text:
Shell Gas acquires El Paso capacity rights
MellaMidland Reporter Telegram
NEW YORK and HOUSTON - Shell Gas & Power and Southern LNG, a FERC-regulated subsidiary of El Paso Corp., have entered into a binding precedent agreement for Shell to acquire all of the additional capacity offered by Southern LNG in its recently concluded open season to expand its Elba Island liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility near Savannah, Georgia.
Shell, one of four bidders in the open season, was awarded the full additional capacity of 3.3 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of storage with a design send-out rate of 360 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), or approximately 2.5 million tonnes per year of LNG, for a 30-year term. The planned in-service date for the expansion is June 2005, subject to receipt of necessary regulatory approvals.
The Elba Island facility, inactive since 1982, received authorization to begin receiving LNG shipments on December 1, 2001. The expansion will increase the facility's storage volume by approximately 80 percent to 7.3 Bcf and the design send-out rate to approximately 800 MMcf/d. The expansion is projected to cost approximately $145 million, will have minimal environmental impact, and should benefit the port of Savannah.
"We are very pleased to win this open season. The planned expansion capacity at Elba Island will enable gas supply to key markets in Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. We are keen to secure greater LNG access to the U.S. gas market where we anticipate strong demand growth in the coming years," said Jon Chadwick, Director of Shell Gas & Power. "Access to this capacity will provide an outlet for LNG projects and prospects in which Shell has an interest in the Atlantic Basin, such as West Africa and South America. We were impressed by the technical, safety and environmental standards Southern LNG has applied at Elba Island and we look forward to a long term relationship with Southern LNG."
"Southern LNG is pleased to provide this expanded capacity to Shell, one of the very largest players in the worldwide LNG business," said John W. Somerhalder II, president of El Paso Pipeline Group. "The Elba expansion is another positive development in our commitment to help meet the growing demand for natural gas in the southeast U.S. by providing our customers with access to diversified supplies from around the world."
Midland Reporter Telegram


