Signing the web
February 1, 2008
Is your site truly accessible? Are you providing the best possible service to all your visitors?
I expect you’ve taken the first step, and perhaps your site is accessible to level A (or even AA). But have you considered taking the extra step, and providing accessible charting in your investor section, transcripts for all your video or audio sections on site, or providing a sign language translation for your webcasts and videos?
There are up to 70,000 users of British Sign Language (BSL) in the UK, and up to 500,000 users of American Sign Language (ASL) in the US. This is a big constituency which you should perhaps be considering.
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Starbucks: how to communicate change
January 8, 2008
Starbucks provides us with a demonstration of a great way of communicating the significant changes under way (changes in their approach and in their senior management structure).
The home page has been replaced with a letter from Howard Schultz, addressed to all customers. At the bottom are links to copies of a letter and a voicemail from him to all Starbucks partners (employees), together with a link to a Questions and Answers page dealing with the changes, and to the Investor Relations pages, which shows the press release at the top of the list. If we click through to review the details of the Board of Directors, we can see that the changes have been reflected on this page, which is up to date. Even potential job applicants have been provided with a link to the letter/voicemail to partners and letter to customers in the careers section.
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Conchango: 15 minute site review
January 2, 2008
Word on the web is that Conchango is to become listed on AIM from 15 January … I thought I’d have a quick look at their site, to see how it’s going.
Conchango and AIM Rule 26
There are a few key elements missing on the site at the moment, that will be necessary to comply with AIM Rule 26 requirements.
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Provide analyst estimates for a level playing field
December 3, 2007
Are you sharing information with your retail investors as well as your professional ones?
Institutional investors should already know the market expectations, but providing analyst estimates on your website enables retail shareholders to consider their options with the same information to hand. Surprisingly, this isn’t done on many corporate sites, though the numbers are increasing. Examples of those that do provide such forecasts are Prudential, Carphone Warehouse and Petrobras. All provide a variety of different measures.
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But why not go a step further, and provide an automated feed of broker forecast information? This would mean that your investors can have the latest information very easily - and don’t have to keep returning to your site.
RWE does this very neatly: they provide broker forecast information on their site in some detail, and have archives going back to 2003. If requested, they will email the latest information out to you every 2-3 weeks.
I think that is a great service.
Site Review: ArcelorMittal’s TV channel
November 21, 2007
ArcelorMittal are doing a great job of communication over at Creating History.
This site is dedicated to the merger of Arcelor and Mittal, and consists of:
- excellent video materials - 15 so far, posted intermittently over several months, covering a range of topics associated with the merger
- a blog - which appears to have been updated on a very regular basis (looks like 5 times a week, which as we know, is very intensive)
- RSS feed and podcasts
- a section for ‘ask the CEO’ - in which Lakshmi Mittal will personally answer questions. This does look a bit outdated, and really should be removed if the answers won’t be forthcoming - or else they should be answered
- a press area, including third party coverage - again, this doesn’t seem to have been updated recently
- an About section.