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>Quite incorrect... The DARIEN presentation was not to the same standard.
In
fact very poor
compared to some of the other companies.<

Funny that.  Two of the GPs on the committee made a point of seeking us out
and telling us the opposite.  One of the senior people on the committee
told us that the rep from another company came across like a used-car
salesman!  Finally the rep for yet another company discussed it all with us
later and he was very unhappy indeed with his presentation and its
reception.
Then there was the question of talent, experience and such. No other
company was able to mount the sort of experienced presence we did and none
of the other reps had stakes in their companies like we had---that latter
point is thought to be extremely important by many senior people in the
business world. 
It is possible that you misunderstood the whole thrust of what we were
saying.  We tried to get you all thinking about the many issues involved in
multi-funding;  as someone once said about making full use of IT---it is
95% psychology and 5% technology. It may have been that we aimed too
high--for which we take full responsibility----since we as a group were
considerably more experienced and knowledgeable about IT, FH, FH computing
and business than the committee.   That was in fact obvious from some of
the questions we were asked---like specifics on telecomms and what free
software we would throw in.  Our interpretation of the invitation to
present was that it was certainly NOT to be a sales pitch.  Our feeling was
that those sort of questions were not appropriate at all to a preliminary
presentation. 
If we misunderstood both the purposes of the event and the intentions of
the committee at that stage we can only apologise for going to what was in
retrospect a lot of un-necessary trouble.  The only mitigating factor is
that one of the senior committee members seemed able to relate easily to
one of us and gave us his view of the procedure. Perhaps there was  a range
of views within the committee?  That would have been my own feeling from
talking to a few of them. 

<<Anyway DARIEN were selling a
product, a different domain
from going to see the doctor.>>
I don't get the bit about going to see the doctor.    But we were not in
fact selling a product---as I said above our aim was to get the committee
members all thinking about the best way to use IT as part of a multi-fund. 
 Why on earth would we have brought in an experienced outside consultant
(Kate Johnson) if not to widen the thing a bit? 

<<It would be a brave man to purchase a multifund WAN from a company who
has
no experience or
existing sites. Multfund site visits were made to all the companies who had
existing WANs, and
independent assessments were made from existing users.>>
THe logic of that---if followed right down the line---is that there would
NEVER  be such a thing as a mulifund WAN since someone somewhere has to be
the first and ergo, without experience or existing mf WAN sites.  Do you
see? Each company setting up WANs, including the first company to do so,
has to do its first.   
 Yet the ICON/MIcrosolutions WAN setup was the leader in the field at that
time and it was incomprehensible to us (then and it remains so) that the
committee did not appear to know about them. In fact I gained that piece of
information from yourself as we chatted on our way outside afterwards. 
Regarding the (justified) concerns implied about inexperienced
companies----there are several points relevant.
First, Mark Bury of Microsolutions had been very keen to bid with Darien
for the multifund job.  I think most people in the field would have judged
him an extremely effective boss and judge of others.
Second, we made it very clear that Logicom was our hardware partner and
their chief sales consultant came along to testify to their experience of
major networks. 
Third, the Hoskyns people tested the Darien FH software twice as per
routine and concluded that it was the best around. This view was shared by
Malcolm Pearce of the NHSE in Leeds. 
Fourth, it is important to distinguish between corporate experience and
individual experience; between corporate experience as that which the
company possesses and corporate experience as made up of a group of
individuals working together on a given project.   It has been common
practice in the private sector for many years now for small teams to get
together on a given project, finish it and move on (either separately or
together) to the next one.   This model of working has been espoused by
leading groups like McKinseys for a long time and it works extremely well.
The logic of it is that when considering a proposal you need to look at the
people involved first and the company name second.   In the knowledge-based
and skill-based IT field, a company is only as good as its people. 
Here endeth the lesson!
Regards
Declan


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