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Show the world where you are – and what you are doing there

No matter what size of company you are, details of your registered address should be available on your site. This is a legal requirement here in the UK (reminder) – but is good practice anyway. Larger companies often also provide further details of their various locations – sometimes in the About Us section or in the Careers section.

Tell potential recruits what it is really like

Providing details about your locations can help potential recruits make their decisions. Successful applicants will not only have to work in one of your locations, they will have to live there too. No-one wants to hire someone who decides they don’t like the area you work in and leave; providing information about the area can help avoid losing a recruit later.
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Swine flu and the corporate response

3d-model-flu-virus

Now that the initial flurry of panic about swine flu has stabilised, and everyone’s had a chance to plan their response, how well do you think that companies are handling this on their corporate website? We’re a long way from a crisis, but my ‘handy’ booklet from the government about swine flu arrived this morning, so clearly someone in authority thinks a crisis is coming…

There have been calls for companies to communicate with their employees about how to deal with swine flu should it affect them, and for companies to have contingency plans in place for a wider outbreak of flu. It is probably not appropriate to document these plans on the corporate website, although it wouldn’t hurt for a reassuring voice to be heard… especially since absentee rates have gone up.

Those companies directly affected (in a good way) by the approaching pandemic have done a good job of communicating with at least some of their website visitors.

roche flu centre

Roche, perhaps the company most associated with combating flu pandemics, have a dedicated flu centre, where they’ve pulled together images, video, factsheets and press-releases about the flu, their products, and the actions they’ve been asked to take.

This is clearly linked from the home page, where they have a large banner header about influenza – and the term ‘influenza’ also appears in the tag cloud below.

In addition, one of their recent Investor Updates refers to their donation to WHO back in 2006 of 5 million treatment courses of Tamiflu, and confirms that they’ve been in discussion with WHO about the recent outbreak.

gsk flu centre

GSK have also collated some information about flu, which they’ve made available via a couple of links from their home page – one to a GSK Update and one to a collection of press releases. They also have a link to a pre-pandemic flu press kit from their press kits page in their media centre, which didn’t seem to be available on the day of our visit.

These companies – despite presumably potentially having improved sales this year as a result of flu – don’t seem to be addressing investors directly on this topic. Roche’s page providing key figures for 2008 does mention Tamiflu sales, but only to exclude them from the count – and it isn’t easy to learn anything more detailed. For example, how much of their business is based on Tamiflu sales? Prospective investors may want to know how the company expects to be affected by the impending pandemic. Not specifics – obviously Roche can’t and wouldn’t want to predict the need for Tamiflu – but if they provided figures for last year, we could do our own predictions, perhaps using a scenario analysis system like Adidas’.

On the other hand, perhaps stock prices will be minimally affected by a pandemic, and so this wouldn’t be interesting to investors.

But wouldn’t the company view on this be interesting to a corporate visitor in itself? What do you think? (I think that there will be some economic impact, though perhaps less than you’d think given the media discussion over the last couple of weeks).

As for corporate responsibility, there is a very interesting article on the limits of corporate responsibility using Roche as an example on the Insead site – definitely worth a read.

Image of flu virus courtesy of Roche

Corporations Seek Creativity

In previous posts, I have commented on how the corporate world is getting increasingly complex. So much so that the current menu of tools and techniques are becoming less effective. I found an interesting article on the website of the Australian Graduate School of Management (Read the article – edit: no longer available).

One of the defining abilities for 21st century managers is how they deal with ‘wicked problems’ – that is, problems that are socially so complex that they don’t have straightforward answers and for which the past does not prove to be a reliable predictor of the future. Grappling with wicked problems is arguably the greatest and most exciting challenge for today’s manager who needs to adopt new ways of thinking to discover solutions.

And in a 2005 article BusinessWeek mentioned —

What was once central to corporations — price, quality, and much of the left-brain, digitized analytical work associated with knowledge — is fast being shipped off to lower-paid, highly trained Chinese and Indians, as well as Hungarians, Czechs, and Russians. Increasingly, the new core competence is creativity — the right-brain stuff that smart companies are now harnessing to generate top-line growth. The game is changing. It isn’t just about math and science anymore. It’s about creativity, imagination, and, above all, innovation.

No wonder that corporate recruiters are increasingly hiring MFAs instead of MBAs. Companies are also looking into how to promote creativity in their organizations. The CEO and the C-suite must set the tone at the top that encourages a creative corporate culture. Other initiatives are to back this up with with rewarding creativity via special awards (3M) and as components of the compensation plan (GE). See other techniques in the table below.

