Tag Archives: proposal

Ubiquity Via Focus

Well, that’s done and over with.

So let’s move forward with the third year of the revived Bredemarket.

In case you missed it, Bredemarket provides content-proposal-analysis services for identity/biometric and technology firms by means of standard writing offerings.

And Bredemarket will improve its capabilities to serve you…by the means of ubiquity via focus.

No, Bredemarket isn’t ready to reveal what “ubiquity via focus” is yet…but I think you’ll figure it out.

Ubiquity Via Focus.

Two Years

On May 30, 2023 I wrote a post in the Bredemarket blog, announcing an increase in Bredemarket’s business hours to full time.

I also announced a change in scope.

“If you need a consultant for marketing or proposal work, and your company is involved in the identification of individuals, Bredemarket can accept the work.”

Because…I learned at 7:30 that morning that my individual identification employer was no longer my employer. Several of us lost our jobs that day.

As it turns out, my view of my employment future was overly optimistic.

“Maybe I’ll find a new full-time position in a couple of weeks, and I’ll again have to reduce hours and scope.”

As it ended up, I didn’t…and I haven’t.

Your credentials are too impressive, so we are moving in a different direction.

And I’m paying full price for my healthcare—no employer subsidy.

Your opportunity remains.

Bredemarket has openings.

(Pictures not from Craiyon, but from Imagen 4.)

Who Runs Your Company’s Marketing?

I found an open marketing position at Company X. 

Why was I looking at Company X?

Because I knew two people (long gone) at Company X, so the company came to mind.

Who runs marketing at Company X?

Because the open position was not an executive position, I searched LinkedIn for the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, or what the cool kids call the CMO. Anyone applying for the open position would want to talk to the CMO.

But I found:

  • No CMO on LinkedIn.
  • No Head of Marketing on LinkedIn.
  • No marketing head on Company X’s About Us page.
CMO-less.

But they’re hiring…a marketing manager.

Normally companies hire a marketing head, then let them build out their team. But in this case, Company X is starting in the middle by hiring a non-executive marketing manager.

Or maybe not. 

The CxxO and double duty

There’s a chance that one of the other executives at Company X is wearing the marketing hat, in addition to their other duties. 

This isn’t unusual in small startups, after all.

CxxO.

Now this makes it difficult for people outside the company who want to speak to the marketing head.

But who cares if it’s difficult for outsiders?

  • Yes it makes it hard for a marketing jobseeker to determine who the hiring authority is for an open marketing position.
  • And yes (because this blog is all about me) it makes it difficult for a product marketing consultant to pitch their services…especially when the two original contacts have left the company.

Making it hard for outsiders is actually GOOD for the company. Pesky outsiders can be pesky, especially if they’re calling at all hours and bumping their emails.

Who runs marketing at Company U?

But what’s happening on the inside of Company X, or at Company U (your company)?

  • Who determines what the marketing manager is supposed to do?
  • Who determines if the marketing manager is a success or failure?
  • Who determines the company’s marketing strategy?

And (again because this is all about me) who determines when the company needs outside consulting help, and who can answer the questions that the consultant will ask?

From the perspective of Bredemarket, I am much better off when a prospect company has a clear plan of how it can use my content-proposal-analysis services.

Does your company know what it wants to do?

(Imagen 4)

Proposals and “Weasel Words”

Have you ever used the phrase “weasel word”? Here’s how Merriam-Webster defines it:

“a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position”

I don’t know how weasels became the subject of a negative phrase like this, but here we are.

I learned the phrase “weasel word” when I started working in proposals. I’ve been writing proposals for nearly 15 years, and I’ve run into many cases where I don’t comply with the written word of a mandatory requirement, and I end up having to…evade or retreat.

I’ve adopted my share of favorite weasel words over the years. I’m not going to give away any of my secrets in this public forum, but you’ve probably heard me rant about the government weasel wording regarding REAL ID “enforcement”:

“This rule ensures that Federal agencies have appropriate flexibility to implement the card-based enforcement provisions of the REAL ID regulations after the May 7, 2025, enforcement deadline by explicitly permitting agencies to implement these provisions in phases….The rule also requires agencies to coordinate their plans with DHS, make the plans publicly available, and achieve full enforcement by May 5, 2027.”

As I have ranted repeatedly, the REAL ID enforcement DEADLINE is May 7, 2025, but FULL enforcement will be achieved by May 5, 2027. There are enough weasel words to distract from the fact that full enforcement is not taking place on May 7, 2025.

“Flexibility,” “implement in phases”…I’m taking notes. The next time I respond to a DHS RFI, I may use some of these.

Because Bredemarket does respond to Requests for Information, Requests for Proposal, and similar documents. One of Bredemarket’s clients recently received an award, with possible lucrative add-on work in the future.

Does your identity/biometric or technology conpany want the government to give you money? I can help. Talk to me: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

Bredemarket’s “CPA.” The P stands for Proposal.

(Weasel picture Keven Law • CC BY-SA 2.0; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mustela_nivalis_-British_Wildlife_Centre-4.jpg)

The Wildebeest Obviously Needs a Snack

It’s time for my (usually) once-a-month edition of Bredemarket’s LinkedIn newsletter, “The Wildebeest Speaks.”

And I revisited a topic that I originally visited in December 2023, but hopefully with a new perspective.

Go to LinkedIn and read the latest edition of my newsletter, “Who Are Your Hungry People?” It is at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-your-hungry-people-bredemarket-xiafc/

Hungry wildebeest buffet images via Imagen 3.
Cheap Trick targets the audience, who responds in a Pavlovian way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qgpewMCVjs.

