Workshops & Services - Hurley Write

Team Workshops

Professional development that actually develops professionals.

Example workshops:

Building Better PowerPoints and Visuals

We’ve all heard it: “A picture is worth 1,000 words.” But…the question remains of how we choose the right visual so that our readers are engaged.

Which means you should be asking: how compelling are your team’s visuals and how well do they drive home the message?

If so, your team needs a better understanding of the role of visuals, whether used in their oral presentations, reports, or other client-facing documents. Effective visuals are based on solid design principles, not on what “seems” right or, what happens too often, what everyone else does.

In too many organizations, visuals are crammed with information, aren’t compelling, and are little more than snooze fest. But help is here! In our interactive, instructor-led workshop, your team will learn a science-based approach to build more engaging, compelling visuals.
Effective Strategies for Writing with Artificial Intelligence (AI)

You want to implement artificial intelligence (AI) in your workplace. Great! Now what?

Hurley Write’s “Effective Strategies for Writing with AI” workshop is designed to teach your team the skills and strategies to make the most out of AI. Your team will learn best practices for using AI efficiently and ethically. The training is customized to your goals, your organization, and your team. Whether you want a primer for your team on AI and its uses or training on specific AI tools (or a combination of the two), Hurley Write can help.

We offer three levels of AI courses so that you can choose what best fits for where you are in your AI journey. These three levels also ensure that your AI strategy is effective, has clear direction, and benefits your workplace and your team.

In our instructor-led, customized workshop, your team will learn strategies to use AI effectively and in ways that benefit your unique workplace.

Offered virtually.
Exceptional Technical Writing

How does your team ensure that its technical reports are concise, readable, and usable?

Technical reports must be clear and often must be written for multiple readers with a variety of technical expertise and knowledge.

Too often, however, technical reports are a mishmash of information that aren’t adequate for their intended reader(s).

That, coupled with the fact that many writers don’t write the sections of the report to convey the appropriate information, results in reports that are wordy, hard to read, and downright confusing.

In this customized workshop, your team will learn research-based strategies to write better technical documents in less time!
Technical Writing for Engineers

Engineers are exceptionally adept at figuring things out — except when it comes to technical writing. No shame to our beloved engineers — ask any one of them, and most will admit that their writing skills could use a little TLC.

The good news is that, regardless of their writing ability, engineers can (and will!) get better with the right training. Our course, “Technical Writing Course for Engineers” is designed to do just that. In our customized course (offered virtually or onsite), your problem-solving geniuses will quickly learn to write documents that are targeted, succinct, and concise.

Learning how to write more effective engineering documents just takes an engineer who’s willing to put in the work.

In this customized workshop, your team of brilliant engineers will learn strategies to put their problem-solving skills to work so that they can spend less time writing and more time engineering!
Better Reviewing Techniques

How much time and energy does your team devote to reviewing and editing? And how often is that time and energy rewarded with improved documents?

In most organizations we’ve worked with, we often find a broken review process. The process isn’t standardized, which results in lots of wasted time spent reviewing; comments aren’t useful because they focus on “pet peeves”; and writers are frustrated because they don’t understand the comments.

The result is typically no real improvement to documents. The good news is that your team can learn strategies to provide better feedback in less time.

In this customized workshop, your team of reviewers will learn what to focus on and why and how to give feedback that actually improves document quality!
Writing User-Friendly SOPs

Whether your team writes SOPs, work instructions, or policies, you understand how critical they are to the smooth operation of the business.

They ensure that products and services are standardized, help teams do their work effectively, and ensure a streamlined work process. That is when they’re well-written and user-friendly.

Too often, however, these documents are difficult to read and understand, aren’t written so that users can follow and complete a task effectively, don’t use formatting and other cues to enhance usability, and simply aren’t functional. The workshop focuses on helping participants.

In this customized workshop, your team will learn how to write SOPs that will increase compliance and reduce deviations!
Succinct Scientific Writing

The only thing more difficult than your team’s research is writing about it. But it doesn’t have to be.

Scientific writing, whether a protocol, deviation report, or internal document, must be usable, readable, actionable and, above all, readable.

Too often, however, scientific documents are confusing, unfocused, and don’t meet the needs of the intended reader. That’s a huge miss because the research your team does is important.

