Writing, editing, analysis and office producivity skills development

We have covered a wide spectrum of skills for personal development in the previous articles in this series (links to all the posts in this series at the end of this article).

Today, we would explore training, books and other resources on writing and editing, presentations and spreadsheet analysis. These skills should be of special use to desk workers.

Let’s start with better and effective writing and editing skills. Australian offices are highly professional and every worker is expected to have the skills to write concise, clear and error-free notes, e-mails, letters, training material, presentation slides and other communications. This is especially so for firms in commercial and financial sectors. Although programmers and testers may get away with sloppy writing as long as their logic and reasoning is powerful, good writing and communication skills can set them apart and help them grow.

Sydney Writers’ Centre offers a range of courses in ‘writing for pleasure and profit’. A one day seminar in professional business writing can help you learn the skills to turn out professional reports. Editing essentials can help you improve the quality of your own or others’ writing output. If you are a business-person who would like to gain from effective public relations, or the point-person in your company to deal with media, then you may find a specialized course in dealing with media very useful. Check out Media Communications Training at this institute which is located in Milsons Point near Sydney CBD.

Editor Group provides writing training that you may pick and choose from three levels in business writing, proofreading and writing for the Web. They also offer writing and editing services, so until you hone your skills, you may utilise their writing services!

Continuing Education divisions of universities offer short courses on this skill too. This author did a course in Editing and Proofreading, albeit four years ago, at University of Sydney Centre for Continuing Education and was highly impressed by the course’s quality and range. There are several other courses. Start with ‘Writing at Work’ course which hones the basics of writing and refine your skills with ‘Business Writing’ course. You may take a ‘Grammar and Punctuation Refresher’ if these essential components of writing are problems in your writing and may take specialized courses such as ‘Writing Effective Reports or ‘Writing for the Web’ if your output mainly appears on the Web.

The above discussion was aimed at business professionals who want to be effective business writers. If you want to specialize or want to build a career in writing and editing, check out the universities. One example is UTS’ Sub-Editing Fundamentals.

Building content for business presentations in Microsoft Powerpoint (or projector slides which are increasingly getting rare) is an important part of any presentation.

Dynamic Web Training offers courses on working with Microsoft Powerpoint 2003 at two levels. Level 1 is basic course and level 2 can be used to enhance your skills.

Check out Presenters university for comprehensive listings and links to resources on this topic. You’d find a number of articles and courses in building presentations under the heading ‘Content’ and ‘Visual Aids’ with templates, tips in using Powerpoint, formatting and visual design and lot of experts’ advice.

Book - How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 (How to Do Everything) shows you how to build rich presentations using Powerpoint.

Excel and SPSS skills are very valuable and advanced skills in this area can mean the difference between you and the next candidate. If you want to be familiar and work with features and capabilities of software tools, then Dynamic Web Training not only offers training in Microsoft Excel but also has courses for other Microsoft products such as Powerpoint, Word, Outlook, Access and Project. University of Sydney Centre for Continuing Education also offers Excel and VBA training. UTS offer an interesting short course – Financial Analysis Certificate using Excel by distance learning.

In this series, we have covered a range of personal skills development – the first three articles were focused on client facing and team management professionals who need skills in effective communication and presentation, negotiating, selling, leading and managing. The last two issues were focused on desk workers who need skills in time management, written communication, spreadsheet analysis and process driven tasks completion.

Personal development is a lifetime pursuit. When you master one skill, it’s time to master another. Successful people have one common trait – they never stop learning and improving.

If you’d like to continue reading about personal development, browse and subscribe to a very popular personal development blog of Steve Pavlina or read his book Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth.

We hope that this series was of help and look forward to your feedback and suggestions.

All posts in this series on personal development:

Developing personal skills: An introduction

Communication and public speaking

Management and leadership development

Sales skills development

Time management skills development

Writing, editing, analysis and office producivity skills development