Spreading the Good News about Writing “Beyond the Wall”: HCWE Director Opens Nationwide’s Annual Communications Conference
During his regular visits to Miami, Roger Howe likes to ask the staff how they are sharing the news about writing “beyond the wall” of academia. On September 21, HCWE Director Elizabeth Wardle traveled to Columbus to do just that.
Spreading the Good News about Writing “Beyond the Wall”: HCWE Director Opens Nationwide’s Annual Communications Conference
During his regular visits to Miami, Roger Howe likes to ask the staff how they are sharing the news about writing “beyond the wall” of academia. On September 21, HCWE Director Elizabeth Wardle traveled to Columbus to do just that.
At the invitation of Nationwide’s Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, Brian Grace, Wardle gave the opening talk to approximately 300 communications professionals from across Nationwide’s offices. Her talk was followed by a discussion of how to make inclusive language part of the culture, and a panel of CCOs from Nationwide, Eli Lilly and Company, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Deloitte.
Any Miami faculty who have participated in HCWE events would have recognized familiar themes in her talk, which was titled, “Effectively Responding to Complex Communications Challenges.” She described some common misconceptions that circulate about writing, including the notion that good writing is about following rules and avoiding errors, and then provided some examples from daily life that demonstrate why this is a “bad idea” about writing. After providing some frameworks for thinking about writing, she then invited the attendees to think more deeply about what makes writing “good.” They learned a little about how writing played a part in the Challenger shuttle explosion and then were assigned a role in that scenario in order to consider how to most effectively respond. Teams role-played as engineers, vice presidents, and internal and external communications directors.
The talk ended with a discussion about what attendees could do differently based on what they learned.
Many of the ideas in this talk are explored in the HCWE’s Miami Writing Institution, which is online and freely available to anyone at miamiwritinginstitute.org.
