As I’ve said before, you should write a proposal that resonates with the people who read it. In marketing terms, you write for the key personas in your target audience.
But what if your target audience never reads your proposal?
“A new minister in Albania charged to handle public procurement will be impervious to bribes, threats, or attempts to curry favour. That is because Diella, as she is called, is an AI-generated bot.
“Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is about to begin his fourth term, said on Thursday that Diella, which means “sun” in Albanian, will manage and award all public tenders in which the government contracts private companies for various projects.”
Imagen 4.
The intent is to stop corruption from “gangs seeking to launder their money from trafficking drugs and weapons.”
When people evaluate proposals
But how savvy is Diella?
Let me provide a proposal evaluation example that has nothing to do with corruption, but illustrates why AI must be robust.
A couple of years before I became a proposal writer, I was a Request for Proposals (RFP) writer…sort of. A Moss Adams consultant and I assembled an RFP that required respondents to answer Yes or No to a checklist of questions.
When the consultant and I received the proposals, we selected two finalists…neither of whom responded “Yes” to every question like some submissions.
We figured that the ones who said “Yes” were just trying to get the maximum points, whether they could do the work or not.
Imagen 4.
The two finalists gave some thought to the requirements and raised legitimate concerns.
Can Diella detect corruption?
Hopefully Diella is too smart to be fooled by such shenanigans. But how can she keep the gangs out of Albania’s government procurements?
Imagen 4.
Certainly on one level Diella can conduct a Know Your Business check to ensure a bidder isn’t owned by a gang leader. But as we’ve seen before in Hungary, the beneficial owner may not be the legal owner. Can Diella detect that?
Add to this the need to detect whether the entity can actually do what it says it will do. While I appreciate that the removal of humans prevents a shady procurement official from favoring an unqualified bidder, at the same time you end up relying on a bot to evaluate the bidders’ claims to competency.
Of course this could all be a gimmick, and Diella will do nothing more than give the government the aura of scientific selection, while in reality the same procurement officers will do the same things, with the same results.
It was 8:48, just before an important client meeting this morning, and I was freaking out. I had scheduled the meeting in Google Meet, and I started up the session…and the right third of the camera view was obscured.
Imagen 4 re-creation. I didn’t think to take a screenshot at the time. And no, I don’t have facial hair.
I attempted various fixes:
I stopped Google Meet, started it again…and got the same result.
I logged off and logged back in again…and got the same result.
I restarted my computer (turn it off and turn it back on again)…and got the same result.
I tried Zoom…and got the same result.
Which meant that the possible problem was a hardware problem with the camera itself. Which meant a lot of hassle sending the computer in for a fix, which was especially upsetting because this was a new computer.
A black section in a laptop camera feed is most often due to a hardware issue, such as a damaged camera sensor or a problem with the ribbon cable that connects the camera to the motherboard. Software issues are less likely to cause a precise, consistent black area like this, but they’re still worth checking.
Then I began working down the checklist that Bredebot provided, beginning with the first item.
The most common and easiest issue to rule out is a physical object blocking the lens. This could be a speck of dust or debris, a stray piece of a sticker, or a misplaced privacy slider. Even a tiny particle on the lens can show up as a large black spot or area in the image.
A speck of dust? Just a simple speck of dust causing that major of an obstruction?
Not having a can of compressed air available, I used my mouth to blow on the top of the laptop screen.
The obstruction partially cleared, and now three fourths of the screen was visible.
One more blow, and my “critical hardware failure” was fixed.
What does this mean?
So some computer problems are NOT fixed by turning it off and turning it on again. Sometimes a lot of hot air is necessary.
Imagen 4.
By sheer coincidence, the Just A Band song “Huff + Puff” is on my current Spotify playlist. Nothing to do with computer video hardware, but it’s a good song.
Continuing going through the points of my September 4 post and its analysis from Google Gemini. Here’s a small portion of it:
Here is a list of psychographic characteristics of your most likely buyer, the marketing leader at an identity, biometrics, or technology firm. These characteristics go beyond simple demographics and aim to uncover their motivations, challenges, and attitudes….
Seeking Strategic Partnership: While they need a service provider, they are really looking for a partner who can provide fresh, objective insights and strategic thinking. They value an external perspective that isn’t clouded by internal biases or politics.
For my part, I hunger for these strategic partnerships.
It’s one thing to get a topic for a blog post, write it, and throw it over the fence. You can get someone on Upwork to do that, or you can get a bot to do that.
It’s another thing entirely to take a step back, ask questions about your company and product/service, then figure out what you need. That’s the fun stuff.
But why should you consider Bredemarket as a strategic partner?
Technology product marketing expert. Imagen 4.
