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by Marko Savić
picture presenting integrate opportunities

SCHEME: ION INTERACTIVE

@ioninteractive have published this great picture. Imagine to have a publication that you could access and read/browse/explore/touch through:

    • search engines – because if Google can’t find you you don’t exists, right?
    • E-mail – still medium not to underestimate, especially if you read your e-mails on your mobile devices. Do you?
    • LinkedIn, great platform for sharing experiences, not only through you profile but especially through groups of professionals joining to discuss subjects of their interest. So, do you use LinkedIn groups?
    • Facebook. How to integrate this enormously popular medium into your publications? Definitely great opportunity of integrating your publication, don’t you think?
    • Twitter. Yes, do you also think its very important to be present?
    • Do you enable your users to print the content of your publication. Print-on-demand is in big demand. Already today we know print-on-demand devices like Espresso Book Machine. In 15 to 20 years an average home printer should be able to “spit out paperback” (WIRED).

Imagine to have a publication that you could access and read/browse/explore/touch through: search engines, email, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, print(-on-demand), different displays, social (media), QR code and/or keywords. Yes, that what I would call integrate. Either your webpage, your publication or your report.

  • Is your code according to standards that can work across platforms or media, or do you still use flash f.e.?
  • Display. Great subject. Do you have the budget to develop an app for every display, tablet or other device that’s out there? Or will you rather use responsive (web) design principles and be easily readable across most devices?
  • Social. Yes, there is more than Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. In Germany Xing is a platform used more then LinkedIn, f.e.. Which other social (media) do you like?
  • QR codes. Enormous potential.
  • Keywords. If you ask me, they lost some potential. Excerpt or short description are more important if you ask me but yes, if you publish in closed platforms, I guess keywords could help you.

Sources:

  1. Scheme: @ioninteractive
  2. Wired magazine: Clive Thompson on the Future of Printed Books, November 29, 2011, by Clive Thompson

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 15th, 2011 at 13:50 and is filed under Featured posts, Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Reports, where good insights go to die. Really?

by Marko Savić

Most reports and presentations aren’t effective ways to help others develop empathy. This is one of the many interesting insights from my next to read book titled Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World by Peter Merholz, Todd Wilkens, Brandon Schauer and David Verba. There was even a Wilkens’ law mentioned:
“The effectiveness of a research report is inversely proportional to the thickness of its binding.” – Todd Wilkens

In Funky Business  Forever authors also claim that in a real-time society, companies keep on publishing reports and balance sheets about atoms – machines, buildings, etc. – but do companies that way really capture the most critical assets by measuring that stuff? I think integrated reports could by joining environmental, social and governance activities (ESG) as a supplement with required financial statements greatly improve readability, effectiveness and help other to develop empathy (f.e. shareholders in case of annual reports) of the current reports.

As a design manager I believe that by creating and designing reports from the start in mind that in these real(online)-times the thickness of the reports binding is only (maybe) necessary but the real report should always be accessible online and interactive as wide as possible on every system available.

Scheme How-research-works-in-most-organizations from the Subject to change book

illustration from the Subject to change book

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2011 at 17:25 and is filed under Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Design and presentation of your financial report

by Marko Savić

“Presentation of a financial report is as much a ‘design thing’ as is the creation of a sexy-looking product.” -Tom Peters in his book Re-Imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age published in 2003.

I believe Tom Peters is a very influential independent business consultant, and I could not agree more. This is my big motivation and I strongly believe that design and corporate reports including annual- or financial reports have everything to do with design.

Tom Peters picture from Looking Inward blog

milindwagh.com

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 28th, 2011 at 18:36 and is filed under Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About the Kristina Halvorson’s book: Content Strategy for the Web

by Marko Savić

Content Strategy for the Web (Voices That Matter)Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The most important thing I realised, when I read this book is:
You are on the web => You are publisher.

Well the author said that if you or your organization has a web site, then you are a publisher but I guess my claim could also hold in this web 2.0 times (or are we already 3.0?). One other thing to keep in mind is that this is not a book about web writing. It’s about content strategy – for the web.

