Last night I gave a webinar on grant writing, where I told a story of a grant. It was a story of both failure and successes, showing what things worked and what things didn’t. It was meant to be an instructional story, as many good stories are. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize that people learn far better through story than through pedantic spewing of facts.
So. A lot of people wrote to me afterwards thanking me for the webinar.
But. One lady, we’ll call her “the nice lady” (I previously had called her something not so nice, but I reconsidered – she’s well meaning but a bit misguided) writes to me saying, basically that I should have been more dry, more pedantic, and more boring.
She tells me that I shouldn’t have told an “educational story” of one line of research that I’ve had funded consistently for 9 years through 4 different grants, that this was too “me focused.”
I think she expected me to sit there lecturing about the ABC’s (and D’s E’s and F’s) of “good grants.”
In other words, she wanted me to act like a mummy lecturing from a sarcophagus. That would have been “acceptable.”
There’s a lesson here, which is why I bother posting it. If you think, like this lady does, that writing a great proposal is all about giving a dry, boring “lecture” to your readers, you’re going to struggle. Mightily.
Grants must engage the reader with a great story about great research. In these days of 1 in 6 grants being funded, that’s the ONLY WAY you’re going to get any traction (and even then, you’ll need a bit of luck mixed in!)
Fortunately, she’s the only one who complained! Most others who wrote in, “Got it”.
Now, due to some technical glitches at the beginning (which she also complained about), I’ve decided to do an encore. It’s going to be next Tuesday, Jan 17th at 10AM PST, 1PM EST. You can sign up using the page here (ignore it if it still lists the old time): http://grantdynamo.com/tgbt-webinar/tgbt-webinarblog/
And, be prepared for a “story” where I may actually swear a time or two on a live call (gasp). If you’re not prepared for that, then you probably shouldn’t sign up!
