The deadline for responding to the district’s request for proposals? We had about 72 hours.

Boy, did we have a lot of work to do — but we did it. Fast. And with excellence. The proof? RNR won the roughly $130,000 contract to assist the district with the development and promotion of an online portal connecting parents, teachers and students.

Here’s just a glimpse of how Media Salad helped RNR win the business:

Website writing and editing: When the design firm caught wind of this business opportunity, it was in the throes of overhauling its corporate website. On short notice and an even shorter deadline, Media Salad’s skilled editors and writers wrote and edited more than a dozen pages of web content — including most of the site’s corporate bios, promotional text and client case studies. Our work ensured Denver Public Schools officials would find a polished and professional candidate for the contract they had to offer.

RFP development and writing. With RNR’s website shining, we turned our attention to the district’s RFP. Media Salad took the lead on structuring the business proposal, detailing the deliverables and their timeline for delivery. Media Salad’s editors provided thoughtful, clear and precise answers to the district’s questions and wrote case studies so that they would speak directly to the district’s needs. The editors’ expertise in aspects of public education helped RNR convincingly explain its unique qualifications for the job. All RNR had to do was format the document for submission.

Presentation assistance. On the day of RNR’s big meeting with Denver Public Schools, Media Salad researchers worked closely with RNR, helping the firm answer district officials’ questions about the finer points of effective communications within educational settings. With Media Salad’s help, RNR conveyed a knowledge — and know-how — that trumped its competitors.

Media Salad specializes in helping companies and organizations win contracts and grants. Contact us when you want to compete smartly — and effectively: info@mediasalad.com or (303) 881-8702.

So, I recently was invited to give a presentation about our company to a sizable crowd, and I needed a simple way to give everyone an idea of how we work — and how our team could deliver smart, savvy market insights to them. As a result, what we call a “public portal” was born.

After all, we can’t show off a “private,” password-protected portal belonging to one of our clients — such as, oh, say, the cyber-security firm that serves the federal government.

C’mon. You know we can’t.

For demonstration purposes, we figured we could settle on a subject that a couple of members of our team are passionate about: Spanish food and wine. We love Spain. (My great-grandmother was from the southern city of Cádiz. My husband played a Spanish tennis tournament to win the money needed to pay for my engagement ring. My children attend an international school in Denver recognized by Spain’s Ministry of Education. I could go on and on …)

My Media Salad colleagues and I also have been following Spain’s troubled economy and various food and wine markets with great interest. The country is working aggressively to export goods and services well beyond its traditional European stomping grounds. Its unique offerings are of fine quality and winning more hearts — and money — around the world. Take, for example, England, where the country’s largest grocery chains are reporting that Spanish foods are outselling longstanding Italian favorites. One grocery-store representative even announced that Spanish foods are the fastest growing segment of new cuisine in Great Britain. Ireland is raving about the flavors of Spain’s traditional tapas, too.

Simply put, we believe American companies will find great business opportunities in Spain — and we know we’re the right people to assist their market research.

The portal we’ve spun up is partially functioning and intentionally designed to provide only an idea of what Media Salad could do for your company or organization. Still, I’m pleased that we’ve identified an information niche that we happen to like — and that also stands to deliver a decent public service. When we looked around, we found very few websites that draw from Spanish news organizations, government agencies and universities, and from sources around the world to deliver to native English speakers a thoughtful, clear and connected look at Spain’s food and wine industries. (Online translation tools are going to get you only so far …)

Sure, you could drop tens of thousands of dollars on pricey market reports — but by visiting us first, maybe you’ll have a better sense of whether those reports would be worth the expense.

We plan to spin up plenty of other “public portals” that are focused on niche information that isn’t found easily. I’ll introduce those as they launch.

And yes, my presentation went well.

Global sales of business intelligence (BI) tools generated $10.5 billion in revenue in 2010 — up 13.4 percent over the previous year, according to market research firm Gartner.

Industry experts agree that smart BI tools are only one part of an important equation. For the best results, they must be used by efficient and effective researchers, analysts and communicators.

However, the world’s workforce isn’t equipped to meet skyrocketing demands for business intelligence — which include continual and forward-looking analyses of a competitive marketplace. Colleges and universities are woefully behind in offering instruction that prepares graduates to meet employers’ actual needs, according to an international survey sponsored by Business Intelligence Congress II, a meeting of BI professors and industry professionals.