Content strategy consists of: + creation, + delivery, + governance.

This book more specifically deals with:
+ how to plan the content strategy;
+ how to create a content but don’t expect to learn how to write for your web site;
+ governing the content.

The whole book is written with the presumption that you/your organization is already on the web or has a web site. Which seems like a must today for everybody. So if we follow the most important thing to remember from this book, about being a publisher, this means that everybody today already is a publisher. I guess that’s not far away from the facts. And if you are a publisher and want to be successful publisher, you need a content strategy. This book definitely helped me to rethink my own blog and about my company’s web content.

If I already talk about a web site, to me it was interesting to realize, that a mid-sized web site was one that has 200 to 1.200 pages. And inside such a web site for example it is pretty straightforward clear that you should develop your linking strategy. Or will you use automated linking service like Zemanta, for example?

When delivering content, we have options to choose between:
+ original content,
+ aggregated content,
+ co-created content,
+ licensed content,
+ user-generated content.

And I was impressed to realise how many people profiles could actually be engaged in content creation. The list of profiles is:
+ content requesters,
+ content providers,
+ content creators,
+ content reviewers,
+ content approvers,
+ content publisher.

And if it that is not enough, once your web site is live you could need profiles like:
+ web editor-in-chief,
+ web editor,
+ web writer,
+ search engine optimization strategist,
+ reviewers and approvers.

From the numerous profiles above it is clear that copy is not content. In content creation there are numerous profiles involved. And author goes further in claiming that user experience (UX) design is not the answer to a successful web site but the collaboration across disciplines. That, in my opinion is the reason why this is not such an easy task, actually.

Content strategy vs. brand strategy?
+ Content strategy is not about the talk.
+ Content strategy is about how you walk the talk.
+ Messages from your brand strategy are not content.

For some professional, be that marketing, communications or other it might be interesting to realise where content strategy stand when compared to brand strategy. Well content strategy is not about the talk. It’s about how you walk the talk. And messages from your brand strategy are not your content.

Take your social media efforts like a commitment not like a campaign. So, stop thinking “launch”. Start thinking “life-cycle”.

There is one other news to have in mind when you have a web site. Your content is never really finished. Sorry, says author of this book, Kristina Halvorson. And one other piece of advice. Take your social media efforts like a commitment not like a campaign. So, stop thinking “launch”. Start thinking “life-cycle”. I couldn’t agree more.

And for almost a gig like me it was interesting to see two diagrams. One is: How to measure content effectiveness? Diagram was developed at the Content Delivery & Analysis Ltd:
Diagram on content effectiveness

Content is not a feature. It should be noticed that content needs ongoing care and feeding. Web content is never actually really finished.

For the end of this review only one remark from the author. If your are some kind of web professional, you probably saw a diagram the Elements of user experience. Well I didn’t. And the author recommends to not think of content as a feature as maybe it could be said from this diagram, originally developed by Jesse James Garrett.
description

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 17th, 2011 at 12:43 and is filed under Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Why would you use Vizuarna’s 365i? Posts series.

by Marko Savić

We are publishing a special posts series explaining Why would you use 365i? Please feel free to browse or listen to the posts.

Why would you use Vizuarna’s 365i? Posts series.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 29th, 2010 at 23:02 and is filed under Our favourite posts, Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Why would you use 365i? Because it is the contemporary ECO tool for your interactive annual report

by Marko Savić

This is the post series, explaining Why would you use 365i? In the fifth part I’m explaining why is the 365i Contemporary ECO tool that saves on your and environmental costs.

If you are are a listener rather than a reader, use the audio post: Why use 365i? Because it is the contemporary ECO tool for your interactive annual report: Post series 5 (.mp3; 2,7 MB)

Why would you use 365i? Because it is the contemporary ECO tool for your interactive annual report.

