The Writing Jobs

Writing a records and information management (RIM) request for proposal (RFP) can be a significant undertaking that will require resources from many different departments, including those responsible for original documents, records management, support areas such as IT, and key stakeholders with corporate compliance and budget responsibility.

An RFP effort will typically begin when a department identifies a need. For example, the IT department may be assigned to research and implement a records management system (RMS) that will work seamlessly with existing document creation software, as well as with existing paper records. The business requirements that are driving the project may involve compliance with regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), as well as with accounting issues.

Planning should begin with understanding the variables that may exist for the RIM opportunity. These are only a few of the questions that should be asked during the planning stage to help the organization understand what technologies will be required for an RMS and what solutions may be possible.

AMS: Let's talk about Edinburgh first of all. We both write about the same place, but in different ways. John Rebus's Edinburgh is a relatively bleak, dark place.

Why do you focus on that side to the city?

IR: I think of Edinburgh being a Jekylland-Hyde place -- with an elegant, beautiful, rational new town and a higgledypiggledy, slightly chaotic, half-buried old town. It's an absolutely brilliant setting for a crime novel because it almost seems as if there's a dark side to the geography, not just to the criminals' characters.

Unfortunately, many white papers are difficult to digest and come across as though slightly ‘nerdy-types’, locked in research labs, prepared them with very little consideration for their readers.

So, if you’re about to write your first white paper, here are a few golden rules to follow...