text:
Archive of: History Makers Gala
Museum announces 2017 History Maker Honorees
The McLean County Museum of History announced today five recipients of the 2017 History Makers award to be presented during the Museum's sixth annual History Makers Gala on Thursday, June 15
Craig Hart Named 2017 History Makers Honoree
Craig Hart was born on January 11, 1934 in Streator, Illinois. He earned his Bachelor's degree in accounting and economics and his master's degree in accounting from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.
Jeanne and Charles Morris Named 2017 History Makers Honorees
The story of how Jeanne and Charles Morris met "usually gets a smile," according to Charles. Jeanne and Charles Morris grew up in entirely different states, but met in college while working at a camp on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire. Although they then went their separate ways—Jeanne back to Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia and Charles back to Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina—the two kept in touch as they finished up their undergraduate degrees.
Judy Stone Named 2017 History Makers Honoree
Judy Stone was born in Columbus, Ohio on July 21, 1932. After growing up in Ohio, Judy received her bachelor's degree in English and attended Northwestern University in Evanston for her master's degree in History. It was in Evanston that Judy met her husband Jerry, who was working on his PhD.
Jesse Smart Named 2017 History Makers Honoree
Jesse Smart was born on April 29, 1939 on a small family farm in Pike County, IL.
After graduating as class valedictorian at East Pike High School, Jesse went on to study agricultural education at the University of Illinois. It was there, in Urbana-Champaign, that Jesse met his wife Susan.
Extending Excellence Campaign
Museum exceeds $3 million campaign goal
The McLean County Museum of History has surpassed its $3 million campaign goal to fund significant improvements including a new permanent exhibit and Museum-wide technology upgrades. Campaign Co-Chair and Board President Carolyn Yockey made the announcement Thursday, June 16, 2016 during the Museum's annual meeting and History Makers Gala. The Extending Excellence campaign has secured $3.36 million in pledges. New exhibits and programs will continue to roll out through 2019.
Father Ric Schneider Named 2016 History Makers Honoree
Since Father Ric Schneider arrived in Bloomington to become the pastor of St. Mary's Parish 23 years ago he has built St. Mary's into an institution that contributes to the well-being of the entire community, serving the needy regardless of faith.
Jill Hutchison Named 2016 History Makers Honoree
A Women's Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and an internationally respected authority on the game, Jill Hutchison's first brush with organized athletics was her seventh grade basketball team. But soon after, the self-proclaimed "Army brat" transferred to Germany where she spent three years in a physical education class that featured marching as an appropriate activity for young women. Jill says that disappointing experience would be a motivation for the rest of her career.
Gordon Ropp Named 2016 History Makers Honoree
It is impossible to study the history of agriculture and rural life in McLean County without examining the career of Gordon Ropp. His dedication to the advancement of agriculture and enrichment of rural life has played an instrumental role in shaping McLean County.
Jack Porter Named 2016 History Makers Honoree
Jack Porter's passion for social justice has defined his life and career over five decades. Inspired by his Christian faith and his experiences while studying in India, Jack has long immersed himself in local struggles to end unfair housing practices, to fight racism, to give legal representation to the poor, and to stop predatory actions that threaten people, neighborhoods, and the environment.
Merlin Kennedy, 2015 McLean County History Maker
The local story of the American Civil Rights Movement cannot be told without a chapter on Merlin Kennedy. His unique style of leadership and bold demonstrations against segregation made national headlines as the nation struggled to redefine race relations.
Peg and John Kirk, 2015 McLean County History Makers
The first scene of Peg and John Kirk's enduring love story would start in the fifth grade. John loved Peg. Peg was annoyed.
Sonja Reece, 2015 McLean County History Maker
A Missouri native, Sonja Reece chose to make Normal her home in 1973. This choice would have a significant impact not only on her family, but also the larger community that would come to know the unyielding positive energy that would be Sonja's trademark.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Big data storage demand is giving a new lease on life to a storage technology which only a few years ago was thought to be destined for the landfill: the magnetic tape.
First introduced on the Univac computer in 1951, tape is the oldest storage medium in use. While tape sales have been falling since 2008, this fall the trend has reversed showing a one per cent rise last quarter and an additional three per cent increase is expected this year by the Santa Clara Consulting Group.
Take for example the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva which spews anywhere from three and six gigabytes of data every second. CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research), which runs the LHC, estimates the data it stores is doubling every three years and the need to store it in a reliable medium is critical.
Magnetic tape offers four key advantages over hard disks for long-term data storage, according to Alberto Pace, head of data and storage at CERN.
Speed – While it takes about 40 seconds for an archive robot to pick the right tape and install it in the tape reader, once the reel is installed extracting data from tape is about four times as fast as reading from a hard disk.
Reliability – When a terabyte hard disk fails, usually all the data in it is lost. By contrast, when a tape snaps, it can be spliced together again. Data loss if often limited to a few hundred megabytes each year out of CERN's 100 petabyte tape repository. However, the organization loses a few hundred terabytes each year out of the 50 petabytes of data it stores in hard disks.
No power needed – Tapes do not need power to preserve the data it holds. By contrast, temporarily stopping a rotating disk by turning of the power increases the chances that it will fail.
Security – A hacker that manages to break into the CERN data centre could delete all 50 petabytes of hard disk data in minutes. To erase the same amount of data stored on tape would take years.
Keeping data in tape is cheaper than storing it in hard disk. Gigabyte of disk storage costs 10 cents as opposed to tape which is just four cents. Data in tapes can still be read reliably after three decades but data on disks is usually good for only five years.
Despite its advantages, tape is still not a silver bullet for data storage. But it serves a certain purpose.
"Hot data" or data that needs to be accessed immediately is best stored in flash memory, according to Evangelos Eleftheriou, manager of storage technologies at IBM's research laboratory in Zurich.
Lukewarm data or data that people need to look into frequently but not immediately is more aptly store in hard disks.
Cold data which is being stored for the long term is best kept in magnetic tapes.
About 90 per cent of an organization's data eventually falls into the cold data category after a couple of months.
Demand for tape storage continues to grow but current magnetic tapes hold only up to six terabytes of compressed data. That is why work on tape with higher densities continues.
But increasing tape densities in just half the battle. There is an even bigger challenge, according to Eleftheriou.


