Do we provide in-house training in writing for the web? Not any more.

Recently an email arrived from a large non-profit organisation in Colorado Springs. That’s a long way from Wellington, New Zealand. Could we provide 2 days of in-house training for their staff, on readability and plain language? Hm, let me think about that for about 10 seconds…

Accidentally I wrote rather a long email in reply. Let me share the pertinent bits.

I used to do in-house training in several countries including China, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. However, I came to realise there was a better way. Face-to-face training internationally is very expensive and the administration is also a burden. Getting all the appropriate staff to one venue at a specific time is difficult. These factors mean that fewer staff can be trained, and therefore often the training is wasted.

So Alice and I developed the CONTENTED Diploma in Web Content — a model that isn’t just cheaper for training large numbers of scattered staff: it’s also more effective. This is what we recommend in your situation.

Many large organisations such as the Asian Development Bank have seized the opportunity to train 100 staff for the same price as a one day face-to-face in-house course. Like your organisation, the Bank has employees working all over the world: our online training brings huge advantages when the workforce is scattered.

The Diploma (as you know) includes training both in readability and plain language. This is reinforced by every module, especially the editing module. The standard of general business writing improves — not just web content writing.

If you want training to be more personal, we can suggest some fun, easy ways for you to do this in-house. Then staff can get a buzz from doing something communally (as they do from a conventional in-house course.)

So my answer to your questions: my face-to-face training — if I went to Colorado — would be prohibitively expensive — but we can provide a much better alternative! Alice and I strongly recommend that you enrol a group in the Diploma. This will solve your training problems — time, cost, content, convenience, logistics and results. It’s not just different from face-to-face training: in many circumstances, it can be better.

I hope you take the plunge: we make online training easy, fun and rewarding, and you’ll be in good company.

Alice and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes

Rachel

Photo: Rachel training staff at the Buddhist Institute, Phnom Penh, in 2004. Those days are gone.

To many people, training as a website editor still seems irrelevant to their working life. Even professional editors don’t always get the point.

So we thought we’d list some of the positions that open up to someone trained as a website editor. Different clients will certainly use different definitions, but after you’ve gained a Diploma in Web Content, you can answer advertisements for these jobs with a fair bit of confidence:

1. web content editor
2. web content developer
3. web content manager
4. online journalist
5. corporate blogger
6. social media content provider
7. intranet content developer
8. intranet content manager
9. online learning and teaching (teachers)
10. developing online teaching materials (teachers)
11. SEO copywriter
12. internet marketing copywriter.

Some of our graduates have scored their ideal jobs immediately after finishing the Diploma. That always gives us a special glow!

A Diploma in Web Content is not just a handsome, colourful certificate to hang on your wall or an addition to your CV. It gives you confidence that you can handle jobs that involve web content. And that’s priceless.

People also do many everyday writing jobs more competently after completing the Diploma in Web Content, for example, these ones:

1. technical writing
2. instructional writing
3. public relations
4. corporate communications
5. scientific and professional writing
6. copywriting and copyediting
7. business writing and editing
8. policy writing
9. report writing
10. plain language writing.

Sign up for our fantabulous little online Diploma in Web Content — why wouldn’t you?

Thanks to the 75 people who responded to our poll, which asked which online courses would interest them most.

The winning entrant was Kathryn Sim of asurequality.com. (Expect our email with your prize very soon, Kathryn!) Elsie drew the winning ticket—see photo.

Here are the overall results.

Which new online courses would interest you most?
Make speedy web images 11% (8)
Make CMS styles work for you 5% (4)
Essential HTML for CMS users 11% (8)
Brilliant blogging ideas 25% (19)
English for global business 12% (9)
Keywords and metadata 36% (27)

We’re also grateful for your other ideas about new courses, which we are quietly digesting.

P.S. Sorry for the bizarre headline! I’ll leave it the way it is, as a horrible reminder of the dangers of patchwork copy-editing.

Who buys our online courses to train their staff in writing for the web?

Public sector 52%
Commercial companies 31%
NGOs and not-for-profits 6%
Education sector 19%
Health sector 6%
Social services sector 6%
Professional associations and unions 6%
New Zealand clients 75%

The statistics above refer only to corporate purchasers, not to the numbers who study the courses. Initially, our corporate clients may train between 3-100 staff web writers; around 40% return to train even more staff.

