These guidelines are for guest authors wishing to contribute articles to the Public Spend Forum or GovShop blog. Our expanding base of public and private sector contributors includes subject matter experts, thought leaders, innovators, practitioners and senior procurement executives who wish to share their ideas, insight or opinion on a broad range of public sector procurement issues with our ever-growing audience.
While we welcome a diversity of voices, to stimulate debate, collaboration and call to action, we do have some fundamental points that we would urge writers to consider. These guidelines present a series of tips and suggestions to help our guest writers communicate with our audience in the most effective manner and in line with Public Spend Forum’s style and approach.
Basics
- Length: We aim to publish posts of approx. 500-1000 words. If you wish to write a longer article, you may consider turning it into a series. This might take the form of a number of articles on a dedicated topic, rolled out over several weeks, tackling areas such as best practices, advanced capabilities and learning content.
- Style: We are a community that encourages public sector buyers, suppliers, legislators, academics and all procurement stakeholders to communicate and collaborate to promote best practice throughout the sector. Therefore we aim to keep our style relaxed but professional, authoritative but engaging, familiar but respectful. We wish to reach our audience with every-day language that is meaningful to them.
- Personal details: Please provide your name, title and company (with website link) as you would like it to appear. Lead times are approx. one to two weeks.
Types of Subject Matter
- We cover many topics but are particularly interested in hearing from you on any of the following: market research best practices; market intelligence; IT purchasing best practices or stories; procurement technology, especially emerging tech; small/diverse businesses and barriers to public sector entry; professional services and facilities success stories or thought leadership.
- We also encourage guest writers to respond to published material on the website, which may be coverage of industry events or topics discussed in webinars or responses to research reports that Public Spend Forum or GovShop has carried out.
- We also publish content in a number of formats beyond the written word, including short videos, infographics and podcasts. Contributors are invited to participate in any of these, and are encouraged to share ideas.
Context
- As we are an international community, it is important to give your article context/perspective/background, including:
- Who or What – it is about?
- Where – consider and be respectful of audiences, time zones, locations and differing cultures.
- When – past, present or future, please be specific, is it something the sector can anticipate, or lessons learned from the past, or current situations?
- Why – explain why the audience will benefit from reading this; what makes it relevant to them and the wider audience, preferably relate to the bigger picture.
- Please back up statements with context, explaining why the statement is relevant to the reader. For example: simply saying ‘e-auctions are a good thing,’ is not enough. Better to say ‘4 critical success factors for e-auctions’ or even ‘why you should never use e-auctions when you’re buying …’
- Context can be general or category/industry-specific, for example: “Latest developments in the xyz market” or ‘6 tips when you’re buying IT services’ or ‘How to get senior management buy-in for your sourcing project ’ or ‘Handling different cultures in negotiating situations.’
A few considerations for a more widely read post:
- Use active not passive voice: ‘there are a number of reasons why procurement directors should …’ is weaker than ‘procurement directors have a number of good reasons to …’
- Avoid jargon-laden prose; it clouds your message.
- Our audience is engaged by a more light-hearted approach while retaining expertise and authority.
- Make it challenging for a well-informed procurement audience; don’t be afraid to be controversial and encourage debate.
- Please do not create an advertising pitch!
- SEO your titles: the more findable you are to Google, the more you will be read – think about what you would be searching for and include those keywords throughout your submission.
Important – Please note:
- Public Spend Forum and GovShop may publish or republish (in part or in full) contributors’ work
- We ask that content is submitted as exclusive to Public Spend Forum and GovShop
- Reproduction in any format is forbidden except with written approval
- We ask that if you wish to refer to the content on your own website, that you use the first two paragraphs or less and refer readers to the full article on Public Spend Forum or GovShop
Please forward submissions to the editorial team at support@publicspendforum.net and please note that submission does not guarantee a published post. We reserve the right to refuse submissions that do not align with the above guidelines.