Determining your wants and needs is the first step to identifying the right loan for you. Is it important to you to have your payments remain the same every month, or are you more concerned with having a lower initial interest rate? There are pros and cons to each of these types of loans.
In order to get a lender to commit to lending you money over the full term of the mortgage, you will usually pay a higher interest rate on a fixed rate mortgage. If interest rates fall significantly after you have obtained this loan, you will be unable to take advantage of them, unless you refinance.
A variable mortgage, sometimes called an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) can be procured with a lower initial interest rate than a fixed rate mortgage. This type of loan can be attractive to homebuyers that plan to move in a few years and are not concerned about possible interest rate increases. People who are confident that their income will increase faster than potential increases in the market rate also like to take advantage of this type of loan. Many people who are relocated to another area by their employers know they will only be in a certain location for a limited amount of time. This scenario makes a variable loan extremely attractive, due to the lower initial interest rate.
This type of loan's interest rate is adjusted periodically to keep in line with changing market rates. If interest rates increase, so do monthly payments. Conversely, payments drop when interest rates decrease.
Before deciding on this type of loan, it is important to know how much mortgage payments can increase. For this reason, ARMs are designed with two caps, or limits to the amounts which payments can increase.
The first cap limits the amount an interest rate can increase during each adjustment period. For example, if an ARM adjusts annually may have a 2% cap. The adjusted interest rate can never be more than 2% higher than the year before.
The second cap limits the total amount of interest adjustments during the life of a loan. If an ARM has a 6% lifetime cap, a borrower may be confident in knowing they will never be required to pay more than 6% above the original rate. For example, an ARM with an initial rate of 5% and a 6% lifetime cap will never be more than 11%.
Remember to contact your real estate professional for information prior to deciding on the best loan for you.


With leather palms and an extended cuff, the Briers Julie Dodsworth Flower Girl Mid-Cuff Gardening Gloves B6984 are ideal for reducing the risk of injury to the hands and wrists when working in the garden. With 100% leather palms, they are ideal for protecting hands during tough gardening tasks, and with a mid-length cuff they provide additional protection to the wrist area.
The product code for the gloves is: B6984.
The Julie Dodsworth Flower Girl Mid-Cuff Gardening Gloves protect hands from dirt while working with soil and plants. With leather palms, they are ideal for tougher gardening tasks that involve handling coarse branches, stems, and plants.
The B6984 gloves feature slightly extended cuffs. This allows them to provide additional protection to the wrist area, which can otherwise be left exposed to risks of scratches and grazes.
The Mid-Cuff Gardening Gloves are provided in an attractive floral Flower Girl pattern to add a touch of fun to their appearance. The purple and green colours of the pattern are also attractive without being too harsh, ideal for anybody who prefers a more subtle hint of colour to their gardening attire.
The Briers Julie Dodsworth Flower Girl Mid-Cuff Gardening Gloves B6984 are available in a single size that should be suitable for most users. Please consult the table below for details.
I bought these as I am clearing an overgrown allotment plot, which is covered in brambles. I struggled with other gloves and kept getting thorns in my hands until I got these gloves. I can't recommend these gloves enough!!!


text:
package org.eknet.swing.uploadfield;

import org.alainn.swingbox.test.TestPanel;

/**
 * @author Eike Kettner
 * @since 01.10.11 15:25
 */
public class ImageInputTest {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    UploadField img = new UploadField();
    img.setPreviewSize(90, 90);
    img.setProposals(IconViewerTest.getIconURLs());
    TestPanel.start(img, "Image Input");
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Seeking the best pipe filters wholesale with good quality and affordable prices from DHgate Australia site. We provide a variety of flexible pipes online supplied by reliable sellers around the world. Helping you step by step of finding cheap black pipe lamps is what we aim for. Enjoy exploring our range of hoses pipes shop and find the hidden pipes for sale from au.dhgate.com with free delivery to Australia.


A very controversive person. He grew up at the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, spent a lot of time in marine prairies under the auspices of prominent sailors.
Considered to be one of the most promising Bulgarian chefs, educated in 24 Kitchen surroundings, he is also recognized as one of the virtuosos of the Bulgarian cuisine.


text:
Q: Get Lines between pattern 1 and pattern2 which may accure multiple times I try to print out the lines between two different patterns(including the patterns) which may accure multiple times in a file. The second pattern may accure besides the startpattern-endpattern-rhytm.
Example:
-File:
XYZ
XYY
BBB
XYX
AAA
AAB
BBB
XYW
AAA
AAC
AAD
BBB

-Output should be like:
AAA
AAB
BBB
AAA
AAC
AAD
BBB

I've already tried things like awk '/AAA/{a=1}/BBB/{print;a=0}a'.
Thank you.

