by maxtodorov on September 11, 2009
For a while now, I wanted to have what I used to have years ago. A wireless headphones setup for my Ipod. I remember having my old Ipod and a set of wireless headphones, which provided hours of music and did not require a wire. What a great setup for the gym.
While it has been possible to do the same with the Iphone and Ipod now, it required one to add a Bluetooth adaptor to the Iphone/Ipod. Most of the bluetooth adapters in the market attached via the port on the Iphone, which to me made the whole setup a bit akward. I would not be comfortable to hold the setup in my pocket, as I was afraid to break off the adapter or ruin the Iphone port.
Well now that the Iphone 3.1 software is out the adapter is no longer needed. I was able to connect my Iphone 3GS running 3.1 software and a Motorolla S9 Stereo Bluetooth wireless headset without any adapter.
The quality of sound was great. The setup was a breeze. Basically the setup is the same as adding any other bluetooth headset. (In the past S9 would only function for calls, and you would not be able to listen to music).
I was able to change the volume, and pause the sounds, as well as take calls.
FINALLY!
by maxtodorov on January 13, 2009
During these tough times it is more important than ever to be able to secure new business. After your Business Development spent countless hours working on getting a Request for Proposal (RFP) from a potential customer, you finally got the RFP. Now what?
For many years now, I have been on the buying side of business and had the pleasure (or displeasure) of evaluating proposals and awarding contracts. Many things go into proposal evaluation, and many businesses have different policies and procedures on proposal evaluation. Many aspects of the proposal evaluation are proprietary and I am not in liberty of releasing the information. However, many things I can share with you, and if you utilize some of my points it will make your proposal a much better document.
Disclaimer: This information is opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the opinion of the writer’s employer.
Applicability: The writer’s experience is primarily in multimillion dollar contracts, often related to government work.
Before you begin creating the proposal
-
Find out if the RFP is competitive or not.
- For competitive RFPs your price will be compared with others, hence providing a balanced proposal (meeting requirements for lowest dollar figure is very important)
- For non-competitive RFPs your price is also important, but you probably want to exceed expectations (requirements) in your proposal, this way if the company asks you to drop the price you have some negotiation room. You could reduce the price and reduce the requirements
-
Read the proposal
- This may seem like a common sense, but trust me. I have seen proposals where it is apparent that the responder has not read the RFP
- I assume this happens due to the fact there are different people responsible for different portions of the proposal.
-
Create your internal proposal submittal schedule
- You may need to have the department head to sign the proposal
- Will you have an internal page turn
- Lay out all events that need to happen and see if you can meet the proposal submission date
- It may be possible to negotiate later date with the RFP owner
-
Create Proposal requirement matrix
- For every paragraph in the RFP, that asks you to do something create an entry
- Assign the person who will be responsible to provide the information for that entry/line.
-
Here is a sample
Sample Compliance Matrix
- You can color code each of these entries to see what is of high importance and what is not
- This table could be 10 pages long, but it will keep you organized and will make sure that you do not omit some requirements
Writing the Proposal
- Once you completed the Proposal Requirements Matrix, the proposal should basically be the organization of the information in the matrix in a more presentable way.
-
I highly recommend to prepare your proposal matching the paragraph structure of the RFP
- Talk more about the product that you are selling, not your company. (I am not saying you should omit introducing your company, but 20 pages about the greatness of the firm and 1 page about the actual product is not a good way to impress)
- If there are requirements in the RFP that you are not compliant with, state those and provide options. DO NOT IGNORE or HIDE. Most large companies will issue a PO with the SOW attached to it. Hence you may be legally bound to meet the requirements as outlined in the SOW. Stating your non-compliance in the proposal is the best way for both parties to avoid misunderstanding.
- Mention your financial situation if its strong
-
Once it is all complete, I recommend a page turn with your team.
- Check for errors, mistakes, inconsistencies.
Submittal
by maxtodorov on January 4, 2009
MediaGeneral (MEG) is looking good for a potential short. My guess is that the POP came due to the rally. If it hits $3, I will be shorting, hopefully into the short squeeze.
by maxtodorov on January 2, 2009
This post will cover some basics and some terminology. Overall EVMS is based on three key concepts from which many calculations, variances and other concepts are derived or calculated.
