Wherever I go, I run across consulting/service firms that guarantee they can get your company’s website on the first page of Google’s search results. Usually this claim is to be accomplished by using something called “SEO”. Let’s take a minute to understand the term “SEO” and evaluate claims made by SEO firms.

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“For years, Trinity has authored proposals that have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for our company. Trinity is integrally involved in generating new business–making sure that our expertise is properly demonstrated. They provide highly personal and critical support for all levels of staff throughout every project. I heartily recommend Trinity to any company that wants to improve its business.”

President, Award-Winning Mid-Atlantic General and Mechanical Contractor

Bringing Federal Business to Construction Contractors

View all Proposal-related services.

Trinity has a long and successful history of providing federal business acquisition services to construction contractors and A/E firms, with an emphasis on proposal development.

We are capable of handling the most brutally complex RFP requirements and developing winning technical volume responses for individual solicitations and multiple-award/IDIQ contract prequalifications.

Trinity is a high-quality proposal development firm, with impeccable standards and performance effectiveness. We utilize a rigorous development process, implemented by an in-house staff of carefully recruited and trained proposal managers, coordinators, and writers under the guidance of proposal director Mike Schutz.

In addition, Trinity has made a science out of effectively applying proposal best practices to develop government-required Standard Form 330s for use by A/E firms.

View all Proposal-related services.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Reviewing Trinity’s proposal best practices, I was recently reminded of the importance of “hot buttons”—an element of customer focus and a best practice that Trinity works to implement on every proposal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

With the amount of effort that goes into creating a well-designed proposal, it is critical that the visual appeal be preserved in print form. Trinity’s proposal production services are a seamless way to bring your proposal development process to a successful conclusion.

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.

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).

Commercial graphic design is a coordinated process of mutual responsibilities between the client/employer and the graphic designer. This post is intended to be orienting, not comprehensive. However, if the following general principles are observed within projects, you increase the likelihood of getting a superlative design solution in the final product.

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.

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.

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

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.

"If the customer wants the responses written in quill, printed on papyrus with a bow around it, please conform."

I’ve been working with non-profit organizations for 14 years. In that time, I’ve compiled a matrix for non-profit formation built not only on my own experiences, but also on expert consensus. This structure, called the Non-Profit Best Practice Concurrence Matrix%trade; (The Non-Profit Matrix™, for short), was first composed in my thoughts and project notes, subsequently researched, and then finally assembled into structured document/presentation form in early 2009.

Trinity's fondness and sympathy for non-profit concerns stems primarily from one source: our staff, who genuinely care about the greater good, and desire to make the world a better place.

Commercial printing has not "gone away" as some cyber publishing enthusiasts predicted. Environmentally friendly inks, high efficiency paper recycling, and state of the art presses have allowed commercial printing to remain an invaluable business communications medium. So, how do you get an important communications piece designed and printed? You enlist a print-savvy graphic designer and engage the Print-Design-Production-Cycle.

This year marks Trinity's thirteenth year in application development using ColdFusion. In that time, Trinity has written more lines of code than anyone at the company can count. Trinity has improved business processes for multiple organizations, and has served multiple different industries.

IT consulting veteran Kevin Fox, a systems administrator for Trinity Consulting, a full service marketing technology firm, addressed the National SharePoint User's Conference in Washington DC on MOSS Deployments, Lessons Learned on June 25th, 2008.

Following a keynote presentation on business strategy and planning by Peter Mirus, CEO of Trinity Consulting, to the board members of the Catholic Medical Association, the group’s Executive Director issued the following statement:

Dr Andrew Abela, Associate Professor at the Department of Business and Economics at The Catholic University of America, has commended Trinity on its web development efforts for his new “Extreme Presentation” website.

In less than one year, Trinity has more than doubled its customer base across multiple lines of business including proposal development, web development, and marketing strategy consulting.

A Fortune 1000 federal systems integrator has engaged Trinity's proposal development services to provide support in the acquisition of key task orders on multiple large contract vehicles.

Trinity Consulting, Inc. (Trinity) became an Adobe Solution Partner in March 2010 by demonstrating a commitment to developing and integrating client solutions using Adobe technologies.

Trinity Consulting, Inc. (Trinity),  announces that it has moved its headquarters location to 9200 Church Street in historic Old Town Manassas, VA.  The new location provides Trinity with increased office space and a central location from which to serve its growing client base.

In recent weeks, Trinity has been working on a valuable application for a leading construction contractor ("the contractor") whose primary work comes through federal contracts.

From Part 1: Trinity will be integrating three tools from the suite's toolset to improve the bid solicitation process: the Communications System, the Bidders List, and the Project File Management/Download System.

Trinity Consulting, Inc. (Trinity) extended its commitment to education in the Manassas, Virginia area by participating as one of two Gold Sponsors (along with GlassHouse Technologies) for the annual Renaissance Montessori School (RMS) fundraising event in February 20, 2010.

GTM Medical Consulting, LLC, a highly-regarded medical consulting group that has grown to 24 active clients in less than three years, has praised Trinity’s web design and development capabilities.

Trinity Consulting, Inc. (Trinity) recently received an outstanding review from an Executive Director at a Fortune 1000 proposal development client.

Potomac Economics, a leading provider of independent market monitoring, expert analysis and advice, and litigation support services to the electricity and natural gas industries, has praised Trinity for its web design and development work.

A Mid-Atlantic complete communications solutions provider has engaged Trinity’s strategic and proposal development services to provide support in the acquisition of key contracts in the area of integrated GPS tracking and diagnostic monitoring for superior fleet cost/productivity management. The client will be pursuing contracts nationwide.

Within each subcategory of the uber-category "Business Development" there are many professional business consultants providing an extreme variance in value accompanied by an extreme variance in pricing.

Content is still king—particularly on the web, where the content has the potential not just to just be persuasive, but also to draw an audience just by its very existence. With 14 years of web content development experience, isn’t Trinity the right company to help make you the king?

Web Development is about conveying a message not about looking good. Very often the primary goals of web projects are focused on improving look and feel.

In this workshop we focused on presenting some of the online applications/tools that Trinity has used to improve its own business operations, and how they may do the same for our clients.

As mentioned in my last post, here is the second half of my review of some web tools that Trinity uses to facilitate business success in the areas of Time Tracking, Web Conferencing, and Online Office Productivity.

Creating a “win strategy” involves the identification and constant improvement of key differentiators/advantages that allow the client to succeed (win contract awards) in a competitive market.

While Windows 7 is, in many respects, a great leap forward in terms of application compatibility, every so often we'll discover a basic functionality that Microsoft or a Microsoft partner has inadvertently run into the ditch.