Re: Government Contracts, Standards, and Online Help

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

Hopeless.  The reviewing contractor's revenue stream is based on 
convincing the end client (the government agency) that they are the 
experts in evaluating your work, and the agency employees' jobs are 
based on convincing their bureaucrat bosses that they are the experts in 
selecting contractors. You're working on a government contract; nobody 
upstream from you is interested in what is necessary or detrimental to 
your users, and certainly not in what makes your Tech Pubs staff 
unhappy.

You have two alternatives:

1.  if your product or service is sufficiently unique, advise the 
customer that you are prepared
     to deliver your standard product only and do not do customizations. 
This policy was quite
     successful for companies such as HP and National Semiconductor back 
in the days when
     they were the "suppliers of necessity" for their particular 
products, but needs to be done
     at the beginning, when you receive your RFQs.

2.  Suck it in and do what the client tells you to do.  It's probably 
already in your contract
     anyway.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "TECHWR-L Administrator" <admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com>
> I am in need of arguments to bolster our position that this change is
> not necessary and would be detrimental to our users. 

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