A Solution to Writing Winning Sales Proposals and Other Sales Documents

This article explains how we built a solution to producing sales proposals and other sales literature for our own company using an affordable content management solution.

Pratt, Ellis. Cherryleaf (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Single Sourcing>Documentation

Some Assembly Required: The Latourian Collective and the Banal Work of Technical and Professional Communication    

In this article, the author uses the critical vocabulary developed by Bruno Latour in his recent work Politics of Nature to offer an alternative way for technical and professional communicators to approach and articulate their work. Using the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters to explore Latour's vocabulary, the author argues that positioning technical and professional communication as more than transmitting and translating, but instead as the collecting of articulated propositions about the common world in service of the common good, thoroughly grounds its practice in rhetorical theory. Such a positioning also ascribes value to technical and professional communication without reinscribing the false dichotomy between science and politics.

Rivers, Nathaniel A. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2008). Articles>TC>Business Communication>Theory

The (Staggering) Cost of Information Overload

Recently, I was waiting for a meeting to begin at a 500-person professional services firm. An item on the bulletin board caught my eye. It was a memo from the CFO. If everyone in the firm could spend an hour less per day managing e-mail, he said, it would make a difference of US$2 million a year to the company.

Boyd, Bill. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Business Communication>Management

Starting the Journey Toward Corporate Social Responsibility

The growing emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the marketplace begs the question: What does it take to get there? How do companies make the leap from deciding to embrace the values of CSR to creating a culture around it? Read comments from several CEO's who discuss actions that companies have taken in order to incorporate CSR within their agendas.

Cunningham, Cori. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Public Relations

The State of Corporate Citizenship in the U.S.

The Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce teamed up to deliver the first survey of American businesses of all sizes on "The State of Corporate Citizenship in the U.S." This survey was designed to gain a baseline from which to measure biennially the progress and state of corporate citizenship first in the U.S. and then globally. It is the first corporate citizenship survey in the U.S. to include small and medium-sized businesses and the first to gather information on business efforts in low-income communities.

Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Public Relations

"Stepping Lively": Reformatting the Gap Between Student Writing and Professional Writing    

Teachers of technical writing are urged to use computers not only for influencing the process of writing but also for designing and formatting the product of writing. Engineering students at a Midwestern university now submit final drafts of senior projects in commercial-style formats, thus increasing their range of skills in the act of preparing final written products and adopting some conventions of communicating in the workplace. Reformatting student writing to mimic commercial-quality writing not only increases the scope and responsibility of writing instruction, but also better prepares students to adapt to communication situations in the workplace.

Kumpf, Eric P. and Joseph T. Emanuel. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Education>Writing>Business Communication

Steve Slaunwhite, Author and Copywriting Pro

In this interview, Steve shares his insight and tips on successful copywriting and freelancing.

Hartsock, Nettie. WhitePaperSource (2006). Articles>Writing>Business Communication

Stories that Sell: Writing Case History Articles  

Grab readers. Make them want to read about your product. No, not by writing sparkling prose in a brochure or flier, but by showing your product or service solving a problem -- as told by a real user. A unique blend of journalism and promotion, "case history" articles offer benefits for everyone. The user gets to look like an important expert. Your company or client gets its product or service shown in a good light. And the publication where the case history is published gets an article that will appeal to its readers.

Bronakowski, Cathryn, Peter Dossing, Barbara Spaeth and Sam Sutherland. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Case Studies

Story Scrapbooks: Tools for Engagement

Thank heavens for big sisters—especially mine. I was over at Franca's house sipping hot chocolate and catching up on life. While we spoke, she was assembling another one of her family scrapbook masterpieces. We started talking about her work—she is an international marketing and publication relations consultant. As we discussed the internal communication challenges one of her clients was facing, I had a flash of brilliance. What if we helped the client put together a story scrapbook and then used it to facilitate conversations around the organization?