Do you agree with an environmental approach that also saves money? Vizuarna’s 365i reduces paper use, saving both natural resources and money. You also save money on printing, and the systematic interactive design solution also saves you money over the long term, in your future annual reports.

What are your average annual report costs? If your budget is €40,000 a year, Vizuarna’s 365i can reduce them to €11,750 a year, saving you €113,000 over four years.

We say: “Think before you print and be green by keeping it on the screen.”

Illustration presenting Vizuarna's 365i as a contemporary ECO tool for interactive annual report

Jasna Andrić/Vizuarna

[height]600[/height]
What exactly was meant by reducing the paper use by using the Vizuarna’s 365i? That you are not allowed to use paper when reading/browsing/analysing your interactive annual report? No. It means only that you are aware that printing your annual report in enormous number of copies and then not knowing why do you need all of them because maybe your corporation has only ten institutional shareholders? Or even if you have hundreds of thousands shareholders – the main point of the interactive annual report is exactly that: enable them to find and look after your annual report whenever and wherever they want. 365interactive design system for annual reports enables you exactly that. It allows users of your annual report to print the whole or part of the annual report.

With the use of Vizuarna’s 365i you enable the stakeholders of your company to find and look after your annual report whenever and wherever they want too. Thereby being ECO friendly and cost aware.

The next point I would like to explain: how is it possible to save the natural resources and money at the same time? Yes, I agree paper is completely reusable resource. But I had opportunity to see many times in the last two year companies where they really don’t know what they are doing with printed copies of their annual report. Some corporate communication managers even think that their financial departments need it to send it to the banks. But, believe me, bank analysts do not have offices big enough to keep all the annual reports balance sheets in hard copy that they must analyse on daily basis. The need excel files.

Other managers responsible for annual report honestly admit that their CEO demands that they have to print it. Because we are not the only bank that is printing it, they say. Look at other banks, they are printing it to, they say further. Yeah, well well even if that is true. If you would like to follow everybody else even in corporate practices that belong to the past this is not the way to satisfy your stakeholders. If you are aware that design is a problem solving discipline. Then you should be able to realize that by saving on natural resources and by implementing a design solutions for the whole strategic period you will be able to save up to the €113,000 over four years of your strategic period.

Audio post: Why use 365i? Because it is the contemporary ECO tool for your interactive annual report: Post series 5 (.mp3; 2,7 MB)

Source: Why use 365i? 4. Contemporary ECO tool.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010 at 00:15 and is filed under Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Why would you use 365i? Because you will have an interactive annual report with digital post-it notes

by Marko Savić

This is the post series, explaining Why would you use 365i? In the third part I’m explaining how is it possible to have an interactive annual report with digital post-it notes?

If you are are a listener rather than a reader, use the audio post: Why use 365i? To have an interactive annual report with digital post-it notes: Post series 3 (.mp3, 1,7 MB)

Why would you use 365i? Because you will have an interactive annual report with digital post-it notes.

What do you do when you are trying to remember something in a book? Do you use your pencil? Or do you stick a post-it note? Anyway we all have our own ways of remembering the things from the books. The same was true in the old non-electronic days with the annual reports. If you were a bank analyst in those days you had to be really concentrated if you tried to do some analysis of your clients based on their data in the annual report. Annual report in a form of a book, namely.

Users of Vizuarna’s 365i can create their own remarks and pointers to help convey, identify or re-find important parts of their interactive annual report’s content.

Today my guess is no bank analyst looks at the annual reports as books any-more. But the small problem of remembering some specific things (from let’s say some kind of disclosure of the balance sheet) is still there. And now you would need a book in front of you and a post-it note. You really have to copy and paste from the files you have, in the meantime maybe forgetting what you have already calculated in the disclosure. Well, we have a solution for you. Even if you are not a bank analyst but rather a journalist or even a shareholder of the company where you actually work. We transformed this special feeling of an annual report in the form of a book into your interactive annual report.