A: If it has to be awk just do:
awk -- '/AAA/,/BBB/{print}'

But it seems sed would also be perfectly suited for your case. So, analogously just do:
sed -ne '/AAA/,/BBB/p'

In both commands, use a comma to indicate that you want to consider all the lines starting from (and including) the one matching the first pattern, up to (and including) the line matching the second pattern.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Teaching Critical Appraisal of Medical Evidence
Martha Carvour, MD, PhD
Virtual Mentor. 2013;15(1):23-27. doi: 10.1001/virtualmentor.2013.15.1.medu1-1301.
Teaching medical learners how to evaluate evidence for medical decision making represents both a critical and daunting task for curriculum designers. It is, after all, a desirable outcome for any curriculum in evidence-based medicine to produce graduates who not only understand the medical literature, but who can appraise, discuss, and apply what they read in a sound, thoughtful, and efficient manner [1].
When critical appraisal skills remain underdeveloped, students tend to resort to other, less useful approaches. One of these might be called convenient appraisal, in which the reader merely accepts, at face value, what the literature claims. Another, equally concerning, approach might be called cynical appraisal, in which the reader simply rejects the bulk of the literature, perhaps citing the potential for bias in all research studies. The critical reader, by contrast, takes a balanced approach to the medical literature, seeking to glean the most from each piece, approaching it with reason (not reflex), and supplementing the evidence from one article with data from other sources to build a thoughtful and defensible assessment of a study's content.
Instruction in critical appraisal skills is sometimes deferred in favor of teaching students what they read rather than demonstrating how to read it. Below are three practical methods for reversing this trend—that is, for actively teaching critical appraisal skills in an evidence-based medicine curriculum.
Teaching Critical Appraisal Skills
1. Start with what makes sense. It is hard to imagine a student who believes that basing the practice of medicine on evidence is unimportant. There are certainly many, however, who question whether incorporating the skills of evidence-based medicine into clinical decision making is practicable and who doubt that they can ever become proficient in these skills. Indeed, understanding of evidence-based medicine concepts among medical learners tends to be lower than desired [2].
Yet, the fact is that many principles of evidence-based medicine—including some of the most complex—mirror the way that many clinicians alreadythink about medicine. For instance, the likelihood that a treatment will benefit a patient often depends on the characteristics of the patients in whom it is used. This parallels the evidence-based medicine concepts of "effect modification" or its practice of differentiating between effectiveness and efficacy.
Similarly, in clinical practice, a patient's symptoms may be mistakenly attributed to one diagnosis when the circumstances surrounding the case conceal the genuine cause. This is analogous to the evidence-based medicine concept of confounding. Likewise, individual patients and their experiences are, unsurprisingly, not all the same. This nonuniformity can be linked to discussions in evidence-based medicine about diagnostic validity and precision or about variation and central tendency. For instance, how might a particular diagnostic result be interpreted in a population at high risk for disease compared to a population at lower risk? How should the concept of error in diagnostic tests influence conversations with patients about diagnoses? When evaluating a research study, should clinicians direct more focus to the experience of the entire study population (the distribution or curve representing all patients in the study) or to the average experience (indicated by a mean or similar measure)?
Principles like these have the appeal of being both relevant and intuitive. Instruction in evidence-based medicine should start with what intuitively makes sense (e.g., the general principles of prognostic research) and use this context to explain more difficult concepts (e.g., the critical interpretation of particular prognostic statistics).
2. Don't treat continuous concepts as though they were categorical concepts. Evidence-based medical instruction should not shy away from complexity when complexity makes more sense than simplicity. Although there may not always be a single correct interpretation of a research article so much as several reasonable ones, the temptation for curriculum designers is to create simplicity where it may not be very useful in the long run—to create false dichotomies between good and bad studies, for instance, rather than encouraging learners to critically appraise what they read.
The problem is not that students start simple, but that they learn to think this way. Many students have been trained, intentionally or otherwise, to evaluate study designs, statistical analyses, and research findings reflexively.
Many students, at all levels of medical education, evaluate studies simply on the basis of their design, perhaps by an oversimplified dichotomization of randomized controlled trials and a lesser, nontrial, category, or by identifying the position of a study design on a hierarchical map. These approaches fail to evaluate the content or quality of any individual study and render students unprepared to evaluate important subsections of the medical literature. Critical readers of the evidence should have a basic understanding of the utility, purpose, and value of many designs, including nontrial studies, and be able to engage in meaningful discussions about them [3, 4].
Similarly, students may reflexively evaluate a study on the basis of a single number, such as a p-value, regardless of where that value originated, whether the design or analysis makes any sense, or what the statistical test was meant to assess in the first place. This kind of assessment also falls short of the standard of critical appraisal. Instead, students should learn—from the start—how to interpret the concepts of evidence-based medicine, including p-values, within their appropriate contexts. For example: What was the purpose of the study? Was it appropriately designed to answer the question? What biases, confounding factors, and other considerations influence the interpretation of study findings? Do these factors strengthen or weaken the findings? Then (and only then), should they ask: How should I interpret the p-value in the context of a medical decision?
Notably, many educators have recognized the need to expand upon knee-jerk approaches to the medical literature by creating standardized algorithmic methods for students to follow when they read an article from the literature. This is a step in the right direction. But, here again, a temptation exists to conflate algorithmic assessments of research studies with critical evaluations of their content. These are simply not the same. Completing a checklist or calculating a score satisfies neither the intellectual rigor nor the thoughtful independence of a critical evaluation any more than adding Likert-based scores to a student evaluation offers a constructive view of a student's ability to practice medicine.
