A new appreciation of audience

In 2021 I was promoted into a job in business transformation, a more people-oriented role demanding excellent communication skills. I now had to produce lots of presentations, newsletters and documents—particularly challenging because my audience was so functionally and hierarchically diverse. This meant I needed to sharpen my writing skills, and educate myself about the process of writing and presenting. I am, in any case, an eager reader: not only do I admire powerful writing but I aspire to become a skilled writer myself. So I went on the lookout for a course to help me improve.

This was when I came across Economist Education’s course on professional communication in the pages of The Economist, to which I have long subscribed. The Economist is known for its high-quality journalism and writing and I trust its brand. Plus, the timing was right. So I decided to enrol.

The course had a great impact on me. It made me a better writer in various ways—from altering how I approached the writing process to changing the way I edit. I now consider my audience far more as I construct a piece, treating them like a customer. I ask myself: am I meeting their expectations? Am I respecting their time and attention span? Am I engaging them with visual images to stimulate the mind’s eye? Or am I losing them with fancy words and complex sentences full of irrelevant information?

Specific teachings from the course inform my writing even now, notably: use short words and sentences; exploit visual metaphors; and avoid jargon. With this toolset, I am a more confident editor of my own work, too. Finally, thanks to the course’s module on using numbers in text and charts, I strive to use data compellingly to support my arguments, analyse results and highlight trends.