Once you have your http proxy in place, another layer of protection is to enable content filtering. Most companies fail to do this because they are afraid their employees will revolt, but content filtering can be used effectively to prevent malicious sites and programs from infecting your network.

According to an oft-repeated cliché, “May you live in interesting times” constitutes a particularly malevolent curse in the Chinese language. Like it or not, these days are indisputably interesting times in the field of defense acquisitions.

A case study of how to communicate corporate value through graphic design in marketing.

One of my greatest challenges as a proposal manager comes from conflicting priorities between my perspective as a communications professional and the perspective of the subject matter experts contributing to any particular proposal.

"We will get a huge circus tent , with open sides on both ends to usher in and out the hundreds of guests that will attend. We will put our highest performance vehicles on display so visitors can touch and feel the quality. We will have mounted engines, chassis, cut-a-way models, accessories, performance charts and graphics, racing vehicles, performance tests, resource libraries, driving video games, give-a-ways, and live entertainment as well as high powered presentations and music."

Staging Directions, a corporate and theatrical production services company, wanted to send its clients a holiday greeting card that would also serve as a change of address notice.

Application of best practices for user interface development helps to ensure that programs are intuitive with a logical flow and strong visual cues, and that these positive attributes are further supported by Help/Instructions accessed through an easily recognizable mechanism.

Trinity writes about its early years of great experience with HostMySite.com. However, after the company merged with Hosting.com, the experience went downhill fast.

While participating on a review team for a recent client proposal, I heard another reviewer—a senior manager with our client firm—recommend that we omit the word “unmatched” from the proposal’s executive summary. He commented, “Words like this are meaningless hyperbole. They’re just a waste of space."

The 2009 Tour de France came to its conclusion this week in front of a record audience on the Champs-Élysées. I found it to be an interesting exercise to compare winning the Tour to winning federal business.

Trinity believes that strategic, persuasive writing is of great importance in creating and maintaining business relationships. We use our skills and experience to make sure our clients are well served with quality business writing when it matters most.

Since 1996, Trinity has provided its clients (from SMB to the Fortune 1000) with quality written solutions that have created billions of dollars in new opportunities and hundreds of millions of dollars in immediate new business.

Trinity also aims to bring a high level of attentiveness to each client—whether performing work for a national defense systems integrator, regional general contractor, or local non-profit.

How do you know if Trinity is right for you? Ask yourself: if you could more clearly communicate the “awesomeness of you” to potential/current customers, partners, stakeholders, etc., would you be a more successful company?

Proposal Director Mike Schutz writes about SF330 development: how A/E firms can separate themselves from the pack by handing this standard form properly.

ACT means execute. The company uses all of its investigation and transformative (or “readying”) action to move forward aggressively in pursuit of clearly stated goals.

Trinity helps clients to understand what AJAX does in the real world—without getting bogged down in the technical details.

In the rush to the Web over the last dozen years, much attention has been given to the website "user experience". To a certain degree, this extensive dialogue has been reapplied to print marketing pieces as graphic designers strive to combine traditional print design with visual elements familiar to web users.

The John C. Grimberg Company, Inc., an award-winning general and mechanical contractor that has served the Washington DC metropolitan area for over 55 years, has commended Trinity for its range of creative and technical services.

Here is the methodology that Trinity uses when performing backup and disaster recovery planning for a client. This article follows Is Your Network Data Backed Up? Are Your Sure?.

Proposals bust be relevant to the concerns of the buyer. Don't fill in your proposals with boilerplate marketing material!

Are the skills necessary for a good marital relationship similar to that of a good relationship with your customer? Trinity CEO Peter Mirus explores the similarities between the two.

Here is an example of how the designer can help at a press check. I recently attended the press run of 25,000 4-Color books, which I had designed. After the job was set up on the press, I was called to look at the initial review sheets, and noticed that the registration (the 4 layers of overlapping process colors) was slightly off.

Trinity has been performing mail server administration for more than a decade and has been experimenting with Windows-based alternatives to Microsoft Exchange™ for eight years. Many SMB cannot make a strong business case for Exchange™, but require a solid alternative that meets their needs.

Mergers, acquisitions, and expanding product lines can create unique challenges when it comes to designing and producing trade show and retail product displays.

Below are 3 additional sets of preliminary designs created for CONFLUENCE Watersports. These trade show and retail displays explore optional approaches that allow the client to showcase their branded kayaks and kayak accessories.

One of the features of Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is built-in Developer Tools, and one of those tools is the ability to emulate Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). This would ostensibly make life easier for the developer. In fact, in development experience at Trinity such has not proven to be the case.

Browser compatibility, or the ability of a web site/application to work in multiple browsers, is a concern for every web developer. Recent statistics show that five web browsers hold significant market share. The leaders in that report (in order from greatest to least) are Firefox, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 6, and Chrome.

