Background
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
is a voluntary organization that the nation's colleges and universities
use to govern their athletics programs. It comprises "institutions,
conferences, organizations, and individuals committed to the best
interests, education, and athletics participation of student-athletes." Its
mission is to "govern competition in a fair, safe, equitable
and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics
into higher education so that the educational experience of the
student-athlete is paramount."
Challenge
Shortly after new NCAA President Myles Brand took
office in 2003, he stressed the importance of developing a strategic
plan
for the Association. NCAA hired a firm to suggest solutions for
critical issues such as organizational design, leadership, and
staff development. NCAA executives all took part in writing and
editing the plan offered by this firm. NCAA distributed the strategic
plan draft to college and university presidents and chancellors
nationwide in 2002. The overwhelming response from all of these
readers was: "We don't understand what you're saying." So
the Association, knowing we'd already been chosen as its preferred
provider of plain language services, asked Techstyle to make the
plan clear to all member organizations, and completed within two
weeks—since it was to be presented at the NCAA national convention.
Approach
At the direction of the Association
managing director of publishing, we expedited Techstyle work
through
the Christmas holidays. Taking the electronic manuscript that included
six sets of NCAA reviewer comments, we clarified the content
with plain language principles, consistent with the wishes of
the president.
When the Association staff returned from holiday
break, they had our revision in their hands—ready to review.
Over
the
following
two weeks, we worked with the staff to finalize the plan. The
2003 NCAA Strategic Plan was efficiently clarified, republished,
and redistributed.
Solution
The plan Techstyle enhanced was read and accepted
by university member presidents and chancellors. Now they readily
understood and accepted the plan. It was formally
adopted by the NCAA Executive
Committee
in April 2004.
President Myles
Brand said three years later, in 2007, "enough
time has passed for it [the strategic plan] to serve as a time
capsule that makes for interesting comparisons about what we agreed
to do and what we have in fact done. If you have not revisited
the plan lately, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how
closely our agendas today match what we wanted them to be."
Myles emphasized "We know what the collegiate model is. ....Period.
It’s all there
in the strategic plan." Techstyle met the challenge to make
this plan a clear and readable, living document.
About Techstyle Group LLC
Techstyle Group LLC is a privately held company providing communication
and documentation services. It specializes in using plain language
to improve the clarity of content delivered to diverse audiences
in many formats. Techstyle is a nationally certified, woman-owned
business that has operated since 1986. For further information,
visit www.Techstyle.com,
contact Techstyle Group LLC through media.tsg @ techstyle.com,
or call toll-free at 866-661-6660.
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