19 April, 2017
By John Preston Maslow hierarchy of needs and Bloom’s taxonomy of learning Humans are curious creatures. On one level, we are capable of profound understanding and complex cognition. On another we are completely dependent on the most basic physiological and […]
19 April, 2017
By John Preston In ancient Greek mythology, Theseus—the founder of Greek democracy—entered the Labyrinth on the island of Minos and conquered the Minotaur. Theseus was renowned for his great strength, courage and—above all—wit. Today’s regulatory and policy environments are a […]
5 April, 2017
Using an ‘s’ over a ‘z’ is one of the most obvious differences between Australian English and American English. It’s an area of huge debate—when are grammar rules of opposing English-speaking countries ever not?—but also of huge confusion. Everyday […]
3 April, 2017
By John Preston Let’s face it; if facts were enough, we wouldn’t still be discussing the science of climate change, would we? And yet here we are. Why is this? Could the problem lie with the fact that we […]
3 April, 2017
By Robert Garran  ‘A storm is brewing over spectacular Katherine Gorge about Aboriginal land rights.’ Back when I was a rookie journalist on the Age in the 1980s, I wrote an article that began something like that. I’ve forgotten the […]
31 March, 2017
By Robert Garran I’ve started reading an insightful book by Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times—called Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century—that provides a great example of the importance of structure in driving compelling writing. The book starts […]
22 March, 2017
In our courses on Giving and receiving feedback, we find that a lot of people don’t really understand the feedback process—what it is or how to do it properly. Feedback is an integral part of developing a team in an […]
22 March, 2017
These days everyone works as a writer. No matter their background or whether they work as a tinker, a tailor, a soldier or spy. Everyone writes as part of their job—be it emails, reports, business cases, decision briefs or proposals […]
19 February, 2017
Ever wonder what’s behind the Ethos CRS magic? Here’s an example of how we deconstruct bad writing—and put it back together again. Take a look at this sentence: In determining the appropriate location, range and scale of suppliers to […]
15 February, 2017
‘In terms of the meeting, we made a number of important decisions.’ What’s wrong with this sentence? It’s active, complete, and properly punctuated…What could it be? ‘In terms of’ is one of the worst stock phrases in formal business writing. […]
7 February, 2017
Donald Trump amazed us all and became President of the United States. You may, like us, be a little baffled by this but, when we delved into his communication and presentation style a bit deeper, we began to understand why […]