February 2011 newsletter

Happy New Year!

We hope you are happily getting back into the swing of work and enjoying the challenges of the new year. The economic outlook is a little brighter and it's summer! It's a great time for clarity and smartening up your writing.

Announcing the winner of the Santa letter competition

We were tickled pink (or should that be red and white?) by the clever entries to our Santa letter competition. There are some witty writers among you! Jacqui Beets was the winner, and Paul Pascoe of Statistics New Zealand got second place. The talented Jacqui Beets also entered an extraordinary poem.

Read the winning letters and the poem

Three brand new workshops coming up

Productivity Powerhouse. Wellington, 25 February

Planning and prioritising — speed reading — efficient email writing

The experts get together to deliver three fantastic productivity tools in one day! Write trainers and productivity expert, Robyn Pearce, have developed this fantastic new workshop to help you manage your day. The first workshop sold out in record time, so we are running a second workshop on Friday, 25 February. The day costs $580 + GST. Email Michelle to book.

michelle.rumens@write.co.nz

Productivity Powerhouse: workshop outline

Improving the Odds — How to create proposals that work. Wellington, 1 March

We've had many requests for a public workshop on proposal writing, so here it is! We'll help you combine all the ingredients you need to make your proposal or tender really persuasive. You'll learn how to create a stand-out proposal that connects with your audience and succeeds. We are offering a special one-off introductory price of $595 + GST. Demand is strong for this workshop, so email Michelle early to secure your place.

michelle.rumens@write.co.nz

Smart Brand, Smart Writing. Wellington, 8 March

You've invested heavily in your branding — but do your writing and communication live up to it? Come to this workshop to learn how to consider your organisation's written communication in a whole new light. The day costs $580 + GST. Email Michelle to book on this eye-opening workshop.

michelle.rumens@write.co.nz

Writing tip: produce a great proposal

Find out some of Lynda Harris’s secrets to producing a great proposal.

Tips for great proposals

Online training: special offer for February

Here's an offer to cheer your February. Find five or more people at your organisation who want to do one of the online courses below, and you'll get a special fee of $95 + GST per person. That's a saving of $80 for each person! You can choose different courses too. Click on the name of the course below to get more information.

Punctuate Perfectly

Perfecting your English (for non-native speakers of English)

Business Grammar 1

Business Grammar 2

What's Wrong with my Sentence?

To book, contact Michelle: michelle.rumens@write.co.nz.

Have your say: take our 30-second survey

What is the biggest problem you see in documents produced by your organisation?

Take our anonymous 30-second communications survey!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M59RD6R

Revised Style Guide: we're taking orders

We're taking orders now for our revised style guide. You can order the books or buy a licence to have the style guide on your intranet. And we can customise the style guide to suit your organisation.

Find out about Write's Style Guide

Proof that plain English works: do you have evidence to share with us?

We're doing some applied research to prove that plain English works. We'd love you to give us anecdotes or evidence from your workplace about how plain English saves you time and money.

For example, one small business owner has told us that since we worked with him to smarten up his proposals, his sale conversion rate rocketed from 20 percent to 70 percent in only 3 months.

Contact Colleen if you'd like to add to the project.

colleen@write.co.nz

We're tweeting

Write's now on Twitter! Follow us to find out quick tips for writing, details of our new workshops, and what's happening across the world in the field of plain language.

Check out Write on Twitter