See Thru

It’s been a whirlwind few months for me professionally.  In November 2011, Sage acquired BWF Communications (BWF), and as Director of Special Events at BWF, I came along with six of my colleagues to Sage’s new offices in McLean, VA. Instead of a small townhouse stuffed to the brink with event supplies, we are now part of a 50-person staff on the spacious fifth floor of a lovely office building, which is quite a change of scenery.

Despite the change in office space and coworkers, my focus here at Sage is the same as it was at BWF… producing top-quality events for our clients.  Whether it be a 300-team soccer tournament or a GSA conference, the most common sticking point for every client becomes budget.  Almost every client I work with asks me the same question; how can we create an event that accurately reflects our company without breaking the bank?

You would never know it to see me work a room, but I am a natural introvert. It scares me to walk into a crowd of strangers armed only with a badge and business cards. But, I’m in business development, and being a wallflower is not an option.

Here are a few tips I’ve picked up over the years — having suffered only minor lacerations to my ego. Maybe you’ll find a nugget or two that you can use.

Today's topic is one that's been top of mind for me for some time now. Happily, the stars have aligned, my brave little blog post has made its pilgrimage from brain to desktop to world-wide web, and my bout of blogger's block has ended. For this I have to give credit and thanks to:

1) The free block of time on today's calendar.

2) David Michel Davies (@dmdlikes), ex. director of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS), and founder of the Webby Awards for his presentation at the "Webby Talks" DC stop at the National Press Club.

3) And to industry friend and colleague, Tom McMahon, for inviting me to said Webby Talks event.

Another Presidential election is less than a year away. The Democrats are backing President Obama, since the incumbent is usually a safe bet. Unfortunately, this means an unusually large number of Republicans spent most of 2011 wrestling endlessly amongst themselves for the chance to take him on in 2012. I’m not sure if this is the longest pre-convention tussle ever, but it sure feels like it, and I for one am happy it’s beginning to wind down. Still, the wrestling continues.

According to a recent CNN article, Twitter has become the latest battleground between the Taliban and NATO. While @ISAFMedia – the press office for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) – routinely posts NATO’s operations updates, the organization’s virtual spokesperson also spends a good deal of time casually bantering with other Twitterers. And exchanging jabs with @ABalkhi – the self-proclaimed “Voice of the Jihad” who tweets on behalf of the Taliban. Besides routinely shooting down each other’s propaganda, they've recently become engaged in some Twitter tussles of a more personal nature, leading followers to watch in amusement and, in some cases, to wonder aloud why NATO’s press office continues to engage with the enemy.

The federal contracting community has its own terminology that can seem like alphabet soup. Before your company can compete in this sector, you need to become familiar with acronyms such as RFPs (Requests for Proposals), SOWs (Statements of Work), BPAs (Blanket Purchase Agreements, IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity) and the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) among many others.

When marketing practitioners discuss the tools of the trade amongst ourselves, we usually manage to keep the customer in mind. We do care about the fact that someone has to earn the money we spend, and we need to produce measurable results. To get there, we may recommend a certain level of print or online investment to get certain shares of voice, or certain mixes of tactics to get viral effects. But we also know clients have budget, culture and operation limits that can make these targets impossible. Those limits can force us to re-focus tactics around events (like tradeshows) or calendar cycles (like peak quarters) that tend to drive sales outcomes.

Restless Nights
It’s 3:00AM and I can’t sleep, instead I think about everything I need to do today, tomorrow, this week, and the coming month. I am overwhelmed and stressed about the upcoming office move, the latest acquisition, my inbox, and all the projects that I need to provide strategic insight and creative direction, not to mention all the family obligations such as attending my daughter’s new school activities, etc.

Since the beginning of July, I've faced earthquake, hurricane(s) and flooding, but the thing that has really knocked me off of my feet has been the flood of government RFPs. I've logged 80 and 100 hour work weeks and I've not had a "real week-end" since June. I've had to decline to bid jobs that I know we could perform well because there isn't enough time to do the proposal well. I've responded to 20 page RFPs that give us only 7 pages for our proposal -- I've done the best to give the right detail for a decision, but 7 pages is simply too short -- shouldn't we get a least as many pages to answer as they get to ask?