Creating an Effective Business Plan  

A business plan describes your business’s future, including your vision for your organization, your competition, your products and services, markets you’ll compete in, how you’ll sell yourself, and your financial prospective. A successful plan conveys an organization’s exciting prospects and growth potential. Its overall purpose is to “sell” the business to management and possible backers.

Hansen, Lauren Y. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Business Communication>Planning

Creating an Orientation Package for Your Organization  

You can create an orientation package to acclimate new personnel and ensure that they receive all the items and information they need in a timely manner. The orientation package can consist of six sections: introduction, maps, organization overview, skills list, other information sources, and checklists. Such an orientation package is currently being used at the IBM(R) Corporation in Cary, North Carolina. Businesses constantly grow and change. People join organizations, transfer between departments and sites, and return after extended absences. The sooner new personnel become skilled in their new positions, the sooner they will be productive and contributing members of the organization.

Flaherty, Erin E. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Business Communication>Workplace

Creating Corporate Histories

Every company has a story to tell, a story about people and passion, about vision and hard work. A corporate history tells these stories—but it is also a sophisticated marketing tool that presents your message and history in a professional, concise format. These historical "portfolios" are designed to attract and impress prospective customers and stockholders, and to create loyalty and a feeling of camaraderie among past and present employees.

Tyline King, Heidi. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>History

Credibility and Corporate Scandals: Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Is

It doesn't matter whether a company is communicating through its balance sheet, prospectus, or Web site. The recent corporate accounting scandals have shattered much of the basic trust that enables business and investment to function. Unfortunately, this affects not only those companies whose shifty finances have recently been exposed. Today, all businesses face the need to demonstrate their credibility to customers, investors, partners, regulators, and the public.

Gahran, Amy. Contentious (2002). Articles>Business Communication>Communication

Crisis Management—Don’t Forget the People

In the past, business continuity and crisis management focused on tangible assets, especially post-crisis recovery of systems and data and reestablishment of facilities and services. This all changed in the aftermath of 9/11, when it became obvious that the human factor was as critical as the technology and the buildings. Watching the suffering of the people affected by the Madrid bombings has reinforced the need to ensure your contingency plans address the people involved.

Perl, David. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Risk Communication>Crisis Communication

A Critical Look at E-mail  

E-mail usage is so common and popular now that we hardly think about it. Because of its prevalence, many people have written critically about it, compelling us to look at our own usage.

Crawley, Charles R. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Communication>Online>Email

A Critique of Grammatical Coverage in Business-Communication Textbooks  

Business English (BE) and business communication (BC) overlap. English handles linguistic mechanics and style, whereas communication holistically discusses the movement of a message from one person to another. The BC discipline, unfortunately, allows language basics into its pedagogy like a statistics course teaching fundamental mathematics. From the other side, some English courses teach BC before their students are able to handle that material. A subject teaches prepared students. If they are deficient, they are either kept out or the subject matter suffers.

Kenman, Leon F. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Grammar>Business Communication

Cross Current: Proficient Enough?

A recent Conference Board survey of human resource officials revealed that only 25% of today's college graduates enter the world of work with well-developed speaking skills.

Mottet, Timothy P. Communication Currents (2006). Articles>Communication>Business Communication>Education

CSR Communication: A SME-Oriented Approach  

A case study of Danish SME managers’ understanding of CSR and CSR communication conducted in the beginning of 2007 concluded that CSR communication in SMEs is a practice rather than a corporate strategy.

Nielsen, Anne Ellerup and Christa Thomsen. Association for Business Communication (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>SMEs

Cultural Barriers to Internal Communication

Twenty years ago, I sat in the London offices of an American oil services company taking the conference brief for a CEO’s script. He was an oilman of the old school—no nonsense and pretty brutal in his management style. When his personal assistant came in with the coffee, she all but threw it over the guy and left the room with her nose in the air. “The natives are revolting,” he explained. “I made some redundancies this morning: everyone who arrived more than five minutes late.” It was my first experience of culture shock. For the Texan it was the most natural behavior; for the Brits, he represented a form of barbarism not seen since the Dark Ages. So how does a multinational firm communicate to audiences who have fundamentally different cultural values?

Wright, Marc. Communication World Bulletin (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Cultural Theory

Culture Clash: Journalism and the Communal Ethos of the Blogosphere

In taking the costs of publishing to their near vanishing point, blogging represents one of the most democratic media or media formats in history. As such, traditional print journalism’s natural response has been to embrace the form, encourage it, proliferate it, and to use blogs to fulfill journalism’s mission of informing an electorate and, therefore, bettering democracy. Not quite.

Carroll, Brian. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Communication>Journalism>Blogging

Current Status Of Business And Technical Writing Courses In English Departments

We have heard a great deal of talk in recent years about the growth of business and technical writing courses in English departments. But very little, if any, factual information exists on how much enrollments have grown and whether they are expected to grow in the near future. Furthermore, no study has attempted to assess the impact these relatively new, rapidly expanding courses are having and will continue to have on English departments and their faculty members.

Rivers, William E. ADE Bulletin (1985). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Technical Writing

The Curse of Yocto

Several years ago, four new prefixes, for representing very large and very small measurements, were introduced into the International System of Units (Système International d'Unités, or SI): yotta, zetta, zepto and yocto.

Ivey, Keith C. Editorial Eye, The (1996). Articles>Style Guides>Standards>Scientific Communication

Customer Service IS a Profit Center

If you provide after the sale customer service reluctantly, or delegate it to outsourced, but cheaper, providers, you're making a huge mistake. Customer service generates revenue via word of mouth, cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, and repeat purchases by satisfied customers.