Gargiulo, Terrence. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Content Management>Knowledge Management>Business Communication

Storytelling in a Central Bank: The Role of Narrative in the Creation and Use of Specialized Economic Knowledge    

Drawing on an extended ethnographic study of the textual practices of economists at the Bank of Canada, this article looks at narrative construction as a communal process of corporate knowledge making. Employing theories of narrative, genre, and distributed cognition as a conceptual frame, the article traces three stages in the development of a narrative known in the bank as the monetary policy story. Evolving across a number of written genres, this symbolic representation functions as an important site of intersubjectivity among the institution's economists. In its final form, the narrative serves the bank's executives as a shared cognitive and rhetorical resource for making decisions about monetary policy and communicating these decisions to the Canadian public. This account of knowledge making at the Bank of Canada may be useful as a heuristic for researchers studying the dynamics of discourse in other professional settings.

Smart, Graham. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>TC>Business Communication

Strategies for Placing Stories in Top Markets

Start by studying prime targets. Then write pitch letters showing editors how to meet their readers' needs with minimal effort.

Writing that Works (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Journalism

Structuring Employee Communication

In the 21st-century workplace, efficiency and speed are demanded, change is the norm, time is at a premium, and stress levels are high. Management has big expectations for what employee communication can accomplish in support of its goals, believing it can play a significant role in solving problems, achieving employee engagement, and building momentum for change and growth. Building an effective employee communication department that can rise to meet expectations and deliver results is no easy task.

Hess, Ron. Communication World Bulletin (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Management

Study Shows How to Get Bottom-Line Results from Internal Communication

Over the years, numerous studies have boasted the connection between internal communication and bottom-line results. These studies, though valuable for establishing a connection, do not delve into the important question of how. How does communication impact the bottom line? Which communication practices add the greatest value? Can communicators do to make their internal communication programs contribute to organizational success?

Vogt, Peter. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Research

Stylistic Differences in Multilingual Administrative Forms: A Cross-Linguistic Characterization    

This article studies the stylistic variation in the design of administrative forms in three European countries--the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain-- through the linguistic analysis of a small corpus of multilingual administrative forms dealing with pension benefits and other kinds of allowances written in four different languages--English, Spanish, Italian, and German. The analysis included both monolingual administrative forms--written in English, Spanish, and Italian--and bilingual Italian/German and Italian/ English forms. The purpose of the study was to search for cross-linguistic regularities in the design of administrative forms which would enable their characterization as a genre, both in terms of its staging structure and of the linguistic and formatting features of the elements which configure it as such. The analysis performed on the small corpus yielded interesting stylistic differences and tendencies in the design of comparable administrative forms in the different countries, characterized by different socio-cultural backgrounds. It is suggested that these differences are a reflection of the social attitudes of the different administrations toward their citizens.

Lavid, Julia and Maite Taboada. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Articles>Language>Business Communication>Forms

Review: Successful Writing At Work: Concise Edition    

Philip Kolin's purpose in writing Successful Writing at Work: Concise Edition is to introduce professional and business writing to undergraduate students who probably will not be taking other business writing courses. Kolin forgoes theory and provides ample exercises and examples. The concise edition, at 344 pages (10 chapters) and US$55, is 412 pages shorter and US$23 less than the full version, Successful Writing at Work (Kolin, 2006). While the book includes many of the important topics of the full version (such as discrete chapters devoted to letter writing, job applications, and writing procedures), the savings may not justify the loss of content and depth.

Dangler, Doug. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Reviews>Textbooks>Business Communication

Sustainability Reporting: Daring to Hold Yourself Accountable

As the corporate social responsibility movement continues to gain momentum worldwide, corporations need standards and measures to define responsible business practices. One such standard—sustainability—has emerged as the international benchmark for corporate citizenship. Sustainability is defined as the "triple bottom line"—the measure of an organization's economic, environmental and social performance.

