A tip (and a scholarship) for aspiring and professional writers...

Invest in yourself by attending the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. I attended my first ASJA conference in the 1990s, and then joined the group. I can attest that membership in this organization is a definite career-booster. This year's conference takes place on April 27-28 at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, and as usual there's a superb mix of nonfiction writers, editors, and agents to hear and network with. I'm honored to lead the “Conquering Corporate Markets” panel at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday the 27th. The session will feature Rod Thorn, director of corporate communications at Pepsico; public speaking expert Joan Detz; Barbara Krasner, author and executive at Lexis-Nexis; and yours truly (Marian Calabro), president of CorporateHistory.net. For full info, visit http://www.asja.org/wc/.

Late-breaking news! Thanks to a generous grant from Amazon, The ASJA Foundation is offering conference scholarships to writers who are serious about starting or continuing a nonfiction freelance writing career. See the Conference website for full details and to apply.

“About Us” Evaluation: Corning Gets a C plus

Corning Incorporated, headquartered in Corning, N.Y., was founded in 1851 by Amory Houghton as Corning Glass Works. Back in 1906, it was one of the first American companies to establish an industrial research and development lab. Innovations include Pyrex cookware, fiber optic cables, and Gorilla Glass for smartphones and other touchscreen devices. Corning’s main About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: C plus

Products/Services: B

Corning’s main About Us page is rather bland: the photos are attractive but indecipherable, and the text doesn’t mention any of the products that made the company famous.

Corning’s Innovation Timeline (under About Us / Inside Corning) is a great overview of the company’s innovations, with excellent illustrations. The Century of R&D page (under the R&D heading) also makes inspiring reading. But we’d like to see them featured more prominently and perhaps combined. We’d also like the option to view the whole timeline, rather than clicking one year after another.

Personality: C

The company’s leadership page is buried under Investors / Corporate Governance / Our Leadership, with another click required before we see a bio.

Prominent researchers are buried under R&D / Our Culture of Innovation / Our R&D Community, with another click to reach a bio.

The Awards and Recognition page lists 6 subheads; clicking any one of those takes you to another page with more subheads; clicking one of those finally shows actual awards.

We are big fans of hierarchical organization. We swoon over well-written outlines and intelligently bulleted lists. But we also recognize the necessity of a hook to lure people in. The simple fix for Corning’s website is to feature links to all these important pages on the main About Us page – with well-written teasers.

Accessibility: C

The link to the Contact Us page is handily placed on the menu for the About Us pages, and offers a mailing address, a phone, and an online form. We’d like to have some idea where the email was going: there are no choices of department or division, only a Subject line. And as always, we’d like the option of having a copy of our email sent to us.

TAKEAWAY

"Never forget that if you don't hit a newspaper reader between the eyes with your first sentence, there is no need of writing a second one, "Arthur Brisbane, editor of Hearst’s New York Journal, admonished his reporters. Corning’s site has some great material, but we’re given little incentive to drill down three or four layers to find it.

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.

Happy 30th, Timberline Tours

Quick congrats to Timberline Tours, a hiking and bicycling outfitter turning 30. Founded by "recovering attorneys," Timberline takes its business seriously, but not itself: "As we teeter on the brink of our 30th year and muse over the manner in which our world has changed in the meantime, what hasn't changed is how we feel about what we do....Thirty more years? Hmm, maybe not, but the 30th for sure."

I bicycled with Timberline back when I easily rode 75 to 100 miles a day. Yes, that was a while ago. But this little company still faithfully sends its catalog each year -- and it still provides a fine example of a well-run family business. New owners will take over in year 31. Fortunately, they're training with founders Dick and Carol, so Timberline should remain in good hands.

“About Us” Evaluation: Random House Gets a D minus

Random House, headquartered in Manhattan, is one of the “Big Six” trade publishers. In 1925, Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer purchased the Modern Library; a few years later they published a few other books “at random,” and Random House was born. Its authors range from James Joyce to Roald Dahl, John Updike to Anne Rice, Julia Child to Dr. Seuss. The main About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: D minus

Personality: D

Random House is a publisher and an international corporation: unfortunately, it’s the conglomerate aspect that dominates their website. The dense History page (tiny text, no subheads, no illustrations) is a list of publishers acquired by Random House, which has in turn been acquired by Bertelsmann. Yes, acquisitions are part of the company’s history, but merely listing them gives a casual visitor no sense of the quality or quantity of Random House’s publications.

Presumably for the same reasons that lead Random House to discourage visitors from attempting to make contact (see Accessibility, below), the site offers little information on who runs Random House or any of its divisions (see Publishers). There is no personality here.

Products/Services: D

The History page mentions that Random House’s authors “have won an unrivalled number of Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.” The company has published hundreds of New York Times bestsellers and dozens of winners of Booker prizes, Newbery medals, and other prestigious awards. And yet, the only author mentioned on the History page is James Joyce, whose Ulysses Random House defended against obscenity charges in 1933.

Of course, the Random House site allows visitors to search by author and to find current Random House bestsellers. But there’s no overview of the company’s most notable authors over the past 80-odd years: an inexcusable lacuna.

The History page has no link to the Awards page, which is only accessible from a link at the bottom of the home page (under Shopping!). The Awards page lists only the most recent awards – not the most impressive. Again, an overview is urgently needed.

Accessibility: E

We have seldom seen a website that so strongly discourages visitors from making contact. The Contact Us link is only available in the links buried at the foot of the page. The Contact Us page begins with a suggestion that we go to the FAQ page (always a good idea), and then whines, “We receive hundreds of e-mails a day … Keep in mind that each contact is a single person with a particular area of expertise and a lot of mail to answer … Due to the volume of mail that we receive, we are unable to answer the following types of inquiries ….”

We understand the reasons behind this repressive attitude. The Matterhorn-sized piles of unsolicited manuscripts at major publishers are legendary, and doubtless there are legions of readers who feel compelled to explain why Julia Child should have substituted canola oil for butter. However, combined with the impersonal tone of the rest of the site, the Contact Us page puts the final touch on the image of Random House as an impersonal corporate behemoth.

TAKEAWAY

No matter how famous your company is, your About Us page should not merely provide a history of corporate mergers and acquisitions. It should showcase who you are and what you do superlatively well.

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.