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    Archive for May, 2010

    (Design) Strategy of a non-profit organization

    Friday, May 14th, 2010

    While representing my company Vizuarna in the New York, USA, I attented a very interesting round table in the organization of the Art Directors Club on Tuesday, May 11th.

    The sponsor of the evening was Adobe, who is just launching its brand new CS5. So now everything is in 5’s. But to me especially interesting guest was, Ms. Emily Pilloton. She founded Project H Design. H stands for Humanity Habitats Health Happiness.

    Ms. Pilloton quitted working as an agency designer because like she said product design industry makes a lot of crap. If there are some product really designed, they are usually in the luxury market. She believes design is a process and is about people. The strategy for the Project H Design is based on a 6 guiding principles, I would called it a design strategy.
    #1 We design trough action.
    #2 We design system not stuff.
    #3 We design with, not for.
    #4 We start locally and scale globally.
    #5 We document, share, and measure.
    #6 We build.
    Respect! This is all I would dare to add this event. Especially because Emily presented a case in action for every principle. Really convincing. And that is not all. She has managed to write a book: Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People.

    When you listen to Emily you really start to believe that design can and will change the world.
    The cover picture of the book Design Revolution

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    “We think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience”, Steve Jobs

    Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

    That is what we had in mind when developing Vizuarna’s 365i, a design tool for interactive annual reports. Taking the responsibility for the complete product.

    Interactive annual reporting is a fact. The client needs to have a solution that will enable him not only a professional interactive report but also a possibility that the user groups will find the information they want. Annual reporting of the corporation has a complex content, be that describing the business milestones or presenting the rich info-graphics of the annual or presenting the financial results in the balance sheet, income statement and its disclosure’s. This is why Vizuarna’s 365i design tool enables to automate on screen presentation of the annual report and at the same time enabling standard user search experience. And on the other hand we did not forget that .pdf publication of the annual reports are still de facto standard, so the design tool enables to automate that part too.

    Maybe we were lucky (or maybe smart) enough not to develop another flash flip book application. Really early in the process of idea testing, one of our first clients said: “But, hey guys, I do not want you to make me another like interactive book, with this buttons to move on. I do not want that.”. And yes, we didn’t developed that. The 365i enables complete standard user search experience.

    Technically, it is based on .xml standard that is totality compliant with the .xbrl standard of the Securities and Exchange Commission from the USA. Even more deeply, the tool makes every object in the report known, be that a paragraph, various titles, graphs or other pie charts, or numbers in income statements of your profit line. All that in accordance with the corporate identity of the corporation. What that means? That by default user are able to find what they want. How? Usually by goggling, as we all have to admit.

    We did not forget the processionals who use the annual reports as part of their job. We found out that financial departments are sending to bank annalists their own spreadsheets. Independently from the designed official annual report. The 365i enables to group all the spreadsheets (and that spreadsheets that are designed in accordance with the corporate identity) or only some of them. All the spreadsheets may also be published in the Download Centre, naturally locked in. But no need to look for the files and compiling them together when your CEO bumps into your office to send all the figures to some new important potential investor. With one click you choose all the spreadsheets and send them to appropriate address. And be sure that those spreadsheet are all following your corporate design guidelines so the corporate communications manager will be happy too (not to mention your in-house design department).

    Steve Jobs also said in one other occasion: “Learning about serif and san-serif typefaces and varying the amount of space between letter combinations… all came back to me, and we designed it all into Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography”.  Similarly, we believe that 365i is the first design tool for complete interactive reporting enabling beautiful interactive annual reports.

    Black and white photo of Steve Jobs
    Source of Steve Jobs quotes: Success, June 2010
    Photo source: www.macstories.net

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    A small case study of New York based corporations on reporting systems

    Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

    This case study includes corporations with its headquarters in New York. In the small sample there are corporations like: PEPSICO, Thomson Reuters, WPP, LVMH and others.

    It was interesting that in many cases, the LinkedIn proved to be valuable source of the information where are the headquarters of some of the corporations. Like, if I search for our company Vizuarna headquarters, the first result on Google is the Vizuarna’s profile on LinkedIn. Interesting, isn’t it? The same way it is possible to find some other corporations headquarters. And yes. Many of the worlds most known corporations actually have their headquarters in New York. Not necessary in New York City but still.

    And after studying the reporting systems of some of the corporations in New York, what have I found out? The most important lesson: all of them have actually a reporting system established. No mistakes. Some have appointed even executives director for investment affairs. What were some of the best features in this reports in my opinion? Three things really to remember:

    + first, one of the corporation studied has its interactive annual report made already in 2003. And the reports are published on the web site as way back as in 1999. And everything about the annual report is totally integrated into the site. Really remarkable. Interactive version made rather simple like a flash publication but with good possibilities of printing, mailing and others, be that the whole report or its part by pages.

    + second, promise of the annual report, let say some kind of tactical tag-line, a sort or even really a brand promise explained in short and in details. That’s the way to do it. and

    + third, the whole annual report presented in a summary. All the chapters are there but everything is in short. Really in short but with all relevant information. What do I really need to know about the income statement? There are really only 2×3 things to know. Revenues (in sales, financial, other) and expenses in the other way (again operations, financial and other) and that’s it. And some make even a summary from the summary. Shorter version of the short version. And that is true for other chapters of the annual report as well. That way it becomes more interesting for larger target groups not only for people who have to read the reports by duty. Enhanced transparency, I would called it.

    The web page of the LVMH web site presenting annual reports for ten years

    Interactive annual report of Pepsico wits its promise in detail

    Interactive annual report summary of WPP

    the results from Google on the term Vizuarna headquarters

    There are some other things to be mentioned, like sharing possibilities on SlideShare or some reports really followed the line throughout the years. Just like their corporate strategy is to be followed (if successful), so have the annual reports its design consistency.

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