I spend a lot of time talking about good writing, writing competency, if you will.
As a writing teacher, I assume everyone knows what that looks like. But methinks I think wrong.

Let’s spend a few looking at what I’ve put together as a basic writing competency model.

A competent business writer is able to do the following:

• Present information that is audience appropriate – it has the right tone and level of complexity.
• State the purpose of the writing clearly.
• Present the information in a format (letter, memo, email, report) that meets the needs of the audience and the purpose of the message.
• Demonstrate a style (language, organization and layout) that considers audience, purpose and format.
• Prepare a message that is well-organized and easy to understand.

In order to “look” like a competent business writer, what skills must an individual possess? First, what I call the Key Competencies are:

• Analytical Thinking: Makes sense out of information
• Critical Thinking: Applies original thinking and interpretation to communication, as opposed to regurgitating information without any real thought
• Knowledge Management: Keeps track of the reams of information required to do the job
• Organizing Data and Information: Takes that information and organizes it into meaningful messages
• Rhetorical Theory and Application: Applies good grammar, structure, and persuasive writing that is audience appropriate
• Technical Knowledge: Adult Learning, Layout and Design, Grammar,
• Technological Knowledge: Uses the necessary software application, networks, and Internet tools
• Project Management: Handles a variety of tasks related to the ultimate communication outcome
• Interpersonal Relationship: Demonstrates good people skills both in written and verbal communications

Before I leave you, let me give you a few examples of what a competent business writer can do.

• Select proper communication media (email, memo, instant message, face-to-face) and prepare communication to deal with sensitive issues such as poor performance, critiques, or difficult interpersonal matters.
• Prepare audience-appropriate reports that accurately portray a specific issue.
• Demonstrate professionalism and writing competency in all communications – email, memos, reports, etc.

Feel free to contact me for more information.

Now your Past, Present and Future:

The Writing Crisis and What it Means to You and Your Business

THE PAST
If you are of my generation, you will surely remember the days when businesses and organizations were rife with what we then called secretaries. These secretaries made their bosses look good in almost every way, especially their writing. That’s right. These incredible people knew every rule of grammar and punctuation and took great pride in their skills. Often, the boss would hand them a hand-scribbled, unintelligible note to which the secretary waved her magic wand, and voila! There suddenly appeared a grammatically correct, well-written document that impressed colleagues, bosses, customers, and vendors.

THE PRESENT
Today the ability to sustain the salaries of such grammar mavens is gone. We are in an age of extracting the maximum productivity from the fewest possible resources. Thus, ladies and gents, we are on our own to produce the kind of writing that makes us, and our organizations, look credible and professional.

Consider:

• $20.83 – the cost for an executive making $100,000 + to read a 10-page document
• $1,200 – the cost of a writer to produce a 10-page document
• $35 million – the loss incurred by Coleco when they put out an instruction manual that customers could not make sense of and so returned their newly purchased Adam computers
• Untold losses in life and money – the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters were based on poor writing and communication

The stories go on ad-infinitum,but the bottom line is that writing is a high ticket item yet a low budget priority in most organizations today.In addition, I’m sorry to say, the plot thickens.
The plot thickens because most of the existing writing skills in today’s workplace are in the hands of those nearingretirement.
Conversely, a recent survey of adult prose skills found that there is a huge pool of labor out there, but that by 2030, 119 million people will have literacy skills below employable levels.
As a point of comparison, that same year the US population is projected to be 360 million.
Using a little interpolation, we’re talking about 40% of the available pool will be unemployable.

Here’s another one that will make you feel all warm and fuzzy.
Today, the US ranks 16th out of the total 21 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Experts say the issue is the growing disparity between an exploding immigrant population that lacks opportunities for and access to education and those who do have a high school education or above. The line is also drawn because of significant economic disparity between those with and those without at least a high school education. Among OECD countries there is no such labor pool disparity.

THE FUTURE

Now, what does this mean to me, you ask?

First, if you are in business, you are in for a wallop.Between now and 2014, growth will be 46% for jobs in professional, management,technical and high level sales areas.If we do the math, that means the labor pool will have exploded, but the requisite skills – as in writing, among others, will not be there.
I think we can safely say that the growth of human capital sufficient to meet the needs of our future business needs portends to be a significant problem.

THE ANSWER

Let me go on record here to say the solution is not simple.But we already knew that, right? I see the need for three parties to come together:government, education, and business.From government and business we need support and funding, from education we need graduates who have the requisite skills necessary to be competent and productive employees in the multicultural workplace of the future.

Poor Writing Costs Big Bucks

For those of us who have left English 101 behind a long time ago, it may come as a surprise to learn that poor writing is one of the biggest problems in business today. That’s right, poor writing. Studies and surveys have shown that poor writing contributes to low productivity, inferior product quality, and poor customer relations. These business issues are building to crisis proportions, so it’s time to take a serious look at this most basic, and now rampant method of communication – writing.