The good news is that your team knows their stuff and therefore they can learn better strategies to write documents that convey the essence and nuances of their work effectively and confidently. And that’s what they’ll learn in this customized workshop!
Giving Great Presentations: The 4 Ps of Presenting

Every presenter’s worst fear? It’s not presenting, it’s giving a presentation that puts people to sleep.

Yet so many workplace and business presentations continue to miss the mark of delivering an engaging and informative experience, which is why our presentations skills workshop is one of our most popular courses!

The secret to avoiding slumbering spectators is simple: Hurley Write’s “The 4 Ps of Great Presentations” Workshop.

This workshop teaches your team how to engage with their audience and includes personalized feedback for every participant!

Your team will learn how to take boring to soaring!
Data-Driven Storytelling

Most professionals who collect data understand that it tells a story; however, when these same professionals must use the data to tell the story to internal or external stakeholders, they often struggle, believing that the story the data tells should be obvious. If this describes your team, we can help.

Our interactive, customized onsite workshop teaches your team strategies to use the data to tell compelling, engaging stories.
Better Business Writing

A business document is many things. A first impression, a proposal, a story, a demonstration, a promise. But none of that matters if your clients don’t understand the document.

Whether your team writes emails, business reports, proposals, or some other type of business document, our customized workshop, “Better Business Writing,” will arm them with the tools they need to write accessible business documents efficiently and in less time.

The result: a team with better business writing skills who will showcase your organization’s professionalism and talent and ensure that your clients and prospects are interested and engaged.

Pre-recorded Online Courses

On-demand expertise to elevate your team's writing

For teams seeking flexibility, our pre-recorded online courses offer foundational communication skills organized into modules that each take between 30-45 minutes to complete.

Better Business Writing
If you or your team needs to hone business writing skills, whether that’s emails, business reports, or proposals, but don’t have time to attend a customized workshop, our online course is the solution!

Each module of the course takes roughly 30 minutes to complete and is broken up into 10-15 minute sessions.

This self-paced, online course features
- voiced lectures
- 24/7 availability
- feedback on writing (some packages also include one-on-one coaching)
- exercises and quizzes
- and more!
Download Course Detail
Exceptional Technical Writing
If you or your team needs to enhance technical writing skills, but don’t have the time to attend a customized workshop, our online course is the solution!

Each module takes roughly 30 minutes to complete and is broken up into 10-15 minute sessions.

Our self-paced, online course features
- voiced lectures
- 24/7 availability
- feedback on writing (some packages also include one-on-one coaching)
- exercises and quizzes
- and more!
Download Course Detail
Succinct Scientific Writing
If you or your team needs to enhance their scientific writing skills, but don’t have the time to attend a customized workshop, our online course is the solution!

Each module takes roughly 30 minutes to complete and is broken into 10-15 minute sessions

Our self-paced, online course features
- voiced lectures24/7 availability
- feedback on writing (some packages also include one-on-one coaching)
- exercises and quizzes
- and more!
Download Course Detail
Effective Writing for Engineers
If you or your team needs to write better engineering documents, but don’t have the time to attend a customized workshop, our online course is the solution! Each module of the course takes roughly 30 minutes to complete and is broken up into 10-15 minute sessions.

Our self-paced, online course features
- voiced lectures
- 24/7 availability
- feedback on writing (some packages also include one-on-one coaching)
- exercises and quizzes
- and more!
Download Course Detail

FAQs

(or "Things You're Too Polite to Ask But Really Want to Know")

What in the heck is a communication diagnostic and why should I care?

You should care if your team isn’t producing clear documents or the volume of documents they should be. It’s easy to blame the writers, and they may not be great, but often there’s a lot more at play than simply poor writing.

In short, sometimes a writing problem is caused by other things: a poor review process, a lack of standardized processes, poor tools, the list goes on.

Through our proprietary PROS Communication Diagnostic™, we can help you uncover what the true issues are.
My team hates training, especially writing training. What will make them like yours?

For starters, we’re funnier than a barrel full of monkeys (not sure why a barrel full of monkeys is funny, but you get my point). Why, you’re probably asking, is fun important? Writing is serious business! Indeed, it is, but we also know that most professionals dread (hate!) writing and thus, writing training.

So, while we take the training seriously, we seriously believe that if you’re not having fun, you’re probably not learning.

We also give them lots of opportunities to apply the concepts, so they get lots of practical feedback they can use immediately!!
We don’t have time for training, but we want to improve. What do you suggest?

