Poor communication costs organizations time, effort, money, and limits the growth of their driving engines: their people. This isn't just rhetoric. Consider just a few statistics:

• 32% of respondents in a CNN QuickVote said that the standard of written and spoken English in their companies was "poor." ¹
• Miscommunication can cost an organization 25% to 40% of its annual budget, estimates private investment firm Manchester Companies. ²
• It's estimated that 14% of each workweek is wasted as a result of poor communication. ³
• A 2004 NFI study of over 2,000 senior executives and managers across the US found that 94% of the participants identified "communicating well" as the most important skill for executives and managers to have in order to be successful today and tomorrow.
• A multi-year Gartner Group survey concluded that more than 80% of IT projects were "late, over budget, short of expectations, or simply undelivered" as a result of poor communication at the outset.
• A survey by the National Commission on Writing, a panel established by the College Board, concluded that one-third of the employees in blue-chip US companies wrote poorly, and that businesses were spending as much as $3.1 billion annually on remedial training.

Course offerings focus on each area.

1. "Promoting Plain Workplace English", Nick Ease, CNN.com, May 6, 2004
   
2. "Ventures for Growing Twin Cities Companies," Mark W. Sheffert, April 2001
   
3. "Fundamentals of Oral Communication," Joyce Gray, De Anza College, July 2004