Develop an Approval Process That Doesn’t Drive You Nuts
KANSAS CITY, MO. — Dec. 23, 2009. Nothing makes a communicator’s job worse than the approval process. It stalls production, garbles carefully crafted copy and turns professional communicators into pleading, whining comma jockeys.
“The bad news is, communicators don’t win the approval process war comma by comma,” says Ann Wylie Wylie, president of Wylie Communications Inc. and author of “How to Develop an Approval Process That Doesn’t Drive You Nuts” (http://bit.ly/76J2zd). “If you’re begging for authority, article by article, to choose whether ‘that’ or ‘which’ is the right word to use in the fourth paragraph, you’ve already lost.”
A new teleseminar aims to help communicators gain control of the approval process.
Program details
What: “Develop an Approval Process That Doesn’t Drive You Nuts” teleseminar (http://bit.ly/7tccOL)
Why: To help communicators gain more authority in the organization and get their copy through reviews faster
Who: Presented by Ann Wylie (http://bit.ly/60rAFt); sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/)
When: 3 p.m. Eastern time (2 p.m. Central, 1 p.m. Mountain, 12 p.m. Pacific) on Feb. 11
Where: Register online (http://bit.ly/7tccOL)
In this program, Wylie will share tips to help communicators:
- Reduce the number of reviewers
- Create guidelines to support the approval process
- Use simple scripts and approaches for communicating with approvers
- Deal with difficult approvers and improve efficiency
- Use quick tricks for making the process easier and better
Quotes:
From the trainer:
“When I worked at one company, I once had to have 100 people review and approve an article I’d written for our employee annual report. Needless to say, it took much longer for me to run the approval process on that story than to research, write and edit the piece in the first place.” — Ann Wylie, president of Wylie Communications Inc., who will present the seminar
From the PRSA professional development director:
“Ann’s insights are especially valuable because she has worked on all sides of the communication ‘desk’ — as a corporate communicator, in a PR agency, as a magazine editor and as a consultant. Her workshops are always extremely well received by our members and other writers.” — Judy Voss, PRSA’s director of professional development
From teleseminar attendees:
“[Ann's teleseminar] provided simple solutions to a realistic issue that I have to confront on the job every day. I believe the tips and tactics given will help ease what can often be a frustrating and time-consuming process.” —Bonnie Mae Serino, communication project manager, WorldatWork
“[The teleseminar provided] extremely helpful for working efficiently with upper management to speed up the review process and identify useful tactics to retain ownership of copy throughout the process.” — Diane Renzulli, vice president for Communications, Philadelphia Health Management Corporation
“The worry lines were immediately reduced on my staff’s foreheads. They were so tired of having copy bounced back and forth at the staff level before it was sent up the chain.” — J. Lindsey Wolf, APR, PRSA Fellow, manager, Communications Division, Environmental Services Department
More information about approvals
- Ann’s resources about approvals
- Information about Ann’s handbook on the approval process
About Ann Wylie
Ann Wylie is president of Wylie Communications Inc. (http://www.wyliecomm.com/), a training, writing and consulting firm. She works with communicators who want to reach more readers and with organizations that want to get the word out. Her workshops take her from Hollywood to Helsinki, helping communicators at NASA, FedEx, Motorola, H&R Block and other organizations improve their skills. She’s the author of a dozen learning tools, including RevUpReadership.com (http://bit.ly/KJ2t3), a toolbox for writers; and Wylie’s Writing Tips (http://bit.ly/6JgZLJ), a free e-zine. Her work has earned more than 60 awards, including two IABC Gold Quills.
About PRSA:
The Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/), headquartered in New York City, is the world’s largest professional organization for public relations practitioners. The society’s members represent business and industry, counseling firms, government, associations, hospitals, schools, professional services firms and nonprofit organizations. Chartered in 1948, PRSA has 116 chapters throughout the United States and extends services and professional development to the student level through the Public Relations Student Society (PRSSA) with 209 chapters on college campuses throughout the country.
For more information, contact:
Ann Wylie
Wylie Communications Inc.
816/997-8753
Ann@WylieComm.com