- BCWP – Budgeted Cost of Work Performed is the sum of the budgets of all completed work at any given time. The BCWP is synonymous with Earned Value (EV)
- BCWS – Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled is the sum of all budgets scheduled to be completed at a given time
- ACWP – Actual Cost of Work Performed is the cost actually incurred at any given time for performance of the BCWP
So lets break this down into a more simple example. Lets say you decided to get your car painted. You take your car to a local paint shop and they quote you $500 for the paint job and stated that it will take 10 days. You decide to take the deal and authorize the shop to perform this paint job for $1000 in 10 days. In this case the BCWS is $1000. (for this example we will assume that you requested the sop to use EVMS in reporting the status to you). The shop stated that the work is planned to be phased(distributed) evenly over the performance period (so 10% or $100 worth of work will be performed each day).
Two days later you call the shop and ask the status of your paint. The paint shop report to you that they have painted the right side of the car (50% of the car). They have also spent $120 on paint and $200 in salaries and overhead (total $320). Based on that information you know:
- BCWP in this case is $500 (because 50% of work is complete, and 50% of $1000 is $500
- BCWS is $200 (because 20% of work should have been completed in the first two days)
- ACPW is $320 (actual spent on performing the work)
In the next post we will address, what does all this information mean and how we can utilize it.
by maxtodorov on January 2, 2009
Like many companies with a long downward trend who suddenly end up on daily biggest price gainers list, CWST will most likely become a target for the shorters. I believe this stock would be hard to borrow, but if I see it hit $4.85, I will certainly try to sell short at least a 1000 shares.
by maxtodorov on January 2, 2009
Over the last several years, I have noticed the more and more Federal Contracts require implementation of EVMS. EVMS is nothing new to the companies that do work for federal government (typically DoD), however the EVMS is being required to be implemented to lower levels within the supply chain. Several years ago, only the Prime Contractor (typically a large Fortune 500 company) was required to implement EVMS.
Disclaimer: This post is written with a goal of providing relevant information; however, the writer is not licensed to practice law and is not engaged in rendering legal or contractual advice, and this post is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.
So if you are a small business and you wish to bid on government work, or just received or about to receive a contract that has various flow down requirements, including EVM, what should you expect?
Well here is a list of things you will need to know/understand:
- EVMS Basics and Terminology
- EAC Basics
- Variance Analysis
- Independent EAC(IEAC)
- Contract Performance Reports and how to prepare them
- Integrated Baseline Reviews (IBR)
I will do a post for each of these topics over the next week…
by maxtodorov on January 2, 2009
by maxtodorov on January 2, 2009
Here is the list of points that I collected from sites or posts on how to make your video popular.
Make it short: 15-30 seconds is ideal; break down long stories into bite-sized clips
Don’t make an outright ad: if a video feels like an ad, viewers won’t share it unless it’s really amazing.
Make it shocking: give a viewer no choice but to investigate further.
Use fake headlines: make the viewer say, “Holy shit, did that actually happen?!”
Appeal to sex: if all else fails, hire the most attractive women available to be in the video.
Blogs: We reach out to individuals who run relevant blogs and actually pay them to post our embedded videos. Sounds a little bit like cheating/PayPerPost, but it’s effective and it’s not against any rules.
Forums: We start new threads and embed our videos. Sometimes, this means kickstarting the conversations by setting up multiple accounts on each forum and posting back and forth between a few different users. Yes, it’s tedious and time-consuming, but if we get enough people working on it, it can have a tremendous effect.
MySpace: Plenty of users allow you to embed YouTube videos right in the comments section of their MySpace pages. Take advantage of this.
Facebook: Share, share, share. Other ideas include creating an event that announces the video launch and inviting friends, writing a note and tagging friends, or posting the video on Facebook Video with a link back to the original YouTube video.
Email lists: Send the video to an email list. Depending on the size of the list (and the recipients’ willingness to receive links to YouTube videos), this can be a very effective strategy.
Friends: Make sure everyone we know watches the video and try to get them to email it out to their friends, or at least share it on Facebook.
Title Optimization: It seems obvious, but people see hundreds of videos on YouTube, and the title and thumbnail are an easy way for video publishers to actively persuade someone to click on a video.
Thumbnails: YouTube provides three choices for a video’s thumbnail, one of which is grabbed from the exact middle of the video. As we edit our videos, we make sure that the frame at the very middle is interesting. It’s no surprise that videos with thumbnails of half naked women get hundreds of thousands of views.
Commenting: Having a conversation with yourself Every power user on YouTube has a number of different accounts. A great way to maximize the number of people who watch our videos is to create some sort of controversy in the comments section below the video. Get a few people to log in throughout the day and post heated comments back and forth (you can definitely have a lot of fun with this). Everyone loves a good, heated discussion in the comments section - especially if the comments are related to the video.
by maxtodorov on December 27, 2008
This is a very interesting video where the exponential function is applied to various issues we are facing. Like oil, population growth, etc.
