W is for: who, what, when, where, why...

Flash Interview with Nuno Pires - Celfocus Proposal and Project Office

C — Thinking of our proposals, what distinguishes a good text from a cluster of letters?

NP — Transposing to our activities, there are a few rules we follow when challenging proposal documents:

• Will it sell? A successful proposal goes beyond meeting the customer’s request. It reveals unseen perspectives and elevates our wining solutions. Its content must be sophisticated yet easy, memorable and above all leave a trusting feeling.
• Get to the Point! Good writing is clear, understandable and addressed to a particular audience. Our differentiators must stand out without getting lost in the weeds, and in doing so, lose the audience. So, stick to pertinent facts. Trust that we have wowed them in the executive summary and make our case step-by-step using relevant data to bring our points home.

Pro Tip for the writers: Most readers will not read every single word. They will scan the documents looking for data that validates your claims. So, don’t get carried away with creativity - it’s not the time or place. Once you’ve given stunning descriptions, the reader wants to get down to the nitty gritty of the document, without unneeded flourishes, in an easily scannable document so that they can make the best decision possible.

C — Describe your handwriting and how that compares to how you see your work?

NP — Because I type 99% of the time, I now consider my handwriting as TrebouchetMS Regular 9… In case you didn’t know, it’s Celfocus’ official font for documents…

For the other 1%, I’m heartily bound to the same model of Rotring™ Mechanical Pencil for decades, an engineer’s obsession with the ability to render my handwriting down to dreadful and erroneous scribbles… Something rather mysterious and unrelated to my tidy self… Go figure!…

C — Which letter of the alphabet best defines Celfocus’ culture and style? Why?

NP — Celfocus is an “A”. Being simultaneously the first letter and a vowel, I relate it to our bravery of being ahead, of taking initiative and having leadership qualities. Additionally, “A” brings me positive energy and resonates with ideas of confidence, independence and being resolute.

On the people level, “A” individuals tend to approach challenges with ambition, willpower and pursue with confidence… This could also be my favourite letter.

C — What advice would you give someone to write better?

• Start with a plan: organise your thoughts before writing. Far too often people write without a plan and the result is often disjointed writing with parts that don’t connect, no clear way in and no obvious way out.
• Be clear about your purpose: keep your purpose in mind at all times to avoid going off topic. Even better, write it down in as few words as possible, print it, and keep it next to you as you write.
• Guide readers through what you write: your task is to help readers understand your message quickly and precisely. To do this, it is necessary to show them clearly how the different parts relate to each other.
• Write for readers, not yourself: because you have a clear idea about what and why you are writing, it is easy to get carried away and include information that is only important to you. Try putting yourself in the audience’s shoes.
• Keep up with good grammar: proofreading is imperative! Because no one is perfect and most of us write in a foreign language, keep yourself on your toes with good grammar resources and be sure to take advantage of the great tools out there. Not only will they keep you writing correctly, but they're likely to keep you learning new rules to freshen up your writing.
• Beat the writer's block: we all get stuck and feel cursed with bad cases of writer's block… Try curing it by talking out loud, draft it with bullets or put it down as an email to get the juices flowing. Of course, just showing up to your schedule works pretty well, too.

C — Which is your favourite letter of the alphabet? Why?

NP — In addition to A, I would also go for W. The energy I feel with the letter W echoes ideas of curiosity (what, why, who and when?), imagination, optimism, good humour and diplomacy.

Additionally, for me W stands for Wind all the time! In case you don’t know, I’m an avid kite surfer and I get a nervous twitch whenever it’s windy outside… I’m often mocked on my jerking while watching the Flag blowing in strong winds on top of Torre Vasco da Gama…

C — What would the world be like, if writing had not been invented?

NP — It would be interesting times… We’ve all played that game where one person passes on a complex verbal message to another and that person passes it to another and so on? The final message is always completely different from the original. That is a microcosm of what would have happened if writing were not invented. Progress would be slow and muddled, and… no good for business, hey?

However, humans are very resourceful and adaptive. An example of a civilisation without a wheel and without a formal written language were the Incas. They were the most advanced people in South America and did achieve remarkable things 500 years ago, but I do think that with writing they would have been able to do so much more and more quickly.