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Quality>Marketing

Dam Visuals: The Changing Visual Argument for the Glen Canyon Dam    

Arguments manifest in scientific visuals through graphic representation, content placement, and overall document structure. These arguments, designed to influence public perception, change over time in relation to sociopolitical climate. Analysis of a series of documents constructed deliberately to influence perception can help to determine patterns of argumentation and perceived exigencies. In this article, four self-guided tour brochures produced for distribution to visitors to the Glen Canyon Dam in 1977, 1984, 1990, and 1993 are analyzed in order to identify rhetorical strategies designed to influence public perceptions of the dam site, and examine how public perception of the dam, and related argumentation, is structured by sociopolitical climate.

Ross, Derek G. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication>Technical Illustration>Visual Rhetoric

Darwin's Dilemma: Science in the Public Forum    

This article explores the basis of the public debate between Darwinian evolution and creationism. Using dramatic analysis, we show that the source for the debate is due to what we call 'Darwin's Dilemma,' which is found in Darwin's Origin of Species. In the Origin, Darwin extends the mechanistic metaphor featured in Enlightenment science by devising the concept of 'natural selection.' In the process, however, he also ascribes a motive to nature, which moves his theory outside the boundaries of Enlightenment science. We show that he is aware of this dilemma in his theory, and that he tries to pass it off as a metaphorical maneuver for the sake of brevity. Darwin's inability to resolve this dilemma, however, opens the door for purveyors of creationism and intelligent design. Indeed, much of the debate today over Darwinian evolution still pivots on our inability to come to terms with Darwin's dilemma.

Johnson-Sheehan, Richard D. and Morgan Lawrence. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Scientific Communication

Dead Tree or Detailed Treatise: What is a White Paper?

So what exactly is a white paper? This is one of those questions many people have been wrestling with for some time. If you look up the term in a dictionary, you'll find an outdated response describing a government report.

Stelzner, Michael A. WhitePaperSource (2006). Articles>Writing>Business Communication>White Papers

Dealing with “Enronitis”: Written Communications for Building Investor Confidence  

Recently, investor confidence has deteriorated, in part due to the discovery of fraud at several large companies. As a result, many communications from those in the financial industry have attempted to regain investor trust and confidence. This paper reports my analysis of five such communications and the themes I found appearing in them: need for trust, history of continuous improvement, continued existence of high ethical and professional standards, and investor wisdom. In writing trust-building communications, technical communicators should note: trust is built in several ways, history does not always repeat itself, and emotions are very powerful factors in decision-making.

Bloch, Janel M. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Writing>Business Communication>Emotions

Debate-Creating vs. Accounting References in French Medical Journals      

This article investigates the quantitative and qualitative evolution of debate-creating (DEB) vs. accounting (ACC) references in 90 French medical articles published between 1810 and 1995. My findings suggest that nineteenth-century French academic writing tends to be more polemical oroppositional than cooperative by contrast to its twentieth-century counterpart. These results suggest that the debate-creating vs. accounting opposition could be a rhetorical universal of referential behavior in medical literature.

Salager-Meyer, Francoise. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Deciding the Future: Balancing Risks, Costs, and Benefits Fairly Across Generations  

Explanations are presented of four principles for intergenerational decision-making and initial guidelines for application: trustee principle, sustainability principle, chain of obligation principle, and precautionary principle. The principles need to be used as a set and include certain actions and public discussions under specific circumstances. Some examples are: comprehensive analysis of possible risks and beneficial or damaging consequences of actions, public discussion of the results of these analyses with those who may be significantly affected before decisions are made, and continuous examination of actions or decisions taken by previous generations to evaluate their continued validity and making adjustments if previous decisions are no longer valid.

U.S. Department of Energy (1997). Articles>Risk Communication>Assessment

Defining Benchmark Questions for Great Results

Part of the challenge of determining the questions to ask during benchmarking is to match the questions to the purpose of the study and the outcomes you are trying to achieve. Below is a breakdown of some of the issues regarding benchmarking questions that need to be addressed before beginning a benchmarking exercise.

Sinickas, Angela D. Sinickas Communications (2002). Articles>Management>Communication>Assessment

Demystifying Ways Employees Deliver on Brand Promises

At the heart of a successful brand strategy is a clear understanding of the customers you serve and what’s important to them. Employees need direction on what the customer expects and the actions they must take to deliver on those expectations. To gain this understanding, employees must identify the interactions from the customer’s point of view to determine whether or not the company is living up to its customer “promise.” While companies can easily measure marketing dollars spent on brand-building initiatives, understanding how the brand drives customers’ purchasing decisions has often proven to be more elusive.

MacDonald, Maril. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing

Designating User Communities for Scientific Data: Challenges and Solutions    

Defining a 'designated user community' for a data collection is essential to good scientific data stewardship. It enables data managers to determine what information is necessary to ensure the usability of the data now and into the future. It helps managers present and enable access to the data and may determine the format of the data. However, defining a community is difficult, and it is impossible to predict how the use of a data collection may change over time. This creates a series of data management problems for data stewards that may be mitigated by a set of best practices.

Parsons, M.A. and R. Duerr. Data Science Journal (2005). Articles>Communication>Scientific Communication>Collaboration

Designing Institutional Space to Bridge Institutional Divides    

Professional/technical writing has long been an effective curricular site for off-campus outreach. Especially compared to other humanities' disciplines (not that that category provides any stiff competition), professional/technical writing has emphasized practical application and liaison between the university and business/industry. Two of the chief reasons I am attracted to this field are its pragmatic orientation and its focus on writing-in-the-world.

Porter, James E. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Business Communication