The Building Society Through Business™ brand was developed by Trinity to emphasize its commitment to build society through business action.

Trinity provides consulting services that strengthen society by promoting ethical, profitable business strategies and by encouraging effective, respectful communication.  We hire and train men and women who are “true consultants” that act in the best interests of the client with intelligence, skill, sound judgment, character and determination.

Moreover, Trinity takes an interest in charitable enterprise and contributes both time and money to worthy causes that seek to build society. We support both national and local organizations that focus on strengthening the underpinnings of our society: God, family, and work.

The Building Society Through Business™ (BSTB) brand depicts a flowchart as the root system of a fruit tree. The brand illustrates that well-performed business organically both produces corporate growth and also bears fruit for the good of all members of society.

Trinity Consulting, Inc. (Trinity) released the Building Society Through Business™ brand last Friday. The purpose of the brand is to provide a clear visual representation of Trinity’s commitment to build society through business action.

Three years ago, Trinity collected research from diverse sources about increasing business efficiency through Information Technology. Specifically, we were looking for low-cost solutions that did not require implementation of sophisticated process automation.

Capture planning is the strategic determination of how to “capture” opportunities and turn them into lucrative realities.

Talented, principled, and disciplined people are the bedrock of a great company. Accordingly, Trinity is constantly on the lookout for top players that will complement our existing talent.

Trinity Consulting, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has formed an agreement with Christopher Pelicano (A.R.T. Services) to act as Art Director for our growing consulting firm.

During my (lustrous) career using ColdFusion, I have seen a lot change! One of the most important changes was the introduction of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) interface with ColdFusion 6 in the year 2002. This finally provided a logical way to separate functions and procedures into discrete bundles for reuse. More features and improvements to the OOP interface were found in subsequent ColdFusion releases, continuing up to the present.

If you want your competitive advantage to be matched with a winning proposal effort, Trinity is the best company to perform your proposal development. We make sure that your proposal is rigorously compliant, relentlessly focused on the buyer’s needs, and compellingly persuasive.

Graphic Design is the ordering and arrangement of informational and decorative elements (content) according to a rational concept and theme, in order to communicate the theme/information to a specific audience and move them to a desired response.

Because Trinity’s copywriting work is so transformative, we often refer to it as “strategic copywriting”. The reason? Trinity doesn’t just “write to spec”—we help you create the specifications to makes sure your materials have maximum impact.

Branding isn’t just about a brand name and trademark—it is about personality development. A critical and foundational part of that personality is the language in which your company expresses itself.

Internet Explorer 8 can be customized in many ways, but some changes made directly to the browser--not a plug-in/add-in--will benefit power users the most. Here are two.

Trinity's Art director talks about "thumbnail" concept sketches and their value in the design process.

Trinity's graphic design process focuses intently on the client's need to communicate its message, mission, and unique benefits to its target audience.

The poor economy has prompted many companies to reevaluate their customer focus. In some cases, companies have had to reassess what customer service means to both themselves and to their customers.

Quality of coworkers, tools, and environment are three aspects of employee satisfaction that will occasionally often be neglected (to one degree or another) by employers. Yet, each has a major impact on staff retention.

Filled with excitement, I jumped on the DC Metro last Saturday and headed for the EE2 (ExpressionEngine 2.0) Workshop hosted at CDIA. The presenter was Zac Gordon, an accomplished web design and development teacher in the MD/DC area.

Since Trinity Consulting does a good amount of work in both the for-profit non-profit sectors, we occasionally serve as a sounding board for individuals who are contemplating the career leap from for-profit to non-profit. This is particularly true as Trinity assists our clients with staff recruitment.

Full lifecycle proposal development is the outsourcing of the entire RFP response process. This includes (as needed) win theme development, management, writing, team reviews, design, partner coordination, and production.

Choose a typeface, and you’ve made a design decision. If something “as simple as that” has a great impact on the effectiveness of your written materials—and it certainly does—what impact will “more significant” decisions have?

The graphic design process is really a process of refinement from rough concepts to finished deliverables (printed pieces, logos, web sites, electronic documents, packaging, etc.). Refinement means change, revision, alteration. Large changes should be confined to early stages of the process which gradually give way to smaller revisions as the process reaches the finished deliverable form.

If you are a company that utilizes graphic design in any way to speak to your customers, you need to know who they are so that you can produce design pieces that speak to that constituency, or the individual segments within that constituency, personally.

During 2010 the greatest potential threat to business network (i.e., computer) infrastructure is a "bot", a type of malware that allows an unauthorized individual to gain complete control over a particular computer or network of systems.

Education is the primary practical step to keep the network secure and business data safe. Employees need to understand that if an unauthorized individual has successfully infiltrated a computer, he or she can cause immense and often irreparable damage to the employee, as well as to the company.