Alas, there’s no quick fix, no silver bullet, when it comes to improving one’s writing, The good news is that our customized workshops can be offered in whatever medium and in whatever timeframe works best for your team, whether that’s a full-day onsite, a hybrid course, or sessions offered virtually over time.
Why can’t we just use Grammarly or AI to fix our writing? That works, doesn’t it?

Grammarly is a good tool, for sure, as are some of the AI models, but they’re not a silver bullet for fixing your team’s writing. At this point, all they do is regurgitate material they’ve been fed by who knows who?

And you still have to have someone review the work; I’d prefer to review a document, however poorly written, by a subject matter expert than by a robot. But that’s just me.
Okay, great, you offer writing training. So what? We had our team take an online course last year and guess what? Nothing changed.

There’s a huge difference between a customized course and an off-the-shelf course, which I’m guessing is what your team took.

But here’s the real kicker: unless your team has internal support and opportunities to apply the concepts after the workshop, they won’t improve.

Writing is like so many other things we do: to improve, you have to practice.
How do I know that what you teach will really make a difference in my team’s writing?

For one, what we teach is based on science. Science?!?! Yes, believe it or not, there’s a science behind writing well. There are scholars who’ve devoted their lives (this may be a slight exaggeration) to studying how readers read.

Unbelievable, I know! Who’d of thought that there are people whose lives are so empty that they’d find such study worthwhile?

But thank goodness, they do! Because that’s what we base our curriculum on; it’s not about pet peeves or who believes in the Oxford comma (although all civilized people do), it’s about what science tells us about writing and readers.
I think you’re pulling my leg about science and writing, but okay.

Is this a question or a statement? In any event, there is a real science behind effective writing because effective writing is more than just grammar.
Why are you all so fancy and call your classes “workshops’ instead of just classes or courses like any normal company would?

Thank you for recognizing that we’re not “normal.” Indeed, far from it! And proudly so! Workshops are profoundly different from classes in that they provide a lot more collaboration and opportunities for participants to apply concepts and get feedback from an expert.
We have this really good writer at the company and we’re going to get her to teach our team how to write. What do you think about that??

Sure, go ahead. And call us in six months when your team’s writing is just as bad as ever. Happy to help.
Our reviewers act like they’re gods. What can we do about it?

I don’t know if we can help you with that behavior, but we can help you put standards in place so that they act more like they’re part of the team and less like they’re the authority on all things writing.
It takes us forever to get a document reviewed! I mean, weeks when it should take days. I’ve talked to the team about this, but they don’t see the problem.

Oh, my friend, there are so many reasons this is happening, so many! If your organization treats its reviewers as most organizations do, as though they are the ultimate authority on everything, then that kind of behavior is to be expected.

We can help you put processes in place so that everyone understands the importance of getting documents reviewed on time.
Why don’t you guys offer public courses?

Because public courses are dumb. No, the reality is that public courses are generic and offer generic advice. So, if you want your team to write generic documents, a public course would be great!

But if you want a workshop that trains your team to think critically about their documents and write excellent documentation, a customized workshop (like ours) is what you need.
Listen, at my workplace we all have a copy of Strunk and White, so what are you doing that’s better than using that classic?

Hey, we’re not disparaging Strunk and White, but we teach concepts based on readability studies, not whether a comma is in the right place, or the subject agrees with the verb.

We teach concepts based on readability studies; that is, how readers read. Because at the end of the day, readers are who you have to please.

The Hurley Write Way

A tailored approach to upgrade your team's communication

The Launchpad

The Flight

The Landing

Reach out to transform your team's communication
Let's go.

Team Workshops

Example workshops:

Pre-recorded Online Courses

On-demand expertise to elevate your team's writing

How it works:

Ready to unleash your team’s writing potential?

These industry leaders trusted us with their words. You can, too.

FAQs

We don't just teach writing; we revolutionize how your company communicates.

The Hurley Write Way

A tailored approach to upgrade your team's communication

The Launchpad

The Flight

The Landing

Reach out to transform your team's communication Let's go.

Team Workshops

Example workshops:

Pre-recorded Online Courses

On-demand expertise to elevate your team's writing

How it works:

Ready to unleash your team’s writing potential?

These industry leaders trusted us with their words. You can, too.

FAQs

We don't just teach writing; we revolutionize how your company communicates.

Reach out to transform your team's communication
Let's go.