3. Adopt a SOAP approach. Admittedly, offering context-based learning opportunities in a concept-heavy curriculum presents a considerable challenge. It may be easier, after all, to define, even abstractly, a p-value or a statistical test and then imagine, also abstractly, that students will eventually learn to think critically about it. Here again, curriculum designers should start with what makes sense—that is, with the way clinician educators already think about medical education.
Consider the way that students are taught to approach the diagnosis of disease. Typically, the process begins with a chief concern—a problem to be solved or a question to be answered. This must then be supported by a series of questions, examination techniques, and laboratory or radiological analyses developed in a thoughtful, systematic, yet patient-specific manner in order to refine a differential diagnosis, identify a working diagnosis, and outline a plan of action together with the patient.
This process is expressly predicated on the notion that a single laboratory value—an international normalized ratio (INR), for instance—derives its practical meaning from the rest of the story that precedes and encompasses it. An INR value—2.5, let's say—is not very useful unless the practitioner knows where it originated and how it may influence decision making. (Is this a therapeutic INR in a patient on warfarin, or is it too elevated to justify nonurgent paracentesis in a patient with cirrhosis?)
The process by which students learn to think about diagnosis may also be applied in evidence-based medicine to promote contextual appraisal of the literature. One possible approach is shown below. While this outline may be used as an example, it does not represent an algorithm or formula for critical evaluation. Rather, just as the process of diagnosis must be based on standards of care tailored to individual circumstances, the process of critical evaluation should be founded on standards of quality adapted to the clinical question of interest and the studies designed to address it.
What is the question to be answered? What information is needed to answer the question? How does the study approach the question? Is the design well matched with the question, and is the measured outcome relevant to it?
What kind of information was collected? Where did the information originate?
What analyses were used? What are the assumptions underlying the analyses?
What are the results? How are these presented (e.g., p-values, confidence intervals, figures)?
Is all of the necessary information provided to make an assessment? What is missing?
How accurate or precise is the information (e.g., estimates of error, sensitivity analyses)?
What are the biases, confounding factors, and other considerations influencing appraisal of the subjective and objective information? Do these strengthen or weaken the findings?
What relevant contextual questions are not answered by this study? How might these be addressed?
Taking all of this information together, what is a reasonable interpretation of the study findings (even if it differs from that of others who read the same study)?
Despite any limitations of the study, can this information be useful? If so, how and when might it be applied? What are the limitations or alternatives of this plan?
What other information should be sought to aid in answering the original question? How can this information be obtained?
There is no substitute for genuine critical appraisal of the medical evidence. Medical learners who lack training in this skill may learn to rely instead on convenience (e.g., choosing a randomized trial to present to the group and, upon finding a low p-value, accepting its results at face value) or cynicism (e.g., identifying a shortcoming of a study without offering reasoned explanation about how it affects the results and disregarding anything to be gained from the research). However, critical appraisal skills may be successfully incorporated into evidence-based medical curricula by starting with what makes sense and using this as a context for more challenging concepts, by limiting oversimplification of the appraisal process, and by encouraging students to develop a systematic, yet nonalgorithmic, approach to evidence appraisal.
Health professions education/Medical education
Bayley L, McLellan A, Petropoulos JA. Fluency-not competency or expertise-is needed to incorporate evidence into practice. Acad Med.2012;87(11)1470.
Windish DM, Huot SJ, Green ML. Medicine residents' understanding of the biostatistics and results in the medical literature. JAMA. 2007;298(9):1010-1022.
Baird JS. Journal clubs: what not to do. Acad Med. 2012;87(3):257.
Rawlins M. De testimonio: on the evidence for decisions about the use of therapeutic interventions. Lancet. 2008;372(9656):2152-2161.
Virtual Mentor. 2013;15(1):23-27.
10.1001/virtualmentor.2013.15.1.medu1-1301.
The viewpoints expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.
Martha Carvour, MD, PhD is a first-year resident in internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Physician Scientist Training Program in Dallas. Prior to residency, Dr. Carvour completed her MD and PhD (epidemiology) degrees at the University of Iowa, where she first became involved in the design, development, and delivery of an evidence-based medicine curriculum.
Rating Evidence in Medical Literature
Opeyemi O. Daramola, MD and John S. Rhee, MD, MPH
Insights from Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine
Alan Schwartz, PhD and Jordan Hupert, MD
How Should Health Professional Education Respond to Widespread Racial and Ethnic Health Inequity and Police Brutality?
Alden M. Landry, MD, MPH, Rose L. Molina, MD, MPH, Regan Marsh, MD, MPH, Emma Hartswick, Raquel Sofia Sandoval, Nora Osman, MD, and Leonor Fernandez, MD
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(2):E120-124. doi: 10.1001/amajethics.2021.120.
Teaching Health Professions Students About the Holocaust
William S. Silvers, MD, Matthew K. Wynia, MD, MPH, Mark A. Levine, MD, and Meleah Himber, MEd
One health professions school views the Holocaust as fundamental content knowledge in modern health care ethics, but teaching it is difficult.
Teaching Hard Truths About Medicine and the Holocaust
Tessa Chelouche, MD
The Holocaust differs from other instances of mass murder in that it was medically sanctioned genocide.
Ethics Talk: Teaching the Holocaust
Dr Matthew Wynia joins us to discuss the importance and challenges of teaching Holocaust history to health professions students.
Paradigms, Coherence, and the Fog of Evidence
Dien Ho, PhD
The Message Isn't as Mean as We May Think
Thomas W. LeBlanc, MD, MA
State of the Art and Science
Effective Ways to Communicate Risk and Benefit
Evan A. Wilhelms and Valerie F. Reyna, PhD
Medicine, the Law, and Conceptions of Evidence
Valarie Blake, JD, MA