Fundamentally, companies are human societies interacting with other societies. Like any human society, companies are laden with corporate or cultural virtues and vices that stem from human virtue and vice.

Trinity employs certified systems administrators and application developers with expertise in network security, web technologies, and Information Management (including MS SharePoint deployment, configuration and management).

Trinity supports its B2G communication work with in-house Information Management expertise, ensuring that the client proposal development process is efficient and that client data is protected.

In a recent online discussion, a senior proposal manager wrote that compliance is overrated. While the statement seemed surprising, it may be an often-unspoken perception that is shared by writers, subject-matter experts, and others involved in various aspects of proposal development.

How critical is the data you use every day? How important are the files on your network share? What would happen if suddenly some of that information was missing? Worse, what if the latest recoverable data backup was six months old?

Large general contractors require an IT solution to handle the creation, access, and storage to what I call “jobsite documents”. Jobsite documents are those created by field users, such as daily reports, RFI, drawings, etc. Many companies develop the bad habit of storing these documents on jobsite computers and/or in the Project Manager’s email software data file.

Peter Mirus, B2B Director and CEO

Peter Mirus is a veteran communications manager with more than 14 years of experience in strategic messaging and design consulting to both for-profit and non-profit organizations. Peter has served a variety of clients, ranging from small/mid-size businesses to the Fortune 1000. He has provided consulting multiple clients with national profiles, including serving for three years as web communications director for a Fortune 1000 life insurance provider.

Mike Schutz, B2G Director

Mike Schutz is a business development specialist with more than ten years of experience in both the government and commercial sectors.  He has directed and performed capture planning and proposal management/writing focused on federal, state, and local government opportunities—including lifecycle and executive-level planning and coordination. He also has experience in relationship management for large accounts, including federal government agencies and several Fortune 100 companies.

Chris Pelicano, Art Director

Chris Pelicano has more than 30 years of experience in art direction,…

Trinity's Art Director discusses part of the design process in the creation of the Supplier Management Council logo for the Aerospace Industries Association.

My web developer colleagues could tell you...I sound like a broken record when it comes to complaining about Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer (IE). And in most cases, I’d say such diatribes are well-warranted. But instead of going on a rant in this article, I figured I would take a more rational approach. Let's take a brief look at some of the known downsides of IE and shed light on some alternative browsers.

The John Carroll Society, an organization that promotes the enhancement of spiritual, intellectual and social fellowship among hundreds of professional members in the DC Metropolitan area, has commended Trinity for its provision of effective strategic and web design and development services.

Understanding how the government solicits business and evaluates proposals is critical for those who want to win contracts. This was discussed in Trinity's recent Proposals Done Right workshop.

The two largest contributing factors to Trinity's success are (1) the character of our staff and (2) their drive to discover better solutions to problems/challenges.

"Malware" has long been the scourge of organizations of all types and sizes, with dramatic increases in computer malware infections in the past couple of years.

Proposal developers often erroneously assume that government proposal evaluators for any given proposal are thoroughly familiar with the solicited project or contract, as well as the overall requirements and layout of the RFP.

Trinity reviews Notable, a web application enabling better collaboration/review on design drafts, including web and other graphic design.

Have you ever received a client application request that at first glance seemed easy and straight forward, but after you start to write the application, you have a list of questions that is longer than the original request?

Coordinating partner work within the proposal development process is of vital importance to crafting a compliant and effective response. Key subcontractors and vendors make up part of your team—from whom you must obtain timely and effective information for integration into your proposal.

Trinity enjoys working with qualified partners to increase customer value, and is interested in partnering with other firms of professional quality to pursue opportunities of mutual benefit.

Trinity prides itself in using good communication, structured processes, and smart technology to create cleanly structured engagements. Our executives are accessible, and our project managers are used to coordinating partnering efforts.

Trinity has performed projects in cooperation with designers, web developers, application developers, IT specialists, marketing consultants/business developers, attorneys, and various other experts and vendors.

Contact us to explore a partnership with Trinity.

Trinity works with Michelin to help perpetuate a versatile corporate mascot.

An industry-leading national trade association (members include 19 of top 20 corporations in the industry, as ranked by FORTUNE) has commended Trinity on its work for the Association since 2008. The statement was provided by the Association's Assistant Vice President of Communications.

In today’s market, being on the web is imperative for most businesses. The degree to which each business needs a web presence is determined by the expectations of the market: you need to respond to the needs of your potential/current customers and keep your competitive advantage. These are the primary considerations when exploring the necessary scope of building a new web presence.

Q: What exactly are "industry standards and best practices" when it comes to proposal development? A: They are what you are promised by every proposal development firm under the sun.

