Let me start with something I hope we can agree on: A proposal is not a box of chocolates. You should know exactly what you are going to get. In my last post, I argued, not for the first time, … Continue reading 3 tips for successful win themes
A while back, I wrote an article arguing for consistency in proposals as a way to signal the quality of your work. Few will have disagreed with the sentiment, but how do you do it? Here are five practical tips … Continue reading 5 steps towards self-consistent proposals
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” goes an old proverb. As we are entering the last week of this fiscal year, the future feels more uncertain than I can remember. While I keep telling myself that the future is never … Continue reading Innovating in difficult times
Everyone seems to be worried that the robots are going to take our jobs tomorrow. But the more I learn and think about the application of Artificial Intelligence tools to my work, the less afraid I get. At least for … Continue reading Why I am not afraid of AI
When I started out with proposal writing, the books by Edward Tufte were the gold standard for developing compelling and honest representations of your data. The classic 1981 “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” should still be required reading for … Continue reading Good figures are hard
I am a planner and a visual thinker, so the traditional approach to proposal development was naturally attractive to me: bulleted outlines of key facts and messages for each section, planning sheets that lay out the space for graphics, tables … Continue reading Many paths lead to the mountain top
I am always delighted when I find good figures and tables in a proposal I review. Though sometimes, although the authors have clearly taken a lot of time to develop a figure, I am still puzzled what they are showing … Continue reading Don’t miss out on captions
Last week, I was reading an early proposal draft and after a few minutes of reading landed, once again, on my favorite recommendation: “This should be a table!” So let me tell you why I say this so often and … Continue reading Tables are your friends
If your field is getting crowded, perhaps it is time to look for a new field. For so many of us, competition is getting tougher because the field is getting smaller. Traditional sources of funding are cut back or are … Continue reading Surf’s Up
I tend to have one of two reactions to reading a proposal: Sometimes, the opening paragraph grabs my attention and what follows pulls me in and sustains my interest. The authors tell me at the beginning where we are headed … Continue reading Don’t write like a scientist
Rolf Danner 