If you think about it, our methods of business communication have changed radically in the last ten years. “Back in the day,” most business was conducted verbally, either by telephone or in person — meetings, visits, etc. Now we communicate by keyboard: we send email, we instant message one another, and we even meet in chat rooms. Often we never set eyes upon the person on the other end of the keyboard. What this means is: we are what we write!!

Let the facts speak for themselves:

• One survey (200 Fortune 1000 companies) found that managers felt 34 % of their subordinates writing was below standard and of poor quality.
• An incredible $225 billion is lost by business each year because of poor reading, writing, and math skills.
• 71 % of surveyed executives reported that good writing is critical to business success, yet just 26 percent offer any kind of writing training.
• Poorly written manuals can conceivably result in customer death or injury, possibly bankrupting a company due to liability and court costs.
• A contributing cause to the Challenger accident was a series of poorly written and misunderstood memos

As you can see, there’s too much at stake to overlook poor writing as a major contributor to your business problems. When a business is represented poorly in its written communications – poor grammar, inappropriate tone, misspelling, ineffective format, and so on – then everything else about that business is questioned. The logic goes something like this:

“If they don’t care enough about their written communications and correspondence, then how competent is their customer service and what is the quality of their products?”

I’m sure you can relate to the fact that it’s difficult to measure the impact of poor writing on business, and this is precisely why it has been overlooked for so long. But cease your search for the elusive Holy Grail, and look instead at the quality of your and your employees’ writing. You may be amazed at what you find!

It’s More Than Just the Writing

I carry the torch of good writing: make no mistake about that.
But there is another critical piece to conveying messages successfully in today’s hurry-up, fast-paced, techno-world.
That piece is the design of your documents.

No, you don’t need to be an expert designer, nor do you need to hire one. What you DO need is to know the basics of document design to help you convey information clearly, concisely, accurately, and cost effectively. Let’s take a look at what those design strategies are:

1. White space: Believe it or not, white space is one of your most effective design tools. You can use it to highlight or separate information, to simplify complex information, to make information more reader-friendly and less intimidating, and to organize information by “chunking” it into “bite-size morsels,” so to speak.

2. Headings:Headings are the anchors of your documents.
   They allow readers to scan to find the information that is important to them and present a hierarchy showing how the information is organized.

3. Lists: Lists, whether bulleted or numbered, are the Godsend of business writing today. Lists are easy for readers to skim and grab hold of what they need quickly and efficiently. They also promote use of white space and that chunking of information we just talked about.

4. Emphasis: All CAPS and italics are out; bold is in. That’s right. All caps are the equivalent of screaming in writing, as well as being hard to read. Italics are also hard to read. Instead, use your other design elements including fonts (see number 5) to draw attention to important pieces of information.

5. Fonts: Fonts are a wonderful design tool, if used properly. First, never use more than 2 fonts in a document. Second, use a plain font such as Arial or Helvetica for your headings and subheads and Times New Roman or Garamond for your body text. The reason for this is that the first two fonts, called sans serif because they don’t have the little “feet” that Times and Garamond have, provide a bolder and authoritative sense of emphasis. On the other hand, Times and Garamond – serif fonts – have those little feet which guide the readers eye from letter to letter and word to word to facilitate easier reading.

You are now equipped with the basics of information design.
Follow these simple guidelines to produce documents that are clearer to read, more likely to garner readers’ attention, and ultimately more cost effective for your organization.

The State of Business Writing Today

There is a crisis in the workplace today, and believe it or not, it’s about the quality of writing.

That’s right:

poor writing skills are at the core of issues such as

• low productivity,
• inferior quality, and
• poor customer relations.

Think about it.

Modes of business communication have changed radically in the last ten years.

Previously we conducted most communication verbally, either by telephone or in person — meetings, visits, etc.

But in this digital age we have become communicators by the written word.

Business is conducted internationally via email and instant messenger, and often we never even meet the person on the other end of the keyboard.

What this means is: we are what we write!!

Consider the following:

· More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth grade level.

· A whopping $225 billion is lost by business each year because of poor reading, writing, and math skills.

· 71 % of surveyed executives reported that good writing is critical to business success, yet just 26 percent offer any kind of writing training.

· 30 % of all business correspondence is initiated to clarify a previous correspondence.

When a business is represented poorly in its written communications – poor grammar, inappropriate tone, misspelling, ineffective format, and so on – then everything else about that business is in question.

The logic goes something like this:

“If they don’t care enough about their written communications and correspondence, then how competent is their customer service and what is the quality of their products?”

In general, the impact of poor writing on a business is difficult to measure, and therefore, we tend to disregard it, and search instead for some elusive solution to our miscellaneous business woes.

Cease your search for the elusive Holy Grail, and look instead at the quality of your and your employees’ writing.

You may be amazed at what you find!