You’ll notice the percentages add up to more than 100%. That’s because clients may be listed in several categories — for example, some government-owned agencies are commercial companies.

Statistics show our courses reach those who need them most. Our first 10 courses are intended mainly for knowledge workers who write for intranets and web sites. On the whole, that’s exactly who studies these CONTENTED online courses.

Besides these corporate clients, many individuals purchase CONTENTED online courses in writing for the web. They are typically small business owners or professional communicators such as editors, PR specialists, or journalists. They’re not included in this small statistical analysis.

P.S. Do our poll – what courses do you want!?

Knowing the strengths of your own business can be surprisingly difficult.

Exactly what do your customers like about your product or service? Sure, they say they love it and they keep coming back for more. But why? What do they like? Is it something you’re proud of, or something you didn’t even realise?

That’s why customer feedback is so precious.

Today we received the following feedback from a new graduate, Christine Toner. Christine is a marketing coach, skilled at analysing the strengths and weaknesses of a product. So her feedback is especially valuable to us.

Christine’s summary:

“Contented gave me skills, experience and confidence in a short study period. It is a unique and immensely powerful training programme that enabled me to write a clean, clear website on my first attempt. My writing style and my thinking processes have changed for the better in everything I write now.”

The whole story:

“I learned enough in the first Contented module to give me confidence to get started organising the content of a client’s website. I allowed  about an hour to complete each module and I found myself getting really excited about doing the next one.

The material is easy to read, and I was surprised how much I knew when I took the short test at the end of each session.  

Every day I found myself critiquing other people’s web content  — even brochures and reports!

When I had completed ten modules, and applied what I had learned daily, our draft was well organised, the text was tight, the links were in. Then, with even more confidence,  I went in again with a ‘knife’.  My editing skills had improved so much that I could easily make my own work even clearer and more convincing.” Christine Toner

Thank you, Christine! We’ve learned a lot.

Communication superpowers. That’s what you need these days.

Whatever your day job, if you’re any kind of knowledge worker, communication skills are essential. Without good writing skills you may not even get the job you want, let alone be promoted. We know that, and yet, strangely, you may never have had five minutes’ training in basic plain language or business writing.

Chances are you’ve got a university degree or an equivalent qualification. You’re top of your game, be it accountant, lawyer, manager, ICT professional, scientist, teacher, company director, designer or business person. The quality of your writing has never been a problem up until now (as far as you know).

OK, fair enough. But now you’re aware that some of the things you write are appearing on web sites or the company intranet. You want them to be found by search engines. You want people to notice them and even read them, darn it! And it’s just not as easy as it was before.

Suddenly, ordinary communication skills are not enough. To be found, noticed and read, you need the Contented communication superpowers.

But how? You don’t have time to spend a whole day at a professional development course! However, you can manage 10 hours over the next three months, no problem.

Buy the CONTENTED Diploma in Web Content — you need it now.

The CONTENTED courses are brilliant, like you, so you’ll get along just fine. As another bonus, this may well qualify as part of the annual training quota which you require to maintain your professional status. Check it out.

Miraz Jordan’s Blog, Knowit.co.nz

The Contented email newsletter included three special offers today. In brief…

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all our fantastic customers. You understand the value of great web content, and you chose our courses above all other options. After your first purchase, 38% came back to buy more courses. Typically, you enrol two or three staff, discover how great the courses are, then enrol another 20, 50 or 100.

Frankly, a heck of a lot of hard work lies behind the online courses you love so much. If our customers were ho-hum or grumpy, we might have given up months ago.

1. 5% discount for next group purchase if you are on our clients page or have purchased from us before. This applies when you purchase for a group of 5 or more.
But hurry! This special offer expires on 24 December 2009.

2. Half-price Diploma in Web Content if you did our first generation courses (in HTML).
Be quick! This offer is valid until 28 February 2010.

3. 10% discount for a successful referral.
Tell others about CONTENTED courses! For each successful referral, we’ll give you 10% off your next single licence Diploma purchase.

