The salt and pepper grinders in our office kitchen are marked with red pen. Or rather, there are typos on their labels, which I’ve marked with red pen. Not that I set aside time to read the labels of our corporate condiments. While waiting for the kettle to boil, ‘qualtiy’ jumped out at me from the eye-height shelf. There are two things to note here: firstly, I can’t help but think a little less of that brand, and secondly, proofreaders will proofread – all the time.

When I say “I’m a proofreader”, the response is usually “Wow, you must be really good at spelling.” (And, depending on the setting, “How interesting! Could you pass the salt?”) It’s true: proofreaders are ‘really good at spelling’ like tax auditors are really good with numbers, and musicians are really good at putting the right notes together. There’s nature behind the profession. Continue reading →

There is a misconception that good business writing is complex and flowery, but my former role as a financial journalist has taught me that this is simply not true. By using no more words than necessary, and choosing the short word over the long, your copy can reflect clear thinking as well as delight your readers and deliver results.

Being simple isn’t as easy as it sounds. The current financial crisis, for example, has thrown terminology such as ‘credit default swap’ and ‘sovereign debt’ from the business pages onto the front pages of newspapers. Avoiding this kind of jargon is essential in good business writing as the eye can often slide right past it without really catching the meaning. Continue reading →

In late 2011, the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) interviewed Editor Group Managing Director Grant Butler about the secrets of creating exceptional annual reports.

In this podcast, Grant takes a closer look at this powerful communications medium, and shares tips on the elements that make up a good annual report, how to write a report that resonates with readers, and how to manage the production of your report from start to finish.

According to web monitoring company Pingdom, around 294 billion emails were sent globally each day in 2010. People’s inboxes are already crowded and becoming more so. Yet electronic direct mail (eDM) remains a convenient and cost-effective way to promote services or products, invite clients to events, introduce new team members or announce promotions.

Convincing people to take notice of an eDM is getting increasingly tricky. First, an eDM must cut through the email clutter. But it needs to work harder than that. An effective eDM entices people to open the email, read the content and, importantly, do something – for example, visit a website or register to attend an event. Continue reading →

The conference room is dimly lit and smells slightly musty. The crowd hushes as Emeritus Professor Don Ranly, PhD, takes the stage. Although speaking in San Diego in June 2011, his views on writing are rooted in an earlier era when people spoke to each other rather than through electronic devices; when people really observed, connected and told stories, rather than losing meaning through media and mediation.

I watched Ranly speak this morning at the International Association of Business Communicators Global Conference. As someone who has taught journalism over many years, many of them at the Missouri School of Journalism, and worked as a corporate writer, he reinforced with passion many of the principles good writers hold dear. Continue reading →

As you prepare to create this year’s annual report, why not spice things up or benchmark your performance by entering it in the running for an award? In this article, Editor Group Managing Director Grant Butler lists the awards you can win, how they work and how you can maximise your chances of victory.

First, the bad news. No-one doles out brand new cars or expensive international holidays for top annual reports. This isn’t golf, tennis or poker. However, awards ceremonies offer recognition, intelligent feedback and trophies for your shelf. They also build your reputation within your organisation (or with external clients) and should make it easier to win the resources, access and quality input you need for next year. Continue reading →