noticeable this spring because of the unusual number of software upgrades that we are loading onto the gigabytes of disk space. Stuff like Office 97, the latest WinFax Pro, the latest McAffee,  Micrographx 97, Eudora Mail Pro, etc., etc., etc.

 Sometimes this seems like restocking a pond with new fish. You can't really see what the upgraded fish look like individually. But you soon discover TROUT (working applications that are supposed make you productive), GUPPIES (a host of utilities constantly running in the WIN 95 background), and several PIRANHAS that are lurking behind page faults and fatal errors. Perhaps this is the price of progress, and I'm glad that I no longer work with hot type (molten lead), Multilith stencils, and Rotogravure. Yet it can be a real pain in the backside when meeting wild-and-wooly deadlines. I hope that, at least twice a year, Bill Gates' PC crashes, and the technical support staff can't figure out whether the problem is with a guppy or a piranha.