Business Writing Workshops Sharpen Public Buildings Service’s Focus on Customers
Colorado Springs, CO — March 3, 2008 — Tailored business writing workshops by the Murawski Group are helping the country’s largest public real estate organization to manage its 1,500 buildings.
The Public Buildings Service (PBS), part of the General Services Administration, manages the workspaces for 1.1 million federal employees. To do it efficiently and economically, PBS is committed to writing in plain language to its associates and building occupants throughout the country.
Senior managers at PBS took part in the Murawski Group’s one-day business writing workshops to meet the Commissioner’s goal of customer-centered letters, memos, and reports. They learned business writing techniques to give readers better access to their key ideas, focus on solutions rather than process, and speak plainly while wasting no words. Commissioner David Winstead considers these workshops vital if PBS is to gain support for building improvements, art in public spaces, and energy conservation.
The business writing training workshops build on the Murawski Group’s long history with the General Services Administration. The relationship includes training on regulatory writing that led to a plain-language version of the Federal Travel Regulation—a landmark effort in customer-centered structure and style. PBS profited from this effort by having the Murawski Group help convert guidance documents for building tenants into the same clear style. Thousands of readers around the country have benefited from the Murawski method of business writing delivered through workshops for writers, document-planning sessions, and editing of final drafts before publication.
“We’re pleased to be long-time partners with the General Services Administration in writing improvement,” says Dr. Thomas Murawski, president of the Murawski Group. “Their focus on clear communication shows that ‘governmentese’ isn’t inevitable in federal government documents. In fact, individual agencies can lead the way in making government accessible to the public.”
Founded in 1985, the Murawski Group, Inc. is a boutique training and consulting company with a specialty in customized business writing workshops. Clients include Fortune 500 companies, all 15 federal cabinet departments, and the White House.
