VisibleThread CEO to Discuss “Bad Language” at National Capital Area APMP Conference

October 11, 2011 Session to Provide Government and Commercial Attendees real world Insights into Proposal Language that Weakens Credibility and Damages Response

Baltimore, MD—September 27, 2011— VisibleThread, the NO BAD LANGUAGE company, today announced that company founder and CEO Fergal McGovern will speak at the upcoming National Capital Area (NCA) Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) Conference & Expo taking place on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 from 7:30 AM - 6:00 PM.

Mr. McGovern’s session “Which Words Kill Your Best Proposal?” takes place from 3:20 – 4:20 p.m.

In addition, conference attendees are invited to join VisibleThread at its booth to meet with company experts. Attendees can learn more about how leading government contractors are using the company’s software to scan RFP responses and ensure winning bids.

WHAT:

“Which Words Kill Your Best Proposal?” Weak language and clichés can be the death knell for any proposal. Bid and proposal teams need to be aware of language that weakens credibility, raises legal questions or affects the solution delivery. In this session, Mr. McGovern will share examples of poor proposal language seen in 5 different bids. Based on his work to date, he will also share techniques for ensuring consistent ‘win themes’ are maintained throughout a proposal response.

Key topics include:

  • Credibility: Non-committal language, trite statements and negative sentiment
  • Liability: Legal implications and over-commitment in statements
  • Deliverability: Non-verifiable statements
  • Plain Language: The value of tight sentence length

WHO:

During 2011, Fergal McGovern has been focused on fighting ‘BAD LANGUAGE’, helping government integrators cleanse and ‘de-risk’ proposal response documentation.  Using software he originally created for identifying risk in IT specifications, he is making the tedious quality review tasks more automated.

Mr. McGovern’s original background is large scale IT systems development. The solutions for automated document scanning created by his company VisibleThread are increasingly in use for red flagging bid responses, ‘de-risking’ contracts, high lighting compliance issues, aiding review teams and identifying bid loss characteristics.

View Fergal’s LinkedIn profile here: www.linkedin.com/in/fergalmcgovern

WHEN:

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 from 3:20 – 4:20 p.m.

WHERE:

Waterford at Springfield, 6715 Commerce Street, Springfield, VA 22150

TO REGISTER:

http://www.apmpnca.org/registration-for-mid-atlantic-proposal-conference-a-expo/

ABOUT VISIBLETHREAD

VisibleThread develops document content analysis software that identifies defects and streamlines document compliance. The company’s analysis software enables users to scan MS Office and PDF docs for liability concerns, automatically create compliance documents, coordinate and track changes from multiple stakeholders, and provide oversight throughout proposal development and IT delivery projects.

Today the company offers VisibleThread for contract specialists, capture managers, proposal response teams, legal reviewers and IT development teams. The identification of compliance, legal, and delivery concerns through automated scans enables proposal response teams to improve efficiency and increase their probability of winning government and commercial contracts. For more information, visit www.visiblethread.com

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Media Contact Evan Weisel

Welz & Weisel Communications P: 703-218-3555

evan@w2comm.com

VisibleThread for IT

2:48 minutes
This summary overview shows the business case for using VisibleThread for IT programs. It shows why up to 42% of IT project cost can be attributed to defective documentation and demonstrates how VisibleThread addresses this large business issue.

Red-flagging Bad Language

3:47 minutes
There are some words/phrases that you should avoid in a proposal. This short video shows how VisibleThread scans and red-flags 'bad language' in your RFP Responses.

Using Discovery to spot Gaps

2:28 minutes
Identification of key concepts in issued documents (RFP etc.) helps align the language of the response volumes. Discovery in VisibleThread can uncover mismatches and lack of alignment between issuer and response docs to support reviews and underpin a winning bid.

Validating Win Theme Language

4:43 minutes
Win themes articulate business differentiation. Too often, with multiple contributors and authors, it is hard to keep theme language consistent.

Here we see how VisibleThread validates response docs against win themes by:

A starter compliance matrix in 3 minutes

4:20 minutes
Proposal Managers have to manually scan issued documents or pdfs to spot requirements prefaced with 'shall', 'must' etc. and track them in spreadsheets. This demo shows an 'obligation scan' run against a draft RFP pdf. All instances of 'will', 'must', 'shall' are identified. It concludes by generating a first pass of an Excel Compliance Matrix.

Collaborations and Team Reviews with
Discussions

5:31 minutes
Managing inputs from multiple contributors and conducting efficient team reviews is critical to successful outcomes. This demo shows how VisibleThread supports collaboration using web based discussions.

Integrating with MS SharePoint

2:36 minutes
VisibleThread integrates with MS SharePoint using an intuitive import capability. This short demo shows how you can import an MS SharePoint document for analysis.

Plain Language Analysis

4:11 minutes
Plain Language Analysis drives clear documentation. This demo outlines how VisibleThread can identify long sentences, passive langauge and facilitate plain langauge audits.