Today was one of them. I had the pleasant opportunity to go to a Bruins game with a client tonight. The client is the International Paralympic Committee. My company has been hired to help them produce the World Sledge Hockey championships next week in Marlborough.
Sledge Hockey, for those who don't know, is an incredibly fast paced league for people with physical disabilities which force them to sit down in a 'sledge', which to me just looks like a sled. I am really proud to be part of this. Given my history of growing up with a severely disabled mother...it makes me feel good to work with this organization and go above and beyond wherever possible.
Tonight we were there to cover the opening ceremonies. I had an all access media pass at the Garden. At one point my boss took me up to the control room. A 60 second commercial my team produced was presented on the big screens during the opening ceremonies...Right there in front of 10's of thousands of Bruins fans!! I was beaming with pride for my crew.
Anyhow...Now I have to sleep. The coming 10 days are going to be madness. Each day the videos we produce will be broadcast on TV networks around the globe. We have to tape and edit 3 games every 24 hours for a week...
3.22.2008
Responding
I have been working on a lot of large scale RFP's lately. I find the work interesting because it allows me to really think through the project life cycle and imagine how my team will best respond to the potential client's needs. My approach is to read the RFP two or three times and then basically plan the entire project in a pretty detailed way. Once I have the entire project plan established I then write an approach document which adapts my process to the specific requirements as defined in the RFP.
When an organization has gone through the process of developing an RFP they will often have well thought out ideas about how to approach the project. This does not always align with my own theories. For instance, the discovery process may already be mostly complete. If an RFP has detailed requirements this means I do not have to tease them out later on.
For the type and scale of projects which I typically respond there is usually a team of people involved. This is another interesting dimension I like to explore. I have found it very useful to treat the response like any other project, with a timeline and deliverables which address pre-defined requirements and expectations.
Something as simple as defining the styles used in the documents which are authored by different contributors before they are written and then assembled into the final 'book' will save the team a great deal of time. For this I use a tool I call a content deck template. I also share this with clients who will be delivering content for integration with their new CMS during real development projects.
The further I get the more appealing planning and good communication becomes...
When an organization has gone through the process of developing an RFP they will often have well thought out ideas about how to approach the project. This does not always align with my own theories. For instance, the discovery process may already be mostly complete. If an RFP has detailed requirements this means I do not have to tease them out later on.
For the type and scale of projects which I typically respond there is usually a team of people involved. This is another interesting dimension I like to explore. I have found it very useful to treat the response like any other project, with a timeline and deliverables which address pre-defined requirements and expectations.
Something as simple as defining the styles used in the documents which are authored by different contributors before they are written and then assembled into the final 'book' will save the team a great deal of time. For this I use a tool I call a content deck template. I also share this with clients who will be delivering content for integration with their new CMS during real development projects.
The further I get the more appealing planning and good communication becomes...
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