Celebrating plain language in New Zealand
Kate Thompson, Tatiana Mes and Lynda Harris
April 19, 2023 BST / April 20, 2023 NZST
Our first webinar this year
From the Netherlands and Argentina last year to Aotearoa New Zealand in April … let’s start our first webinar of the year on a high note on the eve that the Plain Language Act is introduced. We’ll hear from our dear friend Lynda Harris, visionary founder of Write Limited, the largest plain language consultancy in the world, and award-winners Kate Thompson and Tatiana Mes.
Together, we’ll explore what the Plain Language Act means for New Zealand and take a look at award-winning sustainability communication and a financial wellness website.
See you on the 19th or 20th of April depending on where you live!
Joanna Richardson
PLAIN President
‘Celebrating plain language in New Zealand’ with guests Lynda Harris, Kate Thompson and Tatiana Mes
Hosted by Lodewijk van Noort, PLAIN board member in a live Zoom interview from Brisbane, Australia
Thursday April 20, 2023
09:00 – 09:45 New Zealand Standard Time
which means:
Wednesday April 19 | Thursday April 20 |
14:00 – 14:45 Los Angeles, USA | 07:00 –07:45 Sydney and Brisbane, Australia |
17:00 –17:45 Washington DC, USA, Toronto, Canada | 09:00 – 09:45 Wellington, New Zealand |
18.00 – 18:45 Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | |
23:00 – 23:45 Oslo, Norway; Madrid, Spain; Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa
We will record the webinar so that you can view it later on our website |
Meet our guests
Lynda Harris
Founder and Chief Executive, Write Limited
Under Lynda’s visionary leadership, Write has become the largest plain language consultancy in the world. She founded Write in 1989.
Lynda has made it Write’s mission to improve clients’ bottom lines, committing to innovation and continual development. She inspires everyone at Write to deliver the benefits of plain language to clients — greater productivity, less risk, lower costs, and better relationships with customers.
Lynda has over 30 years of experience in writing, editing, and evaluating documents using plain language principles. She has worked with clients in the legal, health, financial, engineering, and government sectors. She has a unique ability to untangle difficult structure and logic problems in documents, drawing on elements-based assessment and user-testing.
Kate Thompson
Head of Communications, thinkstep-anz
Kate is Head of Communications at trans-Tasman sustainability firm thinkstep-anz. She leads a team of plain English experts who ‘translate’ the company’s technical sustainability work into plain English executive summaries, case studies, and blogs that clients can understand and act on.
Kate’s background is in corporate communications, stakeholder engagement, and change management. She has worked in many industries including aviation, transport, energy, financial services, and education.
Kate was fortunate to stumble on the website of the Plain English Campaign (UK) early in her career. She says that ‘once you’ve seen these techniques you can’t unsee them!’
Tatiana Mes
Principal Marketing and Communications Manager, Consumer Wealth, Mercer (N.Z.) Limited
Tatiana is a passionate leader of the Consumer Wealth Marketing team at Mercer. Together with her team, she delivers marketing and communications strategies to create better lives for her customers, clients and colleagues.
She is responsible for overseeing all member communications, online experience, campaign development, social media, conference management, designing marketing collateral and other brand awareness and lead generation activities.
Tatiana’s key focus and passion is about ensuring customers receive a great experience in our KiwiSaver, Mercer Super Trust and other superannuation offerings, while getting ‘financially lit’.