"Helping you gain
.control of your career"

In this issue, we look at the pros and cons of business blogging; how to make yourself financially literate and writing emails that really get result.

• Editor's Desk
• Bite 1
• Bite 2
• Bite 3
• Working Web
• Last Word

Time just seems to be flying by this year – we’ll soon be into May, after a brief break to catch our breath at Easter. May always marks Adult Learners’ Week in the UK, supported by NIACE, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education. Learning isn’t just something you do when you’re young - at school and university - learning is for life. We all need to spend time improving our existing skills or learning new ones so that we can move on in our lives.

Another thing that NIACE supports strongly is Quick Reads. This is a scheme where best-selling writers and celebrities produce short books that are fast paced and easy to read. They appeal to everyone but are particularly aimed at ‘reluctant readers’ – people who might not otherwise sit down to read a book. And the value of that? A recent survey has shown that older children and teens who actually read for pleasure (and let’s be honest, many teenage boys never pick up a book) earn more by the time they’re in their thirties than those who never read at all. As most of us know, reading expands our horizons and makes us think – so anything that encourages the habit is to be applauded.

OK, let’s move on to the business of this month’s newsletter. (But before we do I’d like to digress and point out that ‘OK’ can be used in five different ways – as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb and an interjection. Not bad for two letters!) Our first article is 11 Pro Tips for Better Business Blogging. More and more people are using blogging as a promotional tool for their business and these tips could just help to prevent unnecessary work and wasted time. If you want more help with promoting your business, don’t forget our Complete Copywriter course – it’s not just about writing copy for others and it also covers things like blogging and Twitter.

How effective are your written communication skills? You probably polish your letters – but be honest – do you give your emails the same care and attention? As emails take over from letters it becomes more and more important that they are clear, concise and achieve their aim. Our next article, Writing Effective Emails should provide some tips – or why not consider our Comprehensive Business Writing Course. It not only looks at letters and emails but at virtually every type of writing you might be expected to do in your working life - from writing reports to putting together an article for your company newsletter.

Finally, do you ever look at company accounts and wonder what on earth they mean? It becomes more important that you are financially literate as you advance in your career and that’s why we’ve had our Finance for Non-financial Managers course written. But in the meantime, we’ve given you a taster of what you might learn with How to Read Company Accounts – an article that was written for the BBC’s prestigious Working Lunch programme.

I’m afraid this intro is a bit longer than usual, so let’s move straight on to the promised articles.