Frictionless Friction Ridges and Other Biometric Modalities

I wanted to write a list of the biometric modalities for which I provide experience.

So I started my usual list from memory: fingerprint, face, iris, voice, and DNA.

Then I stopped myself.

My experience with skin goes way beyond fingerprints, since I’ve spent over two decades working with palm prints.

(Can you say “Cambridgeshire method”? I knew you could. It was a 1990s method to use the 10 standard rolled fingerprint boxes to input palm prints into an automated fingerprint identification system. Because Cambridgeshire had a bias to action and didn’t want to wait for the standards folks to figure out how to enter palm prints. But I digress.)

So instead of saying fingerprints, I thought about saying friction ridges.

But there are two problems with this.

First, many people don’t know what “friction ridges” are. They’re the ridges that form on a person’s fingers, palms, toes, and feet, all of which can conceivably identify individuals.

But there’s a second problem. The word “friction” has two meanings: the one mentioned above, and a meaning that describes how biometric data is captured.

No, there is not a friction method to capture faces.
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XhWFHKWCSE.

No, there is not a friction method to capture faces. Squishing 

  • If you have to do something to provide your biometric data, such as press your fingers against a platen, that’s friction.
  • If you don’t have to do anything other than wave your fingers, hold your fingers in the air, or show your face as you stand near or walk by a camera, that’s frictionless.

More and more people capture friction ridges with frictionless methods. I did this years ago using MorphoWAVE at MorphoTrak facilities, and I did it today at Whole Foods Market.

So I could list my biometric modalities as friction ridge (fingerprint and palm print via both friction and frictionless capture methods), face, iris, voice, and DNA.

But I won’t.

Anyway, if you need content, proposal, or analysis assistance with any of these modalities, Bredemarket can help you. Book a meeting at https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

Why Replacing Your Employees with VLM NPE Bots Won’t Defeat Social Engineering

(Scammed bot finger picture from Imagen 3)

Your cybersecurity firm can provide the most amazing protection software to your clients, and the clients still won’t be safe.

Why not? Because of the human element. All it takes is one half-asleep employee to answer that “We received your $3,495 payment” email. Then all your protections go for naught.

The solution is simple: eliminate the humans.

Eliminating the human element

Companies are replacing humans with bots for other rea$on$. But an added benefit is that when you bring in the non-person entities (NPEs) who are never tired and never emotional, social engineering is no longer effective. Right?

Well, you can social engineer the bot NPEs also.

Birthday MINJA

Last month I wrote a post entitled “An ‘Injection’ Attack That Doesn’t Bypass Standard Channels?” It discussed a technique known as a memory injection attack (MINJA). In the post I was able to sort of (danged quotes!) get an LLM to say that Donald Trump was born on February 22, 1732.

(Image from a Google Gemini prompt and response)

Fooling vision-language models

But there are more serious instances in which bots can be fooled, according to Ben Dickson.

“Visual agents that understand graphical user interfaces and perform actions are becoming frontiers of competition in the AI arms race….

“These agents use vision-language models (VLMs) to interpret graphical user interfaces (GUI) like web pages or screenshots. Given a user request, the agent parses the visual information, locates the relevant elements on the page, and takes actions like clicking buttons or filling forms.”

Clicking buttons seems safe…until you realize that some buttons are so obviously scambait that most humans are smart enough NOT to click on them.

What about the NPE bots?

“They carefully designed and positioned adversarial pop-ups on web pages and tested their effects on several frontier VLMs, including different variants of GPT-4, Gemini, and Claude.

“The results of the experiments show that all tested models were highly susceptible to the adversarial pop-ups, with attack success rates (ASR) exceeding 80% on some tests.”

Educating your users

Your cybersecurity firm needs to educate. You need to warn humans about social engineering. And you need to warn AI masters that bots can also be social engineered.

But what if you can’t? What if your resources are already stretched thin?

If you need help with your cybersecurity product marketing, Bredemarket has an opening for a cybersecurity  client. I can offer

  • compelling content creation
  • winning proposal development
  • actionable analysis

If Bredemarket can help your stretched staff, book a free meeting with me: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

Is Milwaukee Selling PII for Free Facial Recognition Software Access?

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

Perhaps facial recognition product marketers have heard of stories like this. Or perhaps they haven’t.

Tight budgets. Demands that government agencies save money. Is this the solution?

“Milwaukee police are mulling a trade: 2.5 million mugshots for free use of facial recognition technology.

“Officials from the Milwaukee Police Department say swapping the photos with the software firm Biometrica will lead to quicker arrests and solving of crimes.”

Read the article at https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2025/04/25/milwaukee-police-considering-trading-mugshots-for-facial-recognition-tech/83084223007/

As expected, activists raised all sorts of other concerns about facial recognition in general. But there’s an outstanding question:

What will Biometrica do with the 2.5 million images?

  • Use them for algorithmic training? 
  • Allow other agencies to search them?
  • Something else?
  • And what happens to the images if another company acquires Biometrica and/or its data? (See 23andMe.)

Biometrica didn’t respond to a request for comment.

And other facial recognition vendors operate differently.

How does your company treat customer data?

And how do you tell your story?

Do you have the resources to market your product, or are your resources already stretched thin?

If you need help with your facial recognition product marketing, Bredemarket has an opening for a facial recognition client. I can offer

  • compelling content creation
  • winning proposal development
  • actionable analysis

If Bredemarket can help your stretched staff, book a free meeting with me: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/

(Wheelbarrows from Imagen 3)