The 2014, 18th Annual SPAC was a great success. This year we returned to the Cobb Galleria Centre on Friday, October 24, 2014.
Standardized Process — Keep Your Sanity as the Dice Roll!
Global Communication Strategy — Reach Everyone in the Casino at Once!
Proposal Library for Base Answers — Leverage Content so the Cards Stack in Your Favor!
Jennifer Hamaker, CF APMP, works as a Director, Proposal & Technical Writing for hCentive, Inc. Jennifer is responsible for three departments: Proposal Writing, Technical Writing, and Training & Instructional Design. Her experience spans over 10 years, creating efficient documentation response processes and teams from the ground up.
Jennifer is certified at the Foundation Level with APMP. Jennifer holds a Bachelor's degree and has also completed additional work towards a Masters from Austin Peay State University.
Why do incumbents lose? Because they bet the farm on being in a favored position with the customer.
Don't bet on losing deals — learn to qualify and win!
Mr. Alexander is recognized as one of Shipley's finest senior leaders. A dynamic, seasoned platform professional, Ed is certified to provide consulting in all of Shipley's focus areas: training, capture/proposal consulting, and process consulting. He has been a full-time consultant with Shipley for almost 20 years. As a facilitator, he has taught more than 1,000 Shipley workshops and trained more than 20,000 participants in more than 20 countries for more than 300 companies. Known for his expertise in Business Development processes, Ed is considered one of the industry's most knowledgeable consultants in the areas of long-term positioning, opportunity assessment, win strategy development, and capture/proposal management.
Department 3-5 days on a standard 30-day proposal.
Keith Lee, President of 123Proposal Automation Software, Inc., graduated Howard University with an Electrical Engineering degree, where he also learned Software Development, which came in handy when he developed 123PAS.com's Proposal Automation Tools. These tools can strip RFP documents, create compliance matrices, storyboards, and individual author documents with a click of a button. Color review and desktop publishing automation are also part of this toolset that can save 3-5 days in a 30-day Proposal.
Winners submit proposals with the highest number of strengths and the fewest number of weaknesses or risks at the most favorable price to the customer. This presentation will describe seven proven quality measures for maximizing your proposal's evaluated score and better the odds of winning. Attendees will participate in a "hands on" win lab to develop and score proposal strengths (features, benefits and proofs) and together determine which team's proposal is the winner.
Brenda Crist, Managing Director, Lohfeld Consulting Group, has 25 years of experience providing capture, proposal, and program management support for information technology companies serving the federal market. She is an APMP Fellow, is certified at the APMP Professional level, is a Foundation Level Instructor, former President of the APMP National Capital Area Chapter, and speaker at many APMP conferences. She holds a Master's Degree in Public Administration from American University.
Positioning for a win requires analyses of markets, customers and competitors. Best practices suggest gathering intelligence through both research and relationships. The challenge exists in extracting and analyzing data and engaging the capture and proposal teams to review the information to agree upon the best proposal themes/win strategies. This presentation covers techniques for gathering, analyzing and maximizing available information and word of mouth intelligence.
Timing: Market analyses; Customer profiles; competitor intelligence?
Fit within the BD process: Account planning; various gate reviews?
Ginny advocates for increased return on investment and is passionate about maximizing effectiveness in business growth activities. Currently, Ginny serves as the Manager of the Business Development Resource Center (BDRC) at Life Cycle Engineering. The BDRC functions include process development, competitive intelligence, account management support, capture and proposal support. Ginny Carson is a SC native, an avid runner, an occasional triathlete, a dedicated wife, and mother to two children (who challenge her passion for effectiveness and ROI each day).
Most current proposal professionals "fell" into the profession. It is up to all of us to help develop the next generation... but how? After having difficulty finding good writers, GTECH hit the jackpot by successfully piloting and expanding a collaborative, experiential-education-based proposal writing project with a local university. We created a local talent pipeline by teaching our craft through reality-based experience. Students learned how to write proposals in response to RFPs, received evaluations, and heard from professionals on all sides of a proposal effort. This presentation describes program elements and explains how other companies can replicate it and achieve similar results.