Of 129 colleges and universities surveyed, only three offered BI instruction at the undergraduate level, and only 12 offered BI instruction in graduate programs.

“Also, students are not being exposed to a BI that reflects real-world context,” said Barbara Wixom, an associate professor at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce who also directs Teradata University Network, which conducted the survey.

Universities are struggling to provide students with real-world training partly because companies don’t want to provide their proprietary information for classroom instruction — making it hard for professors like Wixom to develop adequate BI curricula.

That juggernaut is not going to slow demand for BI-savvy employees. In the United States alone, roughly 190,000 workers with “deep analytical talent” and another 1.5 million “data-savvy managers and analysts” will be needed by 2018, according to projections released in May by McKinsey Global Institute.

Media Salad, Inc., is where the best of fact-finding — the digging, the interviewing, the records reviews, the analyzing, the dot-connecting and the communicating — meets business. Our collaborative team of veteran journalists, economists and industry consultants is uniquely qualified to deliver independent information to support sound strategic decisions. Learn more about our services.

Starting at just 20 cents a page, you, too, could produce a full-color, glossy. Think promotional marketing materials that explain your goods and services. Or how about a catalog? Or a magazine you and hundreds of your wildly talented writer, editor, artist, photographer, programmer and videographer friends from around the world get together to produce in only 48 hours?

You see where we’re going with this. The possibilities are endless.

MagCloud users upload a PDF of their magazine, and let HP handle the rest. The company promises delivery in as little as three days. For additional fees, you can choose polished bindings and options for mailing around the world. MagCloud will even manage mailings and maintain your subscriber database. Magazines can also be made available in digital-only formats and purchased from the MagCloud site for review on desktops and mobile devices.

Our intern likes strong coffee - and working in coffee shops.

Our company is busy — but never too busy to train young people to become excellent researchers and communicators.

We’re pleased to introduce Pedro Monedero Izquierdo, who will intern with Media Salad for several months. Pedro is a student at the University Jaume I in Castellon, Spain, where he is majoring in advertising.  You can find some of his student work — including a Mercedes-Benz commercial that was named a finalist in a national competition among young creatives in Spain — here and here.

By his own admission, Pedro has a lot to learn — and yet we’ve noticed he’s already thinking more smartly about the advertising industry than many people who have been in it for years. Pedro understands that sound research builds the strongest foundation for effective messaging, brand positioning, relationship-building and business development. He understands that the best research isn’t limited to Web searches and canned market reports. It might involve inspection of public records. It might include personal phone calls and visits like those Media Salad makes on behalf of its clients every day.

Pedro also understands that a market shift can happen in an instant: a sordid email compromises a political candidate, an earthquake stops production for months, the price of a key ingredient spikes. While working for Media Salad, he’ll learn more — much more — about how to gather, analyze and report news and information rapidly to inform strategic decisions.

Pedro is keenly interested in social media. We like that about him, too. We recently asked him to share with us some of his favorite blogs for learning about social networks. He gave us this list (and yes, some of these sites are written in Spanish):

• http://www.yorokobu.es
• http://www.godsavethebrief.com
• http://elpoderdelasideas.com
• http://www.thefwa.com
• http://fearlessrevolution.com
• http://www.anuncios.com
• http://www.territoriocreativo.es

Pedro hopes to meet other young innovators in communication while he’s in the Denver area — so you can bet that he’ll be attending an upcoming meeting of Colorado’s chapter of Hacks and Hackers. You’ll also be able to find him on Twitter and Facebook.

Media Salad will provide the (locally made!) beer and snacks for this inaugural meeting of Hacks/Hackers in Colorado. Track the group on Twitter: @HacksHackersCO and #hhco and on Facebook.

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by. The meeting specifics:

When: 6:30 p.m., Wed., April 27, 2011

Where: WorkBrite @ Conference Edge – 4120 Brighton Blvd. A40 Denver, CO

The chief executive officer of a cyber-security firm headquartered in Colorado attended a business meeting and quickly realized he didn’t know everyone in the room. The meeting had been called by another firm — which failed to alert the CEO that the representative of a third company would be joining them at the table.

Very bad form, we know.

But the CEO, a Media Salad client, knew where to turn for help. He quietly texted a Media Salad reporter with the name of the person he didn’t know, her title and the company she represented. Was the firm a potential competitor? A potential collaborator? Why would it be interested in the deal being discussed?

Media Salad’s veteran reporter immediately searched for answers and e-mailed a brief report that the CEO scanned discreetly on his mobile device. He remained guarded during the meeting — but also knew how to ensure the discussion played completely to his company’s advantage.

