Consulting, Publishing, Engineering

The importance of writing skills to business and industry

Another report came across the wire today about the lack of writing skills in business:

BackDRAFT, a leading provider of Business Writing Training Solutions, today reported that writing activities account for an average of 37% of the typical professional’s workday in the technology industry, according to a survey of more than 2700 workers across various industries in the U.S. and Canada. The BackDRAFT survey conducted by Greenfield Online also revealed a 33% spike in writing activities in the technology industry over the past five years.

The press release goes on to reference the studies by the U.S. National Commission Writing that also bemoan the lack of writing skills in businesses. They put out a report called “Writing, a Ticket to Work” in September 2004 that estimated U.S. companies spend 3.1 BILLION dollars a year just training people in writing skills. For some reason, that study didn’t hit right away, though it was picked up by a lot of media last December.

This is interesting for two reasons:

  • BackDRAFT, the company that released the most recent survey, not only offers writing training, but includes standardization and a type of Quality Management System (QMS) specifically for business writing.
  • There’s clearly a lot of money being spent on training people to write. Where’s my cut?

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