Jody Alves is Senior Specialist and 18-year veteran with GTECH Corporation's Business Proposals Department in Providence, RI. Jody writes on strategic proposals and manages special staff training projects. She has extended her passion for writing into teaching proposal writing to college students and introducing them to our profession and APMP. She led APMP's Commercial Pilot and serves on its Commercial Advisory Leadership Team. She has presented at APMP's Nor'Easters Symposium and Bid & Proposal Con.
Recent movies (Limitless and Lucy) have made us imagine what would happen if we used 100% of our brain. The sad truth is, we already do. So now what? How can we achieve happiness, especially in a job industry that creates more stress than a dream about running naked and late to your college exam? Can you hit the jackpot and find true happiness? In this presentation, you will learn about the human brain, studies that actually track what makes people happy, and some tips on how you can decrease stress, eliminate anger, and pursue your vision of happiness.
David is Vice President of Business and Proposal Development at RTI International. He is a Fellow of APMP and has presented on a variety of topics at APMP conferences, including the Generation Gap at Work, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Proposal Manager, and other vaguely interesting proposal topics. You can follow David on Twitter (@ProposalHombre) and seek true happiness in 128 characters or less.
Win more proposals. Be more successful. Increase your income. Achieve your goals faster. Untapped solutions to your biggest proposal (and other) problems surround you every day, you need only ask. In this session, we learn a practical way to reach your biggest professional and personal goals and eliminate your worst challenges—through simple interactions. This closely held approach changes professional (and personal) lives. It may change yours.
Mike Parkinson (PPF.APMP) is an industry thought leader, visual communication expert and award-winning author. He is a partner at 24 Hour Company, a premier proposal creative services firm. Mike has spearheaded multi-billion dollar projects and created thousands of graphics and proposal solutions resulting in billions of dollars in increased revenue for his clients. His Billion Dollar Graphics book, Graphic Cheat Sheet and Get My Graphic website help companies win more proposals and save money. Contact Mike at mike@24hrco.com or call 703-533-7209.
Are you sitting at the table or playing to win? Do you have a clear strategy from the beginning of the project? Are your executive summaries demonstrating value to your customer? Stack the deck in your favor with tools and processes for winning executive summaries.
This session answers the question "What makes a strong executive summary?" by guiding attendees through a proven process to get the right strategic information from the right people to create high quality, high impact executive summaries. In the high stakes game of proposals, your executive summary is your opening hand, play like a high roller.
Heather Routh, CF APMP is a Best Practice Associate with Strategic Proposals in North America. She presented a standing-room-only session at the 2014 International Bid & Proposal Con in Chicago. Heather helped develop the strategy and executive summary tools and guides for Strategic Proposals and has developed hundreds of high quality, high impact executive summaries for sales teams across the globe. Currently, she also serves Carenet Healthcare Services as their Proposal Manager.
You might be the longshot or you might be the favorite, but either way, you can gamble away your winnings if you don't have the right team. Finding the right partner isn't easy. It's not always your best friend, or the company you worked with the last time. Instead, you need to focus on what will win and identify the partner (or partners) that put you in the best position to improve your winning potential. Join me for a fun discussion on how to improve your odds and beat the spread through teaming.
Kirste Webb, CF APMP Fellow, is an independent consultant working with small businesses. She has over 27 years' experience in business development, facilitating development of corporate initiatives, including analyzing markets, assessing potential competition, and developing overall strategies for pursuits. Kirste holds an MBA from the University of Phoenix and is a long-time member of APMP. She has presented at numerous APMP conferences and currently sits on the Board of Advisors for CBDE.