The chief executive officer and lead analyst of a cyber-security firm headquartered in Colorado called on Media Salad for help only a few days before heading to a large trade show in Las Vegas. Their goals were to make meaningful and personal connections with executives at a half dozen target companies and to walk away with at least a dozen solid sales leads.

We help you strategize

Covering the show floor — where nearly 1,000 companies and organizations were exhibiting — would have been tough without a smart plan and the help of Media Salad’s veteran reporters, who are experts at working in just about any mission-critical environment. Before the show, we recommended ways for the executives to navigate the event quickly and efficiently and briefed them about target companies and key contacts scheduled to appear there.

We help you execute

During the trade show, the executives frequently tapped into their Media Salad Market Intelligence Portal, where they found continuously updated information about the people, companies and subject matter they specifically wanted to know more about. A Media Salad reporter in Colorado worked on demand to handle their requests for information. As the executives collected business cards and brochures and gleaned leads from conversations, they alerted the reporter — who put the information into context specifically relevant to the cyber-security firm.

“Media Salad connected the dots in ways we never could have in a place like that,” the firm’s CEO said. “So many people we talked to were really impressed by how much we knew about their industry and their operations. Our business-development efforts got off to a great start.”

A Denver advertising agency turned to Media Salad for help after landing an account with a large hospital wanting to promote its bariatric surgery services. Within a month, the agency was expected to submit a general plan for a public-outreach campaign. The agency’s account-management team needed to learn in a hurry about bariatric medicine, the physicians who practice it and specific hospital dynamics that result in quality care.

We connect our clients to the experts

Media Salad immediately scouted for the best people to give industry insight to the agency. Our staff quickly introduced the lead account manager — the guy responsible for making that big presentation to the hospital — to a highly skilled surgeon who lives in another state and also has a master’s degree in business administration.

A Media Salad reporter scheduled and facilitated a meeting between the surgeon and the account manager. For two hours, they visited in person and talked in detail about everything the account manager needed to know.

“It really helped to have a highly knowledgeable, objective third party look at the situation and speak openly about it,” the account manager said after the meeting. “I got an insider’s perspective and didn’t have to learn a lot of things about my client the hard way.”

The Media Salad reporter observed the meeting, and, as good journalists do, asked the surgeon plenty of follow-up questions. The reporter’s skillful interviewing helped ensure the account manager didn’t leave out anything important or overlook the potential significance of the surgeon’s remarks and recommendations.

We deliver key insights

Only a few hours after the meeting, Media Salad’s reporter summarized the most salient points of the conversation and loaded them — along with supporting material the surgeon referenced — into the Media Salad Market Intelligence Portal. Our research findings, coupled with the surgeon’s recommendations, served as the foundation for the advertising agency’s general plan for public outreach and helped the account manager make a great presentation.

“Heads nodded the entire time I was in the room,” the account manager said.

Sure, there are some bugs to be worked out, but so far, so interesting.In just a matter of minutes, we pulled together our first “story” in Storify — a collection of links to sites and social media chatter relevant to the work of one of our clients, a school specializing in the delivery of full-immersion, bilingual education.

No, that Storify story ain’t our finest writing — but if you think we’re after great narrative flow here, you’re totally missing the point. Jeff Mason, director of Media Salad’s Client Creative Services, recently nailed the importance of new publishing tools such as Storify:

“As our capacity to digest information has been eclipsed by the volume of information available — and interesting — to us, we are attracted to a different kind of person — the curator. Greater value will be found in following, friending and subscribing to people who pull real-time digital content into rich and high-quality, narratives. Aggregation and curation has great value when there’s a large quantity of information spread widely across numerous sources, and judging the quality and credibility requires expertise.”

Key word there: expertise. Aggregation, algorithms and publishing tools like Storify are nice, but true value is derived from them only when they’re put in the hands of smart people who are specially skilled at gathering, analyzing and presenting information. Media Salad’s veteran reporters know how to move quickly to deliver timely, actionable information that informs strategic decisions. But yes, we’re always grateful for tools that help us work faster and more efficiently.

And we have to be honest here: we’re rooting for Storify’s success in part because it is the brainchild of a dynamic team that includes former Associated Press reporter Burt Herman, who also founded the journotech Meetup group Hacks/Hackers. We really dig journalists who not only talk about new ways to do business, but actually roll up their sleeves and make it happen.