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John wrote ... having the RFP specifications
defined so that only a specific product or service can comply with
most requirements.
I have not written proposals in years (Having decided to leave the
government sector and work only for commercial businesses.), but I can say
that when I was writing them, they were responding to RFPs that were of the
type John described. In fact, often we just cut and past from one proposal
to another because we were selling the same product. We would just modify
sections to comply with specific needs. We would also copy but modify some
of the sections of the RFP because they did request exactly the product or
service we provided. I always thought that was shabby, but I guess it
follows that the "it's who you know" not "what you know" cliche is true. If
you go and "sell" your business to someone in the gov't. sector, they need
the RFP and response as a formality (to cover government requirements for
contracting). I think that is why it is done that way.
I also remember that I was not yet a "technical writer" when I was doing
proposals. I was a systems analyst/developer. The developers were always
asked to do the proposal writing because we knew the product better than
anyone else. Has that changed in the government sector, so that tech writers
are not doing the proposals?
Kathi Jan DeGuzman
Senior Technical Writer
Kathi -dot- Deguzman -at- nextel -dot- com <mailto:Kathi -dot- Deguzman -at- nextel -dot- com>
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
demo."
--James Klass
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