Picture explaining Why would you use 365i An interactive annual report with digital post-it notes

Vizuarna/Jasna Andrić

We created a special benefit of printed publications translated into digital form. Vizuarna’s 365i namely allows the use of digital post-it notes. Users can create their own remarks and pointers to help convey, identify or re-find important parts of their interactive annual report’s content.

365i has taken the best of the old and created the same user experience in something completely new.

Audio post: Why use 365i? To have an interactive annual report with digital post-it notes: Post series 3 (.mp3, 1,7 MB)

Source:
Why use 365i? 6. An interactive annual report with digital post-it notes.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 02:00 and is filed under Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Why would you use 365i? Because it is a design tool worth twelve times more than it costs

by Marko Savić

This is the post series, explaining Why would you use 365i? In the second part I’m explaining why is a design tool 365i worth twelve times mores than it costs.

If you are are a listener rather than a reader, use the audio post: Why use 365i? Design tool worth twelve times more than it costs: Post series 2 (.mp3; 2,4 MB)

Why would you use 365i? Because it is a design tool worth twelve times more than it costs.

Costs are always important when you are deciding what to do whit your budget. There is always a risk when buying a system solution because you do not know if it is going to fit for the next couple of years as it is promised. In the case of interactive annual report the first decision to be made is: will you go interactive completely or is your interactive annual report just a supplement of your printed version. The savings are biggest when you decide to go interactive completely.

Are the production costs of developing a system tool for your interactive annual report to high for you? We have a design tool for you worth twelve times more than it costs.

Vizuarna’s 365i design tool enables you both. Cost savings and still the possibility given to every user of your interactive annual report to print his own annual report, be that in whole or by chapters. But the production of the real interactive annual report (by which I do not mean just the .pdf file) that features at least a:

  • micro-site of your annual report with complete export to the USB keys, DVDs…
  • .pdf downloads of the whole or parts of your annual report
  • possibility to download or send from the system all financial spread sheets

would ten times and more increase the costs or your usual budget for your annual report. At least if you would try to build a system.

Did I mention design? No, but you have already designed your annual report up until now aren’t you? So, the costs are too high. Will you leave a production of your interactive annual report aside? Because costs of production of such a system are too high for you? We have a solution.

An illustration explaining Why would you use 365i? Because it is a design tool worth 12 times more than it costs

Vizuarna/Jasna Andrić

Are you looking for the best deal for your interactive annual report? With Vizuarna’s 365i you get a design tool worth more than €240,000 for the price of €20,000. How is that possible? We have developed 365i with financial support from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology of the Republic of Slovenia, European Union resources and finance grants from the Slovene Enterprise Fund.

We put together a professional team devoted to bringing the idea to fruition. It includes an information architect, a design manager and managing director, a creative director, a head of development, programmers, an art director, designers and a copywriter. The team has achieved its goal, and can now offer you this design tool and service for less than €20,000.

365i can cover your interactive annual report needs with the design tool of the future.

Audio post: Why use 365i? Design tool worth twelve times more than it costs: Post series 2 (.mp3; 2,4 MB)

Source:
Why use 365i? 7. A design tool worth twelve times more than it costs.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 at 02:00 and is filed under Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Why would you use 365i? Because it enables you the multimedia presentation of your business year in your interactive annual report

by Marko Savić

This is the post series, explaining Why would you use 365i? In the first part I’m explaining the multimedia presentation of a business year in your interactive annual report.

If you are are a listener rather than a reader, use the audio post: Why use 365i? Multimedia presentation of your business year: Post series 1 (.mp3; 1,8 MB, 2:31 minutes)

Why would you use 365i? Because it enables you the multimedia presentation of your business year in your interactive annual report.

Illustration presenting Why would you use 365i design tool as a multimedia presentation of a business year

Vizuarna/Jasna Andrić

In the “reporting business” companies around the world faced many changes in recent years. There was a tremendous pressure in large capital markets to the disclosure of quarterly reports. The recession time seems to loosen that pressure. But the fact remains: the times of a once a year annual speeches to the stakeholders of your company in your annual report are forever gone. Bigger transparency is a fact nobody can deny.