Because I’ve been there: as a technology product marketing expert, I’ve created strategy and tactics to market technical products for over 20 B2B/B2G companies and consulting clients.
Let’s hold a (free) conversation. I can tell you about me, you can tell me about you, and we can figure out what you need and how we can best work together.
I’m going to limit my thoughts to two of the four changes that Integrated Biometrics mentioned.
Decentralized systems
When I started in the biometrics industry in 1994, an automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) was usually a centralized system. Tenprint and latent examiners at the state capital (there was no federal IAFIS back then) would work in buildings at or near a huge minicomputer that held the state’s fingerprint records. Perhaps there may have been a few remote tenprint and latent workstations connected by modem, and perhaps there were some livescan stations scattered around, but for the most part these client/server systems had a single server in a state computer room. (Well, except for the Western Identification Network, but WIN was ahead of its time.)
Fast forward 30 years, and while this model may work in the United States, it may not work elsewhere.
What if you don’t have internet or cellular communications? (Yes, cellular. Modern edge devices are a topic addressed in the Integrated Biometrics article that I won’t go into here.)
Or what if the communications are so incredibly slow that it would take forever to submit a search to the capital city, and return results to the originator?
This is where decentralized systems come into play. Rather than requiring everyone to ping the same central hub, the biometric database is distributed and synchronized among multiple servers in multiple locations.
Or maybe you’re getting ahead of me here and realizing that “servers” is too limiting. What if you could put all or part of a biometric database on your smartphone, so you can search a captured biometric against a database immediately without waiting for network communication time?
Such decentralized systems were impossible in 1994, but they are certainly possible today. And IB360 lets partners build their own biometric systems with decentralization and synchronization.
Speaking of building…
Demand for speed
As I mentioned, I’ve been in the biometric industry since 1994, and although my early years were spent in a pre-contract proposals role, I’ve seen enough post-contract deployments to know that they take a long time. Whether you were dealing with Printrak, NEC, Sagem Morpho, or the upstart Cogent, it would take many months if not years to deploy a fingerprint system.
For the most part, this is still true today with “pre-made” systems from NEC, IDEMIA, Thales, and the others.
And it’s also true if you decide to deploy your own “custom-built” fingerprint or biometric system from scratch.
Either way, there is a lot of engineering, integration, and orchestration that must take place before a system is deployed. You can’t take an AFIS for Bullhead City, Arizona and deploy it in Anaheim, California…or the state of Tennessee…or the nation of Switzerland. You need to perform months of tailoring/configuration first.
Integrated Biometrics asserts that waiting years for a biometric system is far too long.
Other changes
I’ll let you read the Integrated Biometrics article to learn about the other two evolutionary changes: more powerful hardware (I’ve alluded to this), and a myriad of use cases.
All of these changes have impacted the biometric market, and prompted Integrated Biometrics to introduce IB360. To read about this modular software suite and its benefits, visit the IB360 product page.
Skipping the “leading provider” stuff, we get to this:
“Integrated Biometrics (IB)…formally announced today the launch of IB360, transforming the speed and cost to deploy identity systems. The IB360 platform is a low-code toolset of SDK-based software modules that allows our partners and integrators to more efficiently create biometric identity-based solutions with minimal development cycles.”
Continuing going through the points of my September 4 post and its analysis from Google Gemini. Here’s a small portion of it:
Here is a list of psychographic characteristics of your most likely buyer, the marketing leader at an identity, biometrics, or technology firm. These characteristics go beyond simple demographics and aim to uncover their motivations, challenges, and attitudes….
Driven by Urgency: They are often facing deadlines and a “need it yesterday” mentality. They have projects to complete, campaigns to launch, and are looking for a reliable partner who can jump in and deliver high-quality work quickly and efficiently.
One observation: if you are driven by urgency, then you are a rare breed. Too many of my conversations sound like this:
Me: When do you want this?
CMO: As soon as possible.
Me: Good, can we meet at 7:00 am Pacific tomorrow to set up the parameters?
CMO: Maybe the week after next, if I don’t have any conflicts.
I promise you that I can meet your urgency. As I like to say, I ask, then I act.
I ask, then I act.
Once we’ve “set up the parameters,” I can run with them and create something for you. Short material in three days or less, longer material in seven days or less.
And then you provide your feedback in the same timeframe. Since you’re driven by urgency, I won’t have to wait a month of two for your comments.
Now let’s measure your drive for urgency. Are you going to schedule a free meeting with me this afternoon, or are you going to schedule it right now?
Las Vegas is a destination visited by over 40 million people per year from all over the world. And the casino hotels know that they’re hungry for food, and they hope the hungry people will stay on property.
So do they serve Caesars Burgers?
Um, no. 40 million people don’t eat the same thing.