Trinity has used many online project management and team collaboration tools. We have yet to find one that we can endorse without reservation--every system has its flaws and limitations (some of them more egregious than others).

To communicate proposal compliance to the buyer’s evaluator, most proposals should include a compliance matrix at the beginning of the submission. This matrix clearly identifies each major RFP requirement, states where in the RFP the buyer requests the information, and lists the proposal location where the requirement is addressed. This layout provides a concise reference for the evaluator to connect each RFP requirement with the associated response.

An important part of proposal development is ensuring that the submission complies with all RFP requirements. One tool that helps ensure compliance is the overview.

In previous posts, I described two tools for ensuring proposal compliance: the overview and the proposal shell. A third tool is the compliance review.

In a previous article, I discussed using the proposal overview to ensure compliance. This article discusses a second compliance tool: shell documents, or the “proposal shell.”

Choose a typeface, and you’ve made a design decision. If something “as simple as that” has a great impact on the effectiveness of your written materials—and it certainly does—what impact will “more significant” decisions have?

To ensure an efficient and effective proposal process, Trinity will provide you with an experienced proposal manager—bringing dedication, attentiveness, and rigorous day-to-day management to the proposal process.

Strong, decisive, carefully tailored to each different proposal—Trinity’s proposal writing delivers extremely high-value content: easy for your customer to read; even easier to reward with the contract.

Trinity’s primary role as a consulting firm is to help our clients build context for business decisions. Regardless of the applied Solution Area, Trinity solicits information from the client and then adds its own expertise and insight to create the context in which good business decisions can be made.

Small businesses often wonder at what point, if any, they should seek an outside consultant to provide objective marketing advice or run their marketing functions. There is no clear-cut answer to this question. However, I do offer a few words of advice to small business owners (or managers).

Beyond actually having the tools of the trade (or, the ability to produce excellent graphic design), being a good producer of graphic design solutions is about pursuing a true consultative approach.

In addition to being incorporated into our full lifecycle proposal development consulting, Trinity’s review team work will be of service to clients who elect to self-perform proposal management and/or writing.

I recently read an excellent book by David Travis, "The Fable of the User-Centered Designer". It's a short story about a young designer who learns the secrets of user-centered design from three clients of a designer he found in a nearby town. It is a very enjoyable read and the three little lessons learned are great reminders for any designer (or for any executive approaching a product/service design project).

Rough sketches (roughs) explore illustrative concepts and compositions in much the same way that thumbnails explore logo designs and layout concepts.

In today's crazy changing web world, a developer has to stay sharp, focused and knowledgeable to consistently deliver a great product. But this doesn't mean spending big bucks and precious sleep time in night class. Here are a few ways Trinity's web development team keeps up to date on the latest and greatest.

Graphic Design involves the organization, prioritization, and presentation of ideas, concepts, and information at the service of a defined purpose. If the ideas are many, the concepts are complex, the information is vast, and the purpose is multi-phased—then the scope of the Graphic Design services could be enormous. The cost would be commensurate with the demand.

From the article “See, Transform, Act”: Trinity’s model of business development derives its uniqueness from the way that Trinity expresses and applies the model’s principles. Trinity’s unique expression and application of SEE, TRANSFORM, ACT comes from deeply seated personal and corporate beliefs about humility, communication and business ethics.

Trinity defines the strategic business development process as a repeatable cycle that uncovers ever more accurate information about both the market and your organization with each revolution.

The basis of Trinity's marketing theory is knowledge gained through self-discovery. The path of vision to self-discovery is directly through the eyes of your market.

Trinity's SharePoint demo highlights some key advantages for generating ROI through proper configuration, deployment, and training.

To solidify its standing within the fields of capture strategy and proposal development, Trinity's key related staff members have recently received Shipley certifications.

Many organizations, from small business to the enterprise, are not adding two layers of firewall-level protection to their network.

When you release a solicitation, what is the desired result? The answer: information that powers excellent decision-making. The stronger the solicitation, the greater the chance of receiving that quality of information.

In previous articles I wrote about IT efficiency and mentioned that having good tools impacts employee job satisfaction.

The goal of my recent Strategic and Business Planning workshop was to draw out the difference in roles between strategic and business plans. A good deal of interest is always placed on the difference in mindset in the two processes.

Within your company, some internal business communication is very important—so important that it is documented to create a permanent record, define positions, build consensus, and bolster support.

Trinity's staff creates the blueprint that defines the essential skill set of the true consultant.

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Movie buffs may be familiar with the 1965 classic The Agony and the Ecstasy, starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II. If my memory serves me correctly, the movie portrays the painting of the Sistine Chapel, including the intellectual relationship between the two lead characters.

One of the unique challenges of business is to step outside of the usual operating mode in order to focus on your marketing message.