“About Us”: EMC Corp. Gets an A

EMC helps companies design, build, and manage information infrastructures: in other words, they provide hardware and software that help an organization keep its vital information safe and accessible. The company employs about 40,000 people and has 400 offices in over 50 countries. EMC’s main About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: A

Accessibility: A

The address of the company's headquarters appears on the main About Us page, along with a link to an elegantly simple page that gives contact information for EMC’s locations worldwide. The Contact Us link at the upper right on every page takes visitors to this same page.

Products/Services: A

We have seen About Us pages for major corporations that overwhelmed us with information. We like EMC’s because the main page gives us a broad overview, and once we dive into the sub-pages, we always have a side menu to tell us where we are in the hierarchy.

The Corporate Profile page is well organized, with a summary of the company’s services followed by sections about customers, leadership, and global reach. The use of subtitles to set off these sections is a simple technique that far too many website writers fail to use.

One minor suggestion for improvement: the Corporate Profile page offers a Pocket Guide to EMC in PDF form--a well-designed overview. It should be featured prominently on the main About Us page, under “About Us Highlights.”

We also like the Milestones page, which lists major steps forward by the company not annually but monthly, back to 2000. In a high-tech company, this conveys both longevity and progress: qualities that harassed executives seeking to preserve corporate information ought to appreciate. However, we wonder why the Milestones page goes back only to 2000. Also, we were frustrated by all the digging required to find the company’s founding date (1979).

Properly presented, history is a powerful selling tool. We are perplexed that the Milestones page isn’t listed under the “About Us Highlights” on the main About Us page: it only appears on the menus of the sub-pages.

Personality: A

Despite its size, EMC does not come across as a faceless mega-corporation. That’s largely due to the prominent presence on the site of Joe Tucci, chairman, president, and CEO. A quote from him appears on the main About Us page. The nicely designed annual letters to shareholders (accessible under “About Us Highlights”) are narratives that explain, from Tucci’s point of view, where the company has been and where it is heading. Like the Milestones page, the annual letters stretching back to 1997 portray EMC as stable yet progressive.

The Awards and Recognition page (also under “About Us Highlights”) is another great way to put a face on a giant corporation. At a glance, it tells us what others think EMC does superlatively well. EMC’s awards page is particularly well designed. Each award has the logo of the organization that presented it, a one-line description of the award, and a link to the media story about the award. Thus the awards page is visually interesting enough to hold our attention, and also sends us to positive media mentions of EMC.

A similar technique is used on the Executive Team page. Each executive has a picture and a title, and his or her name is a link that leads to a bio. We particularly like Joe Tucci’s bio. Rather than being a list of his present and previous positions, it incorporates EMC’s goals and Tucci’s role in guiding the company toward them.

TAKEAWAY

For visitors in a hurry, EMC’s main About Us page is efficiently laid out to give an overview of the company. The Milestones, Awards, and Executive Team pages all help give a personality to the corporation, while still keeping the visitor focused on EMC’s products and services.

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). Contact us if you’d like to have your site evaluated—there’s no charge and no obligation. Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.

10 Commandments of "About Us" Pages (Continued)

Commandment 2: Thou shalt not generalize. Noble abstractions (“achieve the highest standards,” “provide timely and efficient service”) may read well in mission statements--but to hold the attention of fickle web-surfers, you need specifics. How many products or services do you offer? How long have you been doing it? What awards have you won? What do clients say?

Second in a series; for the series so far, click here.

Brava Judi Dench

“What is the percentage of people doing the job they absolutely love in this world?” she asked. “Two percent? Three? Surely not more...."

No doubt this great quote from a New York Times interview with the spendidly candid actress Judi Dench will make its way into a workplace-related speech or two. It's certainly going into the speechwriting quotables file at CorporateHistory.net. Apropros, yesterday at a client's industrial plant I met people who do absolutely love their work. It's not a glamorous work site, certainly not a stage or movie set. Yet these folks -- who handle quality control in a complex technical process -- exhibited the kind of pride that can't be faked. Bravo and brava to them too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/books/15dench.html

“About Us”: Tim Hortons Gets an A Minus

Tim Hortons, founded in 1964 in Hamilton, Ontario, is the largest fast-food restaurant chain in Canada. Its 3,000 locations (now including 500 in the United States) specialize in coffee, baked goods, and homestyle lunches. The company’s main About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: A minus

Products/Services: A

The main page, The Story of Tim Hortons, is brilliant because it not only tells the story of Tim Hortons, but does it in a mouth-watering way: history as food rather than finance. The rotating images of food in the left-hand column and the vintage photo of the original Tim Hortons are perfect complements to the text.

“Monumental Moments” on the lower half of the same page is the best presentation of a company history that we’ve seen in our About Us evaluations. If we want an overview, we can glance at the one-line listing of years and events. If we want more, we can click on any event for details and a photo. The detail view stays open until we close it, so we don’t have to exercise our memory (short-term at best when we’re browsing the web) to remember events that have flashed out of existence. Contrast the Universal Health Services timeline, which is elegantly laid out, but only permits visitors to view one event at a time.