This becomes very clear if you visit the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace, with over 250 items prepared in 10 kitchens.
“From Roman-style pizza to Carne Asada Tacos inspired by the food trucks of L. A., there’s something for everyone. Find a world of flavor at our nine live-action cooking stations. Indulge in originals like slow-cooked prime rib, smoked beef brisket, crab, and wood-fired pizza. Or try something different, like whole Ahi Tuna Poke, roasted duck, or Singaporean Blue Crab and seasonal agua frescas.”
(Imagen 4)
There is literally something for everyone. And the hungry person salivating for Ahi Tuna Poke doesn’t care about the beef brisket.
Which brings us to local police automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) proposals.
Variety for hungry people
If you had asked me in September 1994 (before I started at Printrak in October) the target audience for local police AFIS, I would have replied, “fingerprint people.”
That answer would be incorrect.
Tenprint and latent people
Because, even if you limit things to the criminal AFIS world, there are (at least) two types of fingerprint people: tenprint examiners, and latent examiners. I asked my buddy Bredebot to summarize the stereotypical differences between the two. Here is some of what he said:
“‘Assembly line‘ comparisons: Because tenprint comparisons use high-quality, known impressions taken under controlled conditions, their work can be automated and is often perceived as a high-volume, less complex task. This is in contrast to the specialized analysis required for latent prints.
“Artistic and subjective: Because latent prints are often smudged, distorted, and incomplete, examiners must make subjective judgments about their suitability for comparison. This has led to the criticism that the process is more of an art than a science.”
Bredebot has never attended an International Association for Identification conference, but I have. Many many years ago I attended a session on tenprint examiner certification. Latent examiners had this way cool certification and some people thought that more tenprint examiners should participate in their way cool certification program. As I recall, this meeting way heavily attended…by latent folks. Even today, the number of Certified Latent Print Examiners (CLPEs) is far greater than the number of Certified Tenprint Examiners (CTPEs).
Other people
But you can’t procure an AFIS by talking to tenprint and latent people alone.
As I noted years ago, other people get involved in a local police AFIS procurement, using Ontario, California as an example:
(Imagen 4)
The field investigators who run across biometric evidence at the scene of a crime, such as a knife with a fingerprint on it or a video feed showing someone breaking into a liquor store.
The information technologies (IT) people who are responsible for ensuring that Ontario, California’s biometric data is sent to San Bernardino County, the state of California, perhaps other systems such as the Western Identification Network, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The purchasing agent who has to make sure that all of Ontario’s purchases comply with purchasing laws and regulations.
The privacy advocate who needs to ensure that the biometric data complies with state and national privacy laws.
The mayor (still Paul Leon as I write this), who has to deal with angry citizens asking why their catalytic converters are being stolen from their vehicles, and demanding to know what the mayor is doing about it.
Probably a dozen other stakeholders that I haven’t talked about yet, but who are influenced by the city’s purchasing decision.
Feeding the hungry people
So even a relatively simple B2B product has multiple target audiences.
Should product marketers apply the same one-dimensional messaging to all of them?
Um, no.
If you did that, purchasing agents would fall asleep at mentions of “level 3 detail,” while latent examiners would abandon their usual attention to detail when confronted by privacy references to the California Information Practices Act of 1977. (The CCPA, CPRA, and CPPA apply to private entities.)
So, whether you like it or not, you need separate messaging for each of your categories of hungry people.
(Imagen 4)
One time, as part of an account-based marketing effort, I had to construct a multi-variable messaging matrix…for a product that is arguably simpler than an AFIS.
And yes, I used Microsoft Excel.
And I can use my mad Excel skillz for you also, if your company needs content, proposal, or analysis assistance in your technology product marketing operations. Contact Bredemarket at https://bredemarket.com/mark/.
Continuing going through the points of my September 4 post and its analysis from Google Gemini. Here’s a small portion of it:
Here is a list of psychographic characteristics of your most likely buyer, the marketing leader at an identity, biometrics, or technology firm. These characteristics go beyond simple demographics and aim to uncover their motivations, challenges, and attitudes….
Aspirational: They want to be seen as innovative and forward-thinking within their company and the industry. They are looking for solutions that will help them gain a competitive edge and establish their firm as a leader in its field.
This is critical. Let’s face it, firms end up sounding the same with no differentiation between them. The identity firms all talk about trust, and all the firms talk about AI as if it were a strategy rather than a tool.
If you want to lead the industry, you have to proclaim what sets you apart. To put it bluntly, you have to say WHY (the first of my seven questions) your company is so great, and why every other company sucks.
If you can’t say that, then why should anyone buy your product or service?
If you need help in figuring out what to say, talk to me.
Bredemarket 