Autumn greetings from Word Smiths

Many of us are back in the office this week after an exceptionally damp summer in the UK. But between ordering your SAD light box or booking a winter sunshine holiday, you can cheer yourself up by taking steps to fulfil more of your potential and increase your efficiency at work.

In this issue of Word Power:

Follow this link to view previous issues of Word Power online.

Are you a coach or a mentor?

Claim your free coaching and mentoring quiz from Word Smiths

Are you a coach or a mentor?There's a lot of confusion about the coaching and mentoring roles, mainly because they employ similar skills. But what do these two activities actually involve? And what are their differences and similarities?

Our quick questionnaire will help you to work out whether you are - or want to be - a coach or a mentor. Email us if you'd like to be sent the questionnaire in pdf format.

Coaching and Mentoring for SuccessOne of the best ways of becoming a more effective coach or mentor is to work with the Word Smiths OCR- endorsed audio learning package Coaching and Mentoring for Success. This highly-regarded and popular resource is exceptional value; it includes two audio CDs, a booklet and a large number of online resources.

Follow this link for more information and sample tracks.

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Cat on a hot tin proof

Alex MurrayAlex Murray explores the secrets of professional proofreading

Many of us have experienced the embarrassment - or worse - which often results from publishing or sending out a document with a glaring error in the headline or in the text. These mistakes are perverse gremlins: they like to hide in the wings until the job comes back from the printer or the document reaches its destination, at which point they triumphantly reveal themselves. There's only one defence against them: thorough, professional proofreading.

A recent news story from Birmingham provides a painfully expensive illustration of the vital importance of a good proofread.

Birmingham, Alabama skylineThank you Birmingham! ... read the leaflet sent to residents at the end of July. Birmingham City Council wanted to express its appreciation when the city's inhabitants helped it to reach its recycling target one year early. What, you might think, could possibly go wrong in publishing this simple and effective message? Answer: an error so monumental that it slipped past every one of the many people involved in creating, checking and approving the flyer. When the 360,000 leaflets arrived on the doormat, astonished Brummies quickly noticed that their city had been treated to an overnight makeover which couldn't be more drastic if it had been performed by Gok Wan. Behind the 'Thank You Birmingham!' headline, the familiar BT tower and the love-it-or-hate-it Bull Ring were markedly absent. In their place, the skyline image was that of the US city of Birmingham, Alabama. Costing £16,000, the highly embarrassing error was down to a common mistake: underestimating the power of the proofread.

Although Birmingham's identity crisis may have been witnessed by a large number of people, its long-term effects were probably not that serious. But everyday proofreading failures can cause far deeper distresses. In almost every form of the written word that isn't a shopping list or a simple text, mistakes and inadequacies do really matter.

Whether it's a spelling error, an 'effect' not an 'affect', inconsistent capitalisation or punctuation mistakes, the smallest holes - rather like the damaged lifejacket thrown to a drowning sailor - will count against you. Such mistakes can not only impair the extent to which your message is understood: they also undermine both your credibility and that of your entire team or organisation.

After the unfortunate saga of the two Birminghams, one resident commented, "I can't believe no one at the town hall noticed. Who is checking this stuff?". The council had indeed fallen into the trap that snares so many: proofreading isn't just the same as Olympic decathlete Tomáš Dvořák - a quick Czech.

Performing a last-minute spell check and a quick scan through is not enough. Instead, proofreading has to be a disciplined, structured process involving several steps.

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Here are some tried and tested techniques:

It's essential that the writing process and proofread are separated in some way. Try to get a friend or colleague (preferably not one vying with you for a promotion) to look through your work. As a distanced, objective observer, he or she will be able to spot things which you - still in creative, writing mode - perhaps won't.

Another approach is to leave the document after you have finished writing and come back to the proofread a few hours or a day later with a fresh mind and fresh eyes. Try it - you will be amazed at how many mistakes you find in what you thought was an error-free piece of writing.

Prooof Reading for Business SuccessThe key is to manage your time effectively so that you aren't running your first spell-check minutes before your deadline. As the Birmingham City Council example shows, when proofreading fails, the difference can be thousands of miles.

Word Smiths is now offering Proofreading for Business Success as an in-company course. This workshop will be invaluable for anyone whose job involves checking their own documents or those of colleagues. Follow this link for details, including course brochure and pricing.

Open course presentationWord Smiths autumn open courses at the Bristol Conference Centre:

These events are engaging, thought provoking, hard work and good fun. Here are some comments from recent events at two major universities:

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Fundraising for Marie Curie

paris bike ridemarie curie logoIn a previous Word Power we mentioned that partner Nick Smith was about to participate in a fundraising bike ride to Paris in June. Well - it all went according to plan and the final total that Nick and his nephew Tom Barry raised for Marie Curie Cancer Care was £2,965 - well over their original goal of £2,000. Follow this link for more details.

Many thanks to everyone at Classic Tours for flawless organisation and perfect routes, and to the other riders for being great company.

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