Reflections on proposal writing

After redoing my project proposal several times, I feel that I have a better understanding of how to create a proposal as well as what to include. However, writing a proposal seems like something that you really need to do repeatedly in order to be good at. Having a basic outline or using the Volere template was helpful, even though the Volere template was so long and detailed that it was sometimes more of a hindrance than a help.

Creating the proposal really helped me focus on what I needed in my project and brought out issues that I had not previously thought about. It was not as difficult as I thought to reach the 15 page limit, but I think that was because I ended up repeating myself one too many times. This was something that was pointed out in my feedback and a problem which I hopefully fixed on my final proposal. I also was not always sure how much detail to include in the proposal, even after revising it several times. As was mentioned in class, you do not want to lock yourself into a tool, platform, or design too early, but, at the same time, you have to be able to know which tools would be best for creating your project. In my case, I found that Elgg provided a decent base functionality and, combined with AWS, could be a really powerful tool to use in creating my website. I was able to create a proof of concept by installing and running Elgg on AWS. I think it is important to identify one or more platforms/tools for creating a project in order to actually demonstrate to yourself that they are viable options.

I also found it surprisingly difficult to convey how my idea was different from traditional social media sites. It seems to be assumed that, if a project deals with social media or social networks, then it is identical to Facebook or Google+. I tried to emphasize the differences between my idea and these sites, but I do not think I was entirely successful. I guess this is something else that comes with practice--seeing the idea from a different perspective and being able to describe it so that your audience understands exactly what you are proposing. Overall, creating the proposal and the resulting pitch was quite a learning experience and I certainly have a lot more to learn before I become really proficient at writing and presenting my ideas.