How did WriteMark come to be?
Quality marks for documents aren’t new. In the UK the Plain English Campaign’s Crystal Mark and the Plain Language Commission’s Clear English Standard mark have been around for 20 years or more. Canada has its Clear Language and Design (CLAD) mark, and Clarity, the international plain English organisation for lawyers, offers accreditation on plainly written and well-designed documents. But rather than being a copycat idea, WriteMark has its own genuine Kiwi beginnings. Founder of the WriteMark and Director of Write Group Limited and WriteMark Limited, Lynda Harris talks about how WriteMark came to be.
Great results but…
In 1999, after nearly 10 years of helping people write better business documents, plain English had well and truly become Write’s motivating philosophy. I had passionate, hard-working staff and contractors who were committed to really making a difference for our clients, and we had earned an excellent reputation up and down the country. Our point of difference (building writing training programmes using participants’ documents as the main resource) always produced great results. Yet, even with the consistently positive feedback, repeat business and referrals, I felt a growing discontent that we weren’t yet making enough of a difference.
We needed to work with the whole organisation, starting at the top
With a few notable exceptions, we were still being asked to train groups of 12–14, rather than whole organisations. That meant that the effect of the training was often quickly undone by well-meaning line-managers, or others higher up the tree. Participants who were excited and motivated by the benefits of writing in plain English quickly became disillusioned without strong commitment from senior management. Old habits die hard. In the few cases where we had been able to work with everyone in an organisation, the results were hugely encouraging and the difference to the organisation as a whole, quite obvious.
How could we get organisations to understand that plain English offers huge benefits, and that to reap those benefits they had to show commitment (and example) at the highest level? Without that, a change in writing culture just wasn't going to happen.
What was plain English anyway? We needed a standard.
Something else troubled me too. Awareness of the benefits of plain English was definitely growing. In fact, many of our clients openly said they wrote in plain English, or at least had that as an expectation in their communication standards. But, in the thousands of business documents that passed through our hands each year, we still saw very little plain English in practice.
And what was plain English anyway? I found myself moaning that what we needed was a standard — something we could test documents against that would eliminate much of the subjective comment on a document and reward the 'real' plain English writers.
Answers from the other side of the world
Thank goodness for the internet. One weekend, while roaming the web, I came across the UK-based Plain English Campaign. More importantly, I learned about their plain English mark — the Crystal Mark. It seemed to me to be a brilliant concept and it had gained huge public acceptance in the UK. It was seen as a strong point of difference that separated organisations who really cared about communicating clearly and openly, from those who gave it little thought or mere lip service. Just as importantly it established a standard! I wasted no time in proposing that we become the New Zealand agent for the Crystal Mark. (They weren’t looking for agents I might add.)
No imports please!
Sadly, in spite of huge effort on our part, a visit in the year 2000 from two of the Campaign spokespeople, and strong media interest, the Crystal Mark did not take off in New Zealand. The reasons were two-fold. First, the UK-based fees were well outside what most New Zealand organisations were able or willing to pay, and second, many organisations said that it was a ‘UK thing’ — they didn’t want an imported quality mark.
Back to the drawing board
Having put so much energy into bringing a plain English standard to New Zealand, I didn’t feel inclined to give up at that point (now 2002). But could we do it alone? The name ‘WriteMark’ popped into my head one day and ideas started simmering. But with other business initiatives going on it took quite some time to really decide on what to do and, more importantly, how to do it. We were a small, highly skilled company, passionate and dedicated to spreading the plain English message. If we were going to launch our own mark, it had to work — our lofty goal was to have the WriteMark plain English standard recognised and asked for by the majority of New Zealanders.
Focus groups, setting and testing a standard, and lots of practice
By mid 2004 it was all go. We held focus groups within both the public and private sectors and did extensive research into international plain language organisations. We set and refined the elements that make up the WriteMark standard and established a training and moderation process for assessors. And we based our fees on the principle that WriteMark was to be priced as low as we could manage to encourage all New Zealand organisations to invest in plain English. From late 2004 to March 2005, we offered free WriteMark assessments to organisations who already advertised a commitment to plain English. This allowed us to further refine our processes and gave organisations a taste of just how beneficial a standards-based assessment could be.
Launch day — 1 March 2005!
Amid excellent media coverage and great enthusiasm from our early WriteMark clients, WriteMark officially came into being. Along with spreading the word as quickly as possible, we’re now planning Plain English Day 2006. Watch this space for more details of a day that will feature international speakers, workshops, and an awards dinner. All ideas welcome!
