Have VisibleThread - and Have Better Proposal Writing
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
VisibleThread (VT) is used by the proposal center to assess proposal documents and enhance them. We also use VT to bid/no bid proposals, to capture acronyms and clear language, to create starter compliance matrices, to compare documents and to enhance our proposal persuasive documents. This software has reduced cycle times and helped to create stronger, more concise writing.
Pros
- Acronym finder - the best acronym finder I have used! This creates an Excel spreadsheet with the acronyms and their definitions in an alphabetically sorted worksheet ... AND this worksheet includes actual sentences from the document showing how and where the acronym was used.
- Compare documents - WOW! what a wonderful update! You get an Excel worksheet with the 2 compared documents side-by-side showing differences in red and statements with no changes in blue.
- Starter compliance matrix (SCM) - again, one of the best SCM-creators I have used. This choice is quick, concise, and the resulting Excel worksheet is easy to manipulate and change.
Cons
- Dictionaries - I would like to see more "canned" dictionaries. We create our own, but I know that VT has more that they can supply, giving us more quick turnaround changes (versus always having to start from scratch).
Likelihood to Recommend
VT is fabulous to proposal writing as it created for that. It can also be used for ANY type of persuasive or technical writing. If you can write it, VT can help to make the writing better. BUT!!! if you are writing news articles or descriptive writing, this is NOT the software for you. VT works to eliminate fluff, ambiguous words, exaggerations, run-on sentences, improper grammar, misspelled words, sentence fragments, etc. VT also works to eliminate passive writing. As with any software, use it for what it was created - and find something else for the rest.
