Congratulations to APCC 2007 Award Winners
Consulting Success
proudly announces the APCC 2007 awards recipients. This
year the organization gives three awards: one client award
for the Honor Roll of Excellence in Communication, a member
award for Excellence in Writing for Publication, and a
member award for Excellence in Writing for a Client. Winners
were revealed at the annual APCC business meeting in
Washington, DC, on October 12, 20007.
1. Honor Roll of Excellence in Communication (client
award)
QORE
Property Sciences, CEO Rick Heckel, and Senior Vice
President Mark Shearon
received
the 2007 APCC Honor Roll of Excellence in Communication
Award for commitment to communication that was extensive
enough to result in a new company culture.
Long-time APCC member and former Board member, Pam
Armstrong Scott, MA EdHD, of
Armstrong Scott, Inc., (Pam, right, accepts the client award
from Reva Daniel, left) serves Heckel and Shearon as
an executive coach. According to Scott, these executives
focus on communicating effectively with all 550-plus
employees in the Duluth, Georgia, engineering and
environmental consulting firm.
Scott reports that based on the results of Myers Briggs
personality type testing and her coaching on the differences
in communication styles, the executives were able to adjust
their communications to meet the varied communication styles
of their employees.
Both executives and management credit Scott’s communication
coaching and the company’s commitment to clearer
communication with improved understanding of the plans for
the company’s change efforts and greater management buy-in
to company’s plans for change.
This award-winning commitment to communication doesn’t stop
at the management level; instead, it’s carried down through
the staff level with training in the Q-School, the company’s
university. In this training the communication courses are
aligned with the company’s various career paths.
Communication has become a competitive advantage for QORE.
With strengthened internal dialog, enhanced relationships
with clients, and improved teamwork throughout, the company
is on a growth track and is dealing well with the fast-paced
changes required in today’s engineering environment.
QORE Property Sciences is indeed an award winner for its
top to bottom commitment to clear oral and written
communication delivered in ways that meet its employees’
communication needs.
2. Excellence in Writing for
Clients Award
Dr.
Deborah S. Bosley (pictured, right),
Principal of The Bosley Group: Simplified Communication,
received the 2007 Excellence in Writing for Clients Award
for Best Practices for Simplified Communication (Guide),
written for TIAA-CREF’s Marketing
Communications—Individual Client Marketing department.
The Guide was written as a response to the company’s
need to create a tool to promote consistency among writers,
to simplify written correspondence to its clients, and to
present research to support plain language strategies.
The well-designed and detailed Guide was developed
through—
-
Extensive interviews and discussions with upper-level
management
-
Many
hours of analyzing company documents
-
Usability testing and research of selected documents
-
Because
of the extensive customization, the Guide
contains many examples from the company’s own documents
and other relevant sources.
What’s
unique about The Best Practices Guide? It’s more than
a style manual. It offers research results to support most
of the principles espoused in the document, and it gives
users four levels of decision-making and simplification of
written communication. Each plain language element is
presented on one page with the following:
- Strategies (what to do)
- Principles (why the strategies work)
- Examples
(how they work)
- Research
(evidence for support)
APCC recognizes Best Practices for Simplified Communication
as a model for best practices guides meeting the needs
of various users with research based principles and
explanations.
3.
Excellence in Writing for Publication Award
The
APCC 2007 Excellence in Writing for Publication Award goes
to
Barbara L.
Shwom PhD and Karl P. Keller MBA
of Communication Partners. Along with Robert P. Sedlack, Jr.
of Notre Dame University, they wrote Graphics and Visual
Communication for Managers, published by South-Western.
This
book shows “paragraph people” and “spreadsheet people” how
to communicate complex information to each other.
Firmly
rooted in both research and consulting experience, the book
is a readable and useful guide to the best practices of—
- Document
design—including page layout and typography
- Creating
tables and graphs—based on rhetorical principles of
audience, purpose, usefulness, and integrity
- Using
color—including the properties and cultural implications of
color
- Using
photos and illustrations—including scale and focus
- Integrating
text and graphics—emphasizing how the two interact and
support one another
- Using
PowerPoint—including creating coherence, readability, and
flow
Additional chapters cover selecting a graphic designer
(useful to consultants who are working on a team), an
annotated bibliography, and step-by-step instructions for
manipulating graphics in MS Word (for the “paragraph
people”). This is the 4th book in South-Western’s Managerial
Communication Series edited by James S. O’Rourke, IV.
Well-designed and filled with useful examples, Graphics
and Visual Communication for Managers is a valuable tool
for both clients and communication consultants.
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