COMPANY CREATIVITY PRACTICE
Toyota Is best known for an obsessive focus on innovating its manufacturing processes.
Procter & Gamble Transformed its traditional in-house research and development process into an open-source innovation strategy it calls “connect and develop.” It embraces the collective brains of the world…. inventors, scientists, and suppliers for new products that can be developed in-house.
3M Awards “Genesis Grants” to scientists who want to work on outside projects. Each year more than 60 researchers submit formal applications to a panel of 20 senior scientists who review the requests, just as a foundation would review academics’ proposals. Twelve to 20 grants, ranging from $50,000 and $100,000 apiece, are awarded each year. The researchers can use the money to hire supplemental staff or acquire necessary equipment.

General Electric Co. Has begun evaluating its top 5,000 managers on “growth traits” that include innovation-oriented themes such as “external focus” and “imagination and courage.” GE has also added more flexibility into its traditionally rigid performance rankings.
Infosys Technologies Ltd Chairman and “chief mentor” N.R. Narayana Murthy introduced the company’s “voice of youth” program seven years ago. Each year the company selects nine top-performing young guns — each under 30 — to participate in its eight yearly senior management council meetings, presenting and discussing their ideas with the top leadership team.
Adapted from Businessweek “Most Innovative Companies”

I found a good website America Creativity Association with many great resources. If you are just starting to use creativity in your organization, take the Readiness Test.

Another good site is CREATE There are good examples of managing creativity, techniques and case studies. An added benefit: no ads.

Now get those creative juices flowing.

Best Practices Review: Chemoil

Time for another quick review: 15 minutes to assess Chemoil’s corporate website.
chemoil
There is much to be commended in this site. Chemoil includes a number of items that many other companies fail to include, such as: video, podcast, webcast, a glossary, FAQs, third party comment, a sitemap, biographies of both board members and management, a dedicated shareholder page, details on insider trades and a good explanation of their business and strategy – as well as a great deal of other information.

However, the site overall does have a few flaws, and I have some suggestions for improvement. [Read more…] about Best Practices Review: Chemoil

Informative Eye Candy

For this post, I wanted to write about the absolutely critical importance of clear and engaging web copy. After all, we’ve all come across badly written web pages that prompt a rapid visit to the good old “go-back” icon.

Then I found myself reading a Linkedin post about why human beings like visual content. And this reminded me of something we often discuss with clients at Corporate Eye. So, despite having a vested interest in writing about good web copy (I am a blog writer after all!), for this post I’m going to talk about…

infographic-arrow

Okay, I’ll admit it – we have touched on the value and effectiveness of infographics in previous blog posts. But I think it’s worth revisiting this subject, and also adding some science to explain why visual images can be an incredibly effective way to communicate core messages and key data.

Human beings like colourful eye-catching content, and perhaps that’s no surprise when we consider that:

infographic-steps

Bold and vibrant infographics on a web page can convey important stories about your company fast. And that could take the form of showing resources and markets, achievement against target, or aims and ambitions.

Providing engaging and clear infographics can also be good news for web writers. How many times have you skim-read copy within a website? Well, don’t worry too much if you might have done this on the odd occasion, as research suggests that web users often only read 28% of the copy within a website. And maybe that isn’t surprising. There is of course a lot to take in on even basic corporate sites. But good infographics can help us stop skimming and increase our willingness to read by a massive 80%! Engaging visuals that tell a story can also help to embed key messages. As a broad rule, we only remember 20% of what we read, but we remember 80% of what we see.

Infographics can be used in a variety of different ways, on webpages and downloads. And they don’t have to be static. Animated infographics can be imbedded into webpages or incorporated into video links, and both options can help to deliver memorable and attractive content.

But isn’t this just a lot of fuss being made about pretty pictures? If someone is seriously interested in a company, surely they’ll take the time to read the carefully crafted web text on your site, even if the visual content on your pages is a little on the thin side.

As a writer of carefully well-crafted web text (Note to Editor: Please feel free to disagree!), I would like to say: Yes – all you need is well-written text! But I’m afraid I can’t. The truth is we live in an incredibly information-rich age, and even the best text has a heck of a lot to compete with. And science tells us that engaging infographics can help good copy stand out, be remembered, and perhaps more important of all, be understood.

If you would like to find out more on how to use infographics and other visual tools effectively, why not drop us a line and we’ll be happy to share our knowledge.

Note: With thanks to Hubspot for inspiring me to write this post

Why Business Needs The Arts

Yes that’s right, while the Arts need Business sponsorships, Business also needs the Arts in organizational practices.

Business practices, the workplace, skill requirements have changed so much that the business world seems that it has turned upside down – Leadership styles are morphing – command and control is out, organizations are getting flatter, the competitive landscape is chaotic, people are looking for meaningful work, customers are in control.
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