There's a name for Hold 'Em poker players who never fold before the flop: losers. Winners calculate their odds early—and they use those results to develop effective strategies that improve their odds of winning. On our table, the price-to-compete is where competitors tend to bid and customers tend to award contracts based on an historical analysis of award prices against budget. Learn how price-to-compete results can be used to design effective solutions that improve both your odds of winning and performing.
Chris Richter is Vice President of Operations for Richter & Company, a Frederick, Maryland based competitive analysis and pricing strategy firm. He is an outstanding analyst, with a keen eye for converting competitor tells into actionable tactics clients use to increase their odds of winning. An interesting, engaging speaker, Chris will present valuable techniques you can use to improve your bankroll management in any competition.
A retired (and grizzled) proposal veteran will describe how to promote your success as a proposal professional and the success of your employer. Drawing on his proposal experience as a full-time and consultant/contract employee, Chuck will suggest strategic and tactical ways to help new and not-so-new proposal professionals prosper in what can be a demanding, yet rewarding, job and career. With his insight shaped by his 20/20 hindsight and lessons learned through success and failure, Chuck hopes to help make winners of your proposal professional life and the proposals you develop. Luck could help, but don't bet on it.
Chuck is a recently retired proposal professional with about 30 years in the profession. An APMP Fellow and APMP charter member, he co-founded the Georgia and Florida APMP Chapters and served as the chapter chair for both. Chuck also co-founded SPAC and was the SPAC's conference chair several times. He has a BS (journalism), MBA, and MS (technical communication) and is the co-author of the book Proposal Writing: The Art of Friendly and Winning Persuasion.
The following workshops were offered on Thursday, October 23 at a location near the SPAC 2014 Venue.
Lohfeld Consulting Group offered the APMP Foundation Level Accreditation Training and Examination. This workshop prepares students to take the Foundation Level Examination, which was administered and scored at the end of the day. Lohfeld Consulting has delivered Foundation Level training since 2011, including the two most recent pre-SPAC accreditation workshops.
24 Hour Company offered a proposal graphics workshop, "Solutioning and Visualization (Winning With Better Solutions and Graphics)". Led by Mike Parkinson, this training is designed to teach attendees how to develop winning solutions and communicate those solutions with the team and the customer using winning proposal graphics. This class has been conducted for more than 5,000 attendees at more than 100 events over the last 10 years.
Lohfeld Consulting Group — the premier capture and proposal services consulting firm focused exclusively on government markets—with a practical, cost-effective, and efficient approach to winning new business.
Visit www.shipleywins.com or call 888.772.9467 for more information.
Qorus Software is a global provider of document and proposal automation solutions for Microsoft Office and SharePoint. Qorus offers a Sales Proposal Automation and RFP Collaboration solution called Qorus Breeze Proposals.
123 Proposal Automation Software, Inc.
The 18th annual Southern Proposal Accents Conference (SPAC) returned to the Cobb Galleria Centre, 2 Galleria Pkwy SE, Atlanta, GA 30339 (Google Maps) on Friday, October 24, 2014. This venue has hosted SPAC for a number of years and is an excellent fit for an event the size of SPAC. For our out-of-town attendees staying in the Galleria area, there has been ongoing development in this area, giving you many more choices for nearby dining.


This term we have been studying 'Hot & Cold' as our topic. It is a science and geography based topic and focuses on animal adaptations and climate zones around the world. So far, we have studied the polar bear to see how it has evolved and adapted to be able to live in the arctic. We have watched the fabulous documentary, 'My Polar Bear Family and Me', which taught us so much about Lira and her cubs and how these bears survive in such an extreme Arctic Climate zone.
We also then studied the Rock Hopper penguin, after watching clips from the Penguins: Spy in a Huddle. We couldn't believe how well these penguins can rock climb! What an amazing behavioural adaptation that is!
We are now going to study life in an Arid Climate zone, in Arabia, and look at the adaptations animals have made to survive here.