And while we are all familiar with our emotional connections to the paper, and while some research also suggests that “greater emotional processing is facilitated by the physical material than the virtual” there is no doubt that transparency possibilities of your interactive annual report are prevailing. Assuring a “physical material” of your interactive annual report is also just a welcomed creative challenge to the team of Vizuarna’s 365i.

Using Vizuarna’s 356i offers almost unlimited possibilities of including your audio and video content to your interactive annual report. This is the way to add to the level of your communications, strengthen your corporate identity and enhance the transparency of your reporting.

Your interactive annual report design by our team with the help of the design tool 365i enables not just photography or illustration that are important part of the content of your report but bring alive the results and milestones of the business year for your reporting users. Using Vizuarna’s 356i offers almost unlimited possibilities of including your audio and video content to your interactive annual report. With corporate videos, TV commercials, radio advertisements, banners, computer games, photo galleries, videos from events and more, you will:

  • add to the level of your communications,
  • to the strength of your corporate identity, and
  • enhance the transparency of your reporting.

Audio post: Why use 365i? Multimedia presentation of your business year: Post series 1 (.mp3; 1,8 MB; 2:31 minutes)

Sources:
Why use 365i? 8. Multimedia presentation of business year.
MillwardBrown_CaseStudy_Neuroscience.pdf (645 KB)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 at 02:00 and is filed under Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Your presentation for venture capitalist. 2.0

by Marko Savić

We have mentioned in the post Your presentation for venture capitalist few simple rules you should follow – 10/20/30 – and top ten topics you should cover in your presentation.

The single most important factor in investors presentations is you. Yes, you.

But today, we would like to cover what David S. Rose, technology entrepreneur and world-class presenter, recommends  about entrepreneurial fund-raising pitches (or investors presentations). The most important thing to remember is that investors will all the way try to figure out if you are the person behind whom they should invest their money. So, YOU are the single most important factor in investors presentation.

You have only first 30-60 seconds of your presentation to grab the attention of your audience.

Investors presentations should therefore always be done by the CEO himself. Maybe that is not so strict in the corporate world but my guess is that even there this rule should be applied. You have first 30-60 seconds to grab the attention of the audience. In this one minute you should:

  • present your logo
  • your name, and
  • your title.

Always start your presentation with something dramatic and memorable.

Still in that one minute, after first screen you should start with something dramatic and memorable. It could be an anecdote, an unusual number or something similar.

After the openings you should set the context for the rest of the presentation. Present your elevator pitch (you have one, don’t you?), like: “We operate a search engine that finds anything on the Internet“; or:  “We design and build custom made sales kiosk for mobile phones“. Although we allready mentioned in the Your presentation for venture capialist ten topics you should cover, here is one other sequence possibility, this time 13 topics:

  1. Company/Presenter overview
  2. Business overview
  3. Management team
  4. Market/Pain points
  5. Product (including images)
  6. Business model
  7. Customer (current and projected)
  8. Strategic relationships, if any
  9. Competition
  10. Barriers to entry
  11. Financial overview
  12. Capital, valuation and use of Proceeds
  13. Review.

Do not forget. The presentation is about you. Never hand out copies of your slides. And always say it first, then show it.

There are some other details to be remembered.

  • You. Don’t forget. Its not about PowerPoint. It is about you. Some of the greatest speakers in the world have never used PowerPoint (or similar tools).
  • Never, ever hand out copies of your slides. Certainly not before your presentation. Slides should be completely incapable to stand for themselves. So for the WWW presentation, consider doing a separate presentation. You should though prepare a complete leave-behind deck.
  • Use “builds”. And say it first, then show it.

Also do not forget to use the preview/prompting capability of your software and so do not turn your head to the screen or even forget what is on the next slide. Good luck!

Source: David S. Rose in Reynolds, Garr: Presentation Zen Design. Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentation.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 28th, 2010 at 15:09 and is filed under Featured posts, Posts by date. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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