Personality: A

The founders and leaders of Tim Hortons are presented on a page with four pictures. We’d like to see the titles as well as the names here, so we could more easily decide who to click on.

The page on Tim Horton is a model of a biographical About Us page that also explains the whole company’s creation and purpose. Here we learn about Horton’s character and his 24-year career as a hockey player, and how those relate to his decision to go into the restaurant business.

Incidentally, we applaud the fact that the bio page mentions only briefly that Horton died in a car accident in 1974. The autopsy showed alcohol and drugs in Horton’s system--but that was nearly 40 years ago, and has nothing to do with the taste of Tim Hortons coffee and donuts. The company website wisely ignores the old scandal.

We have pointed out before (in our discussion of Cablevision) that a company’s About Us page should mention any thorny issues that are currently in the news, and should direct visitors to positive media coverage. However, that doesn’t mean that every piece of dirty laundry needs to be aired on an About Us page--or left there to air forever. One of the great advantages of the web is that websites can be so easily adapted to the current situation. And one of the great advantages of hindsight is that mistakes can be presented in the context of lessons learned.

Accessibility: B

The Tim Hortons restaurant locator is at the upper right of all the web pages. We’d also like to see it featured on the main About Us page, with an invitation to come visit one of over 3,000 locations in the United States and Canada. Right after that mouth-watering history would be especially appropriate.

TAKEAWAY

The Tim Hortons site has several features worth emulating. The first is the company history, which does a superb job of selling the company’s products while telling its story. The second is a well-designed timeline that offers a quick overview for visitors in a hurry, and details with photos for those who have more time. The third is a well-edited bio of the company’s founder that gives a charming personality to what could easily be seen as just another fast-food chain.

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). Contact us if you’d like to have your site evaluated—there’s no charge and no obligation.

Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.

10 Commandments of About Us Pages

Commandment 1: Know thy audience. Who’s most likely to look you up? Friends, advocates, opponents, information-seekers? Figure it out and talk to them. Design separate pages for specialized users if needed. No dry resumes or warmed-over Annual Report summaries, please. DO let your org’s personality show. But DON’T imitate the Web site designer who blogs on her home page about an anxiety disorder that keeps her from working for days at a time. (Great way to win new clients, huh?) Think elevator speech. Wrap facts in an enticing overview.

First in a series; for the series so far, click here.

“About Us” Evaluation: Universal Health Services, Inc.

Founded in 1978, Universal Health Services (UHS) is a one of the largest healthcare management companies in the United States, owning and operating over 30 hospitals and 100 behavioral health centers. The company was profiled in Forbes on 11/22/2010. UHS’s About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: C

Because we are often in a hurry when we browse the web, we have two Big-Picture criticisms of UHS’s About Us pages. First, we visited the site several times before we discovered that the About Us section included more than the pages that appear at the left of the main page (Prestige Awards, UHS Timeline, UHS Facilities). Several more options appear in a pop-up menu on the top navigation bar, but until we happened to hover our mouse over the About Us tab, we never realized they were there. Navigation here, or anywhere else on the site, should always be easy and obvious.

Second, we’d like to see the mission statement, corporate strategy, and capital strengths combined (with subheads) to give us a quick overview on the main About Us page. Within that page, give us links to pages that provide further details, if we have the time and interest to pursue them. Mission statements in particular often ooze with self-speak that holds little interest for outsiders.

Products/Services: C

Two pages of the About Us section are outstanding. The Awards page is impressive by sheer length. We like the summaries that appear when we click on a particular award. The only improvement would be to include links to articles in the media about these awards. That would send us to the best stories that the media has been publishing about UHS. Too many companies miss their chance to use their website to direct visitors to positive media coverage about their companies.

We also applaud the UHS Timeline. It’s elegantly laid out and nicely illustrated. We do wish that there were an option for seeing the whole timeline at once (perhaps as a PDF?), so we didn’t have to click on year after year to get the full story.

Accessibility: B

The Corporate Information and Contact Us pages could both benefit from the minor change of having a direct link to the web page with the email form.

Personality: D

In its About Us pages, UHS unfortunately comes across as a faceless corporation. This is surprising given that its founder, Alan B. Miller, is still chairman and CEO. Miller is a frequent guest on TV and a published author. He’s won countless awards. But although he is listed on the pages for the Officers and the Board of Directors, we’re given no quotes from him, no sense of what drives him. Since he set the direction of the company and has kept it moving, information about Miller is information about UHS. We’d like to see a short, punchy bio of him--the sort of information given in the article in Forbes of 11/22/2010.

TAKEAWAY

Always assume that readers of your About Us page are interested in your company and your products, but are pressed for time. To that end: If you have more than one About Us page, make sure the most important information appears on the main page. Make sure that the other pages are easy to find, by links and by the navigation structure. And allow visitors to opt out of long flash presentations or PowerPoint style presentations with a one-page version or a downloadable PDF.

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). Contact us if you’d like to have your site evaluated—there’s no charge and no obligation. Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.