Hi All,
FINAL FOOTNOTE ON A FOOTNOTE
I was asked offline by Francois Nsenga to send him some examples of what I called our "all-care-and-no-responsibiliy” letters. I did so and it struck me that this might be of interest to others on this list. It gives a sense of how we work. It also addresses some comments made by Karel about invoicing.
(BTW Karel, as a Life Fellow of CRI you can inspect our invoicing practices at any time. You will find them quite different to design agency billing. But I can confirm that we have never invoiced for "Searching through solution space”.
The examples below are taken from emails to clients (member organisations that commissioned us to undertake projects for them). These emails are sometimes quite detailed, but I will spare you that and protect confidentiality by omitting names, organisations etc. Overall, this type of email gets sent out in about 10% of projects we undertake. It is usually accompanied by a formal request to have any reference to our organisation removed from any public reference to the project or its outcome.
This is a closing paragraph which gives the client a convenient get out, which they took.
> …The report you have in front of you was written to give you and your colleagues an understanding of our findings, in preparation for us doing some detailed work on the actual design to guide you through the next stage. It is not a document intended for external use. We would only prepare such a document at the end of a project not at this midway point. If you want to use it for external use, it would be written in a different manner. Of course, you may decide that this is the moment you want to terminate our involvement. That is your prerogative. If you do want it restructured at this stage let me know asap and we will make the necessary changes to it’s structure, but our findings stand.
Here is another,
> …There is a small problem here. You are asking me to endorse, as part of my report, matters that are not supported by the evidence. I have indicated what these are.
>
> I did indicate that I thought going ahead with the changes before completion of our work was not a good idea.
>
> How do you want to proceed?
We completed our report, omitting their changes and only presented the ones we recommended.
David
--
blog: http://communication.org.au/blo <http://communication.org.au/blo>g/
web: http://communication.org.au <http://communication.org.au/>
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO • Communication Research Institute •
• helping people communicate with people •
Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
Phone: +61 (03) 9005 5903
Skype: davidsless
60 Park Street • Fitzroy North • Melbourne • Australia • 3068
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