GO PRO reader feedback
Snake-Oil Salesmen Now Better-Dressed
Your viewpoint is exactly on the mark (Inflation Nation, April/May 2009). You ask some excellent questions. How could we believe our home can increase in actual value by 50 percent in two years, or the tech stocks continue to grow so wildly? Possibly a short-term memory issue. However, I believe the same “snake-oil salesmen” who have always been around peddling their miracle cures to the unsuspecting, the hopeful, the folks who “need” to believe are still out there in droves peddling their snake oil. Today, they do not travel in rickety wooden wagons and sell by the bottle. Today, they wear expensive suits and operate out of plush corporate headquarters, government offices, media outlets and sadly, in our institutions of higher education.
— Dale Carlson, Coordinator for Administration, Division of Special Education, Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Procurement Ponderable
The goal of Go Pro is to stimulate thought and discussion on significant issues in the profession, to foster collaboration and community, and to encourage creative solutions to common challenges. In that spirit, each issue of Go Pro will present a hypothetical scenario describing a challenge that procurement professionals might face in the course of their careers. If you feel moved to respond — and we hope that you do — we’ll publish your comments in the next issue of Go Pro.
You are reading the local paper and see that the Parks Director promised an important citizens’ group that a new children’s park will open in just eight months. You are familiar with the project as you just issued a Request for Proposal for design of the new park. However, you are shocked by the Park Director’s promise since the project schedule includes four months for design, followed by the solicitation of bids for construction of the park and a four-month construction period. As currently planned, the project will not be completed in eight months, and while the Parks Director should not have overpromised, the elected governing body wants the promise kept. What do you do?
Send your thoughts, as well as your ideas for more scenarios, to [email protected].
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