But wait, there’s more! Two more free gifts:

• Use our writing tips on your intranet free — just drag and drop.
• Follow us on Twitter for unexpected gifts. Our first Twitter exclusive gave five lucky people a free Diploma!
  http://twitter.com/aliceandrachel

Strange, isn’t it, that so many companies and government organisations will cheerfully spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on a content management system for their web sites and intranets…

• when the content is shocking awful and likely to stay that way
• and when their staff honestly don’t know how to improve the content
• and when the cost of training their writers would be mere pocket money
• and when they’ve already got a training budget that would easily cover the cost.

What are they thinking? That the elves will come in the night and rewrite their content?

Listen carefully: it’s not going to happen.

Four reasons why staff content writers need to be trained:
1. All content is either an asset or a liability.
2. Correct editing at least doubles a web site’s usability.
3. Well written content strongly influences search results.
4. Plain language dramatically saves money and time.

OK, I’ll make it easy for you with an ad.

Five reasons why you should choose the CONTENTED Diploma in Web Content:
1. It’s quick (10 hours) and convenient (online).
2. It’s instantly useful, with clear rules for content editing.
3. It’s up-to-date, with practical real-world examples.
4. It’s brilliant, beautiful and fun.
5. It’s absurdly cheap: only NZ$300 inc. GST per person, with major discounts for groups.

Grab the chance to start fixing your content now, with a training system that will work. Your web content and intranet content will not fix itself.

And sorry, darlings, there are no elves. Or if they do exist, they’re far too busy making shoes to fix your web content.
http://contented.com/courses.php

How does the new CONTENTED Diploma in Web Content differ from our previous online courses in web content writing? Many of our customers have been asking this.

Here’s the answer.

We have packaged our new online courses as a Diploma in Web Content. The Diploma offers 3 additional courses:

• Writing for Search Engines
• Strategic Blogging
• Editing in Action. Previously this was a passive resource. Now it’s a complete course with its own test. It includes the objective QA tests and checklists which are so popular with web content authors.

The other 7 course topics are the same as before.

The Diploma is in a new format. It’s not a series of web pages, rather it uses Articulate elearning software. Each course still has an online test.

The elearning system that delivers the Diploma is also new. Now managers can track the progress of their staff and sign up more staff with the use of an access code.

We also sell single courses now as well. That’s handy if you don’t want to buy all 10 courses together as a Diploma.

Want more information about the new CONTENTED Diploma in Web Content? You’ll find plenty on the CONTENTED web site. Just start from the home page and explore.

Today is the second birthday of Contented Enterprises Limited. Alice and I have already established our corporate tradition: we have coffee and cake, we give ourselves major armfuls of flowers from Moore Wilson, I accidentally (?) take home more than my share, and Alice is nice about it.

This year at the ripe old age of two, we have plenty to celebrate. In our first year we’ve had over 1,000 customers in 19 different countries, and the feedback from our courses has been brilliant. The vast majority of our customers seem to be really nice people, we don’t know why. Thank you, you’ve made our work easy! These are typical of the reports that flow into our inbox:

• “I’ve been raving about the course.”
• “Contented was fabulous.”
• “You certainly walk the talk!”
• “Specific, to-the-point, relevant.”
• “Very practical.”
• “A real eye opener.”
• “It was fun to do.”
• “ I used it straight away.”
• “Your service is exceptional.”
• “I absolutely loved it!”
• “Most absorbing.”

And that was Version 1.0, a very simple, no-frills HTML-based set of courses (platform: Moodle).

Last week we sneaked our new Diploma in Web Content out to a few trial users. Phew, they loved it. (And spotted a few bugs just in time.) So now, on our birthday, we are whispering the good news to you. It’s ready! And it’s great.

The Diploma is more substantial and even more fun than our earlier courses. It includes 2 new courses: Writing for Search Engines and Strategic Blogging. Editing in Action is now a complete course. It’s still web-based and self-paced. It takes about 10 hours to complete. Prices are irresistibly low, especially when you decide to enrol a decent-sized group. And managers can track the progress of staff.

Enough talk. Check out the brand new Diploma… and be among the first to graduate.