Savitz, Andrew. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Public Relations

A Systematic Approach to Visual Language in Business Communication    

Although business communication relies heavily on the visual, current approaches to graphics and text design are prescriptive and unsystematic. A 12-cell schema of visual coding modes and levels provides a model for describing and evaluating business documents as flexible systems of visual language. Emphasizing clarity and objectivity, the 'information design' movement has generated guidelines for creating functional visual displays. However, visual language in business communication is seldom rhetorically 'neutral' and requires adaptation to the contextual variables of each document, a goal the writer can achieve by com bining visual and verbal planning in the same holistic process.

Kostelnick, Charles. JBC (1988). Articles>Business Communication>Document Design>Visual Rhetoric

Taking the Lead in Crisis Planning

If your crisis communication mantra is "What, Me Worry?" you are not alone. In fact, a third of IABC members who took the IABC Research Foundation crisis communication survey last December said they had no formal crisis communication plan in place prior to last year's many natural disasters and organizational crises.

Guthridge, Liz. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Risk Communication>Crisis Communication

Taming Internal Communications Clutter

Navigating through internal communication "whitewater" is a growing challenge in today's business environment. Every day, we face a flood of messages and requests from multiple sources, making it increasingly difficult to manage the overload.

Weisz, Terry. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Business Communication>Workplace

Teaching Business Communication in Singapore    

What is the primary focus of business communication teachers in classrooms in which English is not the native language of students? Do they concentrate on strategies for improved professional and interpersonal communication skills, or do they direct most attention to purely language issues? These questions have become more important because the number of nonnative English students in business communication classrooms in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and so forth is increasing and because English is becoming more important for business and education in many Asian and African countries. This article outlines some of the language-related problems that occur when teaching nonnative speakers business communication and calls for a drive to address the issue of acceptable language usage in this context.

Goby, Valerie Priscilla. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Asia

Teaching Corporate Communication Skills Through an Industry-Based International M.B.A. Program  

The International M.B.A. Program at the University of Memphis exemplifies corporate/educational cooperation. It focuses on international business theory and practice, excellent oral and written communication skills, computer skills, and a required internship in the student’s second language. Through the internship and other strategies, educators model the goal of working closely with industry to make students marketable in the global community. Both native and nonnative speakers of English master a second language in order to communicate effectively in international business settings.

Connors, Patricia E. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Teaching Line Managers to Be Good Communicators During Times of Change

When organizations are going through change, be it major or minor, the most trusted source of communication for employees is nearly always their line manager. Equipping line managers to communicate well is essential, but it also has inherent challenges.

Scarlett, Hilary. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Workplace

Technical and Professional Communication Programs and the Small College Setting: Opportunities and Challenges    

This article argues that the small school context has been a relatively unexamined or under-examined context for technical and professional communication program development. While graduate program development holds a large share of the field's attention in recent national forums, growth in graduate programs is a consequence of demand in the job market among mostly "teaching" schools. Thus, the field must consider how well we are socializing new Ph.D.s into the values and the real work of institutions where they will find employment. Toward this end, this article articulates three mediating forces of program development in the liberal arts and humanities settings of small schools: 1) interdisciplinarity and flexibility are lived dynamics of small schools; 2) the campus-wide privileging of writing and communication skills presents ongoing opportunities for curricular initiatives and program development; and 3) compression of decision-making structures leads to more involvement of/with administrators and units across campus.

Latterell, Catherine G. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Articles>Education>TC>Business Communication

Technical Writers as Marketing Communicators  

Although there are important differences between technical and marketing writing, technical writers have some prerequisites that support a transition to marketing writing: in-depth product knowledge, research experience, and strong oral and written communication skills. To develop data sheets, brochures, and other materials technical writers must first understand the goals of marketing communications. By focusing on audience needs and product benefits, by using writing techniques that engage the reader, and by providing appropriate supporting visuals, technical writers can develop persuasive marketing messages.

Bednarz, Martha C. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Writing>Marketing>Business Communication