Surfing the Ankle High Wave
Syracuse University’s design students now know a little more about surfing, along with how succeeding in today’s challenging working environment requires patience, perseverance and skill – just like surfing the small summer waves typical of the east coast.
In her presentation, “Surfing the Ankle High Wave,” Decker Design president (and veteran surfer) Lynda Decker drew analogies between learning how to surf and building a career in design.
“East coast conditions are crowded and inconsistent and everyone fights to get that one perfect wave that comes through every now and then. The biggest surf comes in storms. Small waves are difficult to catch and very unstable. As a result, many surfers feel that if you can surf small waves well, you can surf anything. One of the greatest compliments on the beach is “Wow look at that guy, he just made that nothing blip into a wave.”
Building a career in design really is much like learning to surf. It’s difficult. You graduate with untested skills, an inability to accurately read your environment and a tendency to make a lot of mistakes. Building a career in the current economic situation adds to your problems.”
The presentation contains 10 lessons she learned from surfing that are directly applicable to creating career success.
Consider lesson one: “Every time you think you know what to expect, something else happens.” Lesson three: “If you want to catch a wave, you have to paddle REALLY hard. Insanely hard. Harder than you think possible.” Or lesson five, which is, “Keep your eyes on the horizon.”
Through first-hand anecdotes from both the surfing and design business worlds, Lynda communicates the importance, of discipline, courtesy, knowledge and persistence when competing in the most adverse economic environment in 50 years.
For a copy of the presentation, or to invite Lynda to present to your organization, contact her directly at Decker Design, 212.633.8588.
Endangered Species: Why You Must Save Your Corporate Annual Report
Uncertain economic times, coupled with the drop in value of many stocks over the past year have left investors (and their accounts) battered, bruised, suspicious and scared. Smart companies are adjusting their communications strategies to quell investor fears and to provide reassurance that their money is well placed and relatively secure.
At the same time, the SEC has softened the requirements for a company’s best and most effective communications vehicle, the corporate annual report. Seeing this as an opportunity to conserve budget dollars, many companies are now doing only what is required. Many “annuals” have been reduced to a few pages of text attached to the front the 10K, which ends up an un-useful PDF blob languishing in the furthest corner of the corporate website. While this strategy might save companies some money and time in the short term, the bulk cost of this decision will be paid in what is not accomplished.
The annual provides a perfect opportunity to bolster investor trust. It also allows investors to connect directly with the CEO, whose letter shows the softer, human side of the company. The annual report also plays an important role in managing current investor perceptions, reminding them of your strengths, visions and heritage – and the reason they invested with you in the first place.
Perhaps most importantly, the discipline and commitment to this yearly report sends a message that your company does what is right, not just what it can get away with. Presenting an abbreviated and incomplete view of the business leaves things to people’s already active imaginations. Prompting them to ask, “What else are they cutting?”
To that end, a well-done annual report gives your audience a reason to speak well of your company to others. It is your company’s ambassador, its calling card. In fact, your annual report can reach more people – employees, prospective investors and the business and financial press – than any other non-advertising medium.
Paper vs. Online vs. Both
For companies still committed to providing investors with a full annual report, there are now two accepted formats: print (paper) and online.
The printed annual remains important because today’s primary investors (40+ years old with liquid cash to invest) are still very print-oriented. If you make your annual available online only, you may attract the 30-something audience, but chances are they won’t have much money to play with (beyond what’s going into their 401K).
To best serve your audiences, you really need to produce both a print and online version of your corporate annual report. Why? Because printed information is perceived very differently than information read online, and the two formats fulfill very different needs.
Print lends itself to perusal, and is designed to be experienced over a longer period of time. People will spend more time reading a print piece than they will reading the same content online. Print is a medium you can see, smell and touch; nothing communicates better the human aspect of your company. Committing information to paper also implies permanence and commitment, stability and success.
Changing information online, on the other hand, is a matter of a few keystrokes. Web-based content is designed to be dynamic and to inform – quickly; perfect for communicating with the media, analysts, and future employees – anyone who needs to know something about your company fast. And so it follows that information being consumed online also needs to be presented differently from print.
Why HTML Rules
Printed annual reports are created in spreads, which assumes (with the exception of the front cover) that the reader is seeing two pages at one time. When you PDF a book it destroys this layout, splitting the spreads into a series of 8.5” x 11” pages. The formats just don’t translate. Images are hackneyed and rather than clarify can confuse.
Worst, people complain they cannot find what they are looking for. This is understandable, as printed documents are designed to make the audience linger, consider, ruminate and engage. By the way, online magazine formats are not the answer, either. They’re slow, frustrating and for most virtually unreadable. And forget the Kindle, at least for now – it doesn’t render color and at the very least you need color to help guide the reader through the various levels of information.
If you’re going to put your annual report online, try to avoid putting up the dreaded and unimpressive PDF blob. Better: have the piece created in HTML. This way you can provide the reader with the navigational elements they expect when reading something online. Logical navigation, breadcrumbs and the ability to print out individual pages will go a long way to providing the reader with the experience they are looking for. If you’re going to both a print and online version – and we hope you do – thorough planning at beginning of the project regarding copy, images, graphics, layouts and navigation will keep conversion costs down.
With increasing financial pressures it is tempting to pare the annual report down to its bare bones, but to do so is penny-wise and pound-foolish. A well-done corporate annual report, presented both in print and online buoys the confidence, trust and knowledge of investors, shareholders and media alike. And stakeholder confidence, trust and knowledge are precisely the elements that drive the continuing prosperity and success of every organization.
New Work: Ken Miller Group Identity
Spray bottles spray, coffee cups insulate and orange juice pours – all things we take for granted, along with the function of myriad other items on the supermarket shelf. Our client, the Ken Miller Group has applied its patented innovation methodology to help focus and guide new product and package innovation efforts for dozens of consumer product goods you see in the grocery store every day.
Decker Design recently developed the visual brand and identity for the Ken Miller Group and applied it to stationery and the book "Insight for Innovation: Twenty years in the deep end" written by Ken Miller. Decker also created a CMS (content management system) based website that enables the company to easily update the content on the website as needed – no need to know HTML and no additional technical assistance required.
