Category Archives: training and skills training

Do Business Writing like a pro

HERE’S A GREAT TOOL TO HELP YOUR WRITING

Which paragraph is easier to read?

1. The ability to write clearly and effectively is a critical professional skill. This program will assist participants to plan, organise and structure their writing to achieve better results with written communications. Through the practical application of writing and editing skills, participants will learn to write documents that are reader-oriented and communicate clearly and effectively.

Now try this one:

2. Clear and effective writing is a top professional skill. This program will help you to plan and structure your writing to get better results. You will learn the skills needed to write and edit papers that are oriented to the reader and get your message across clearly.

Para 1 is from a popular two-day course: Business Writing Skills. Gunning Fog index 18.7. 18 years of education needed to figure out the meaning on first pass.

The second says the same in about half the words – Fog Index is 8.8. Much easier!

I would not sign up for that course!!!

In the Thinking Skills workshop I try to practice what I preach. For instance, go here for a superb tool to calculate the fog index of your latest masterpiece.
Improve your business writing. Join us here!

Learning with Google search

So I’m sitting in an easy chair one Sunday afternoon reading “What would Google Do” by Jeff Jarvis. I heard about it from Pete Carruthers who is my Internet marketing guru. So when Pete plugged Jeff’s book, I ordered it from Amazon—Kindle books actually—and one minute later it sat on the screen of my MacBook.

No learning tool has greater potential to change the world than Google search.

I’d love to know how often you use Google or any other search engine to look up information.

Google is the nuclear fuel of the internet explosion. An answer to almost any question is reachable within about 60 seconds via Google search.

Hook in to my free newsletter. Learn 10 X faster

* required

What a story. So readable. Who could have imagined that a free advertising service (Google Adwords) would profoundly alter the newspaper industry, that learners with keyboards would bring down politicians, and “dropouts could build companies worth billions.”

Google is the fastest growing company in the history of the world, so its fascinating to read how Google does things.

Jarvis cites an unbelievable case history of Dell computers–how a website and a blog became a movement which almost brought the company down. Dell responded to the challenge by sorting out its customer relations big-time and climbed right back out of the pit.

I reckon there is not a company, NGO or organisation on earth that does not need to look at the implications of the Internet explosion in this information age.
Jeff says “start by having your executives make the same Internet searches you did.” He advises assigning your best people, the nicest, most knowledgeable and open to solve every problem they can find: repair, replace, or refund whatever the customer wants. Start a blog where you can share the problems. He goes on to say that your worst customer is your best friend. Having sorted his problems, he becomes your partner.

Really amazing stuff. As Jeff puts it: “when you hand over control, you start winning.”

“The single greatest transformative power of the Internet and Google has little to do with technology or media or even business. It’s about people and making new connections among them. It all comes back to relationships.

And that’s why I’m writing to you.

Hook in to my free newsletter. Learn 10 X faster

* required

And updating this post in 2019 – a useful resource for you is: Google Power Search by Stephan Spencer.

PS This morning I received the following email:

Dr Broome
I attended your course in 2008 and of all the courses that I have attended in my life nothing comes close to the impact that your course had in my life. This includes all the certificates and diplomas I have done. The biggest impact was speed reading, memorising and recalling and mind maps.

I am in the process of writing a career guidance book and in it I have included a chapter on studying techniques which inevitably mention some of the methods that I have learned from your course. I write this e-mail to request that you kindly grant us permission to go ahead with this in our book. I have referenced your website well which hopefully will attract people to your course and also raise your profile in the public as I hope the book is going to be distributed throughout the schools in KZN. The book is in isiZulu because there is huge gap for books in this market.

Thanks for this Dr Broome, your course should be compulsory at school level and you can quote me on that!

Warmest Regards

X.S.