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Business Writing Foundations Workshops
Workshop 1: 23rd June 2026
Business Writing Foundations (Induction Week)
Workshop 2: 24th - 25th June 2026
Business Writing Foundations (AI Use Integrated)
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Learning Outcomes
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Workshop 1: Business Writing Foundations (Induction Week)
Introduction
Exercise: Master email
Session 01: Foundations
- Our objective for today
- Understanding Copilot
- Forms of business communication
- Discovering the perfect email
Exercise: Master email
Session 01: Foundations
- Strip a piece of business writing back to clarity and brevity, one idea per sentence, plain English
- Build any document on the Business Writing Pyramid, from headline to variables
- Tell, with confidence, what Copilot is genuinely good at and where it starts inventing
- Profile a real reader using demographics, psychographics and business context Turn that profile into a message tailored in organisation, tone and flow
Exercise: Personas
Session 02: Notes, minutes and memos
Session 03: Using AI responsibly
Session 04: Proofing
Session 02: Notes, minutes and memos
- Capture live notes and minutes
- Name exactly where AI note-takers stay reliable and where they start inventing
- Monitor AI notes against reality
- Use Copilot's strongest notetaking and memo hacks with confidence
- Tell an introduction from a summary, and a main message from its key points
Exercise: Verify the notes
Session 03: Using AI responsibly
- Use AI confidently for brainstorming, drafting, revising and summarising
- Apply an editor's mindset to everything AI produces
- Verify claims, sources and data before anything leaves their desk
- Recognise the ethical and professional risks of AI in business writing
- Judge where a human has to stay in the loop
Session 04: Proofing
Workshop 2: Business Writing Foundations (AI Use Integrated)
- DAY ONE
Introduction
- Our objectives
- Understanding Copilot
- Forms of business communication
- Discovering the perfect email
Session 01: Foundations
- Strip a piece of business writing back to clarity and brevity, one idea per sentence, plain English
- Build any document on the Business Writing Pyramid, from headline to variables
- Tell, with confidence, what Copilot is genuinely good at and where it starts inventing
- Profile a real reader using demographics, psychographics and business context
- Turn that profile into a message tailored in organisation, tone and flow
Exercise: Personas, Master email
Session 02: Notes, minutes and memos
Exercise: Verify the notes
- Capture live notes and minutes
- Name exactly where AI note-takers stay reliable and where they start inventing
- Monitor AI notes against reality
- Use Copilot's strongest notetaking and memo hacks with confidence
- Tell an introduction from a summary, and a main message from its key points
Exercise: Verify the notes
Session 03: Status and reports
- Use AI confidently for brainstorming, drafting, revising and summarising
- Apply an editor's mindset to everything AI produces
Session 04: Proofing
DAY TWO
Session 01: Understanding LLMs
- Demystifying AI
- AI Myths
- The CRITICAL Framework
Session 02: Advanced editing with AI
- Transition to an editor mindset: Understand that while drafting generates raw material, advanced editing shapes insight, tightens logic, and establishes professional authority.
- Master the five layers of editing: Apply a structured approach across structural, clarity, precision, technical accuracy, and readability boundaries.
- Purge artificial intelligence tells: Identify and eliminate overused automated vocabulary, redundant padding, and structural scaffolding.
- Defeat the fake-data trap: Deploy specific data verification hacks and source audits to handle hallucinated claims, missing dates, or unverified statistics.
- Optimise text for artificial intelligence visibility: Structure and refine professional writing so discovery systems can accurately index, extract, and cite your insights.
Session 03: Ethical AI
- Define what constitutes a legitimate business trend versus unverified marketing hype.
- Deploy high-integrity extraction prompts that force automated tools to self-audit and reveal data sources.
- Mitigate the seven core ethical publishing hazards, including cultural insensitivity and derivative plagiarism.
- Force language assistants to confess to hallucinations using the verbatim source challenge hack.
- Maintain strict security compliance by keeping confidential or sensitive data entirely out of public consumer prompts.
Tamsin Mackay - Writing for business/Storytelling (technical writing)/AI
Tamsin Mackay has written for many international publications including the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Independent in the UK. Her commercial writing skills have been honed over the past thirty years to provide blue-chip organisations with exceptional content that supports their business communication needs. Her clientele includes some of the world’s most well-known brands such as Microsoft, Amazon, HPE, and IDC, among others.
She is a tutor on the writing for business course at City St George’s, University of London and the recently launched short course Writing with AI for business.
Using her training as a coder, she has helped companies build AI tools to enhance their content and recently organised a conference in South Africa for women working in the media to demystify AI.
She has a master's in writing from the University of East Anglia in the UK.
Mövenpick Hotel Tahlia Jeddah
Street Address: 8749 Hael, Al Andalus, Jeddah 23326, Saudi Arabia
Website: Mövenpick Hotel Tahlia Jeddah
Street Address: 8749 Hael, Al Andalus, Jeddah 23326, Saudi Arabia
Website: Mövenpick Hotel Tahlia Jeddah
Workshop 1: Business Writing Foundations (Induction Week)
The Induction Business Writing Foundations Workshop provides new staff with practical, essential skills for producing clear, concise, and professional business communication within IsDB. Through three structured sessions, participants learn the fundamentals of business writing; how to tailor messages to purpose and audience; and how to use AI—ethically and effectively—to enhance planning, drafting, revising, and summarising. The workshop covers the full spectrum of everyday organisational writing tasks, including emails, memos, minutes, status updates, reports, and concept notes. Participants practise structuring information clearly, building compelling narratives, applying appropriate tone and format, and integrating graphics or data where necessary. The sessions also focus on avoiding common writing pitfalls, improving clarity and persuasion, and ensuring accountability when using AI tools in professional communication.
Workshop 2: Business Writing Foundations (AI Use Integrated)
The Business Writing Foundations Workshop for the IsDB provides a structured two-day programme designed to strengthen participants’ professional writing skills while integrating effective use of GenAI tools such as Copilot. The course covers foundational principles of business communication, including audience awareness, tone, structure, and clarity, before moving into practical formats such as emails, memos, minutes, reports, and status updates. Participants explore how to plan, structure and refine substantive documents, and learn to use AI responsibly for drafting, summarising, brainstorming and editing. The workshop emphasises ethical usage, critical evaluation of AI outputs, and the importance of human judgment, culminating in hands-on exercises that develop practical writing and AI-enhanced communication skills.
Workshop 1: Business Writing Foundations (Induction Week)
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- Identify different forms of business communication and choose the appropriate structure, tone, and style for each.
- Define and analyse target audiences to tailor messages effectively for clarity and impact.
- Apply core writing fundamentals—including organization, tone, and narrative flow—to produce clear and compelling business documents.
- Use AI tools responsibly for brainstorming, drafting, revising, and summarising business content, while understanding ethical considerations and professional responsibilities
- Create effective memos, minutes, status updates, and reports, including constructing strong introductions, summaries, and key messages.
- Proofread and quality-check documents to avoid common English writing pitfalls and ensure accuracy, clarity, and professionalism
Workshop 2: Business Writing Foundations (AI Use Integrated)
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- Apply core business writing principles—such as clarity, structure, audience awareness, and tone—to produce professional emails, memos and reports.
- Use GenAI tools effectively and ethically by defining roles, context, tasks and constraints that produce high-quality writing support.
- Draft and refine business documents including status updates, concept notes and meeting minutes using both traditional and AI-supported approaches.
- Evaluate, proofread and fact-check AI-generated content, recognising common pitfalls and ensuring accuracy and reputational integrity.
- Integrate visuals, narratives and structured messaging to create compelling and coherent written materials suited to organisational needs.
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