Microsoft Stories

http://news.microsoft.com/stories/index.html
Echoes the classic company print magazine but optimized for online reading.

Remember company magazines and employee newsletters? All of us corporate history researchers and archivists have paged through them. They proliferated through the 20th century as the chief means of internal and external communications, and they remain a source of memory-keeping for companies without formal archives or annual reports. These publications were usually quite good, with news and features by top-notch writers (often journos who jumped ship) and strong photography to match. The Microsoft Stories blog is today's version of these mags: the requisite C-suite foreword (Brad Smith's "In the Cloud We Trust" is as long as a keynote speech and may have been one), numerous well-written profiles, and clever cartoons by Hugh McLeod that I particularly enjoyed (example below). Compared to 20th century print publications Microsoft Stories actually goes one better, as it can function as a recruitment tool as well. My only cavil is that it may offer too much of a good thing, at least in one place. The home page scrolls down to offer dozens of articles. I'd rather have a pull-down list of extras to choose from. But, all in all, a great example of corporate storytelling.

From cartoonist Hugh MacLeod’s "illustrated guide to life
inside Microsoft," part of the Microsoft Stories site

 

Fred Harvey: Rise & Fall of a Pioneering Brand

What does a corporate historian do for summer reading? Mine included Stephen Fried's fascinating business history Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West--One Meal at a Time. (The subtitle is a bit overstated. There were native civilizations in the west for millennia; they just weren't WASPs like British immigrant Fred.) It was named one of the 10 best books of 2010 by both The Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer, yet it might well be difficult for such a book even to find a mainstream publisher today. The level of detail is exhaustive.

The hospitality company that bore Fred Harvey's name really did pioneer "the chaining of America" well before Howard Johnson, McDonald's Ray Kroc, and all the other chains that now proliferate. The company is best remembered for its female employees, fictionalized in a novel and an MGM musical with Judy Garland. I enjoyed learning about them via Leslie Poling-Kempes's The Harvey Girls: The Women Who Opened the West (1989), a narrative built around oral histories done in the 1980s. I'm looking forward to downloading a one-hour Harvey Girls video by Assertion Films (2014), cover shown above.

How sad that the Fred Harvey Company never produced a corporate history. Nor did the execs or heirs invest in proper archiving. Chunks and bits of Harvey history are scattered across histories of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, physical locations, and numerous websites. Too many of the latter yield "Page Not Found" error messages -- including, inexcusably, that of Xanterra, the conglomerate that now owns the Harvey name and the historic Grand Canyon South Rim holdings. There's a nod to Harvey on Xanterra's one-paragraph About Us page, but that's all. What a wasted opportunity! Commandment 3 of CorporateHistory.net's 10 Commandments of About Us Pages: Reveal Thy Personality.

Smart 150th Anniv Campaign by The Nation

As you'd expect from a serious magazine, The Nation is celebrating its 150th anniversary in intelligent style. Its organizational history campaign has covered all the bases:

• A history book, pictured above, is subtitled "A Biography" -- a smart approach to corporate histories, in our experience.
• A commemorative magazine issue is being offered throughout the year as a subscription premium; it can also be downloaded as a PDF at no cost. It contains a strong mix of past, present, and future. As publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel says on the anniversary website: "In a rich series of archival excerpts, we reprint some of the best that was thought and said in our pages—much of it inspiring and eerily prescient, some of it shocking . . . . Interspersed with the archival excerpts are three sections of new material." 
• The Nation doesn't gloss over the rough spots. Per vanden Heuvel: "We have also included a few selections that turned out to be less than prophetic." (The bigger lesson here, as CorporateHistory.net advocates to clients: All organizations have sensitive issues. Write an honest history, with tough situations described factually and placed in the context of lessons learned.)
• Numerous live events and discussions are taking place nationwide in public libraries, museums, and theaters -- it's a robust calendar.
• There's even an anniversary cruise in December. Given the amount of thought and research that has gone into this 150th-year campaign, I imagine that The Nation knows its demographics well enough to make a profit on this.
• Although The Nation is best known for coverage of political and social issues, it generously includes poetry from the archives in its anniversary issue. It's not always easy to secure reproduction rights, so special kudos on that. What a list of poets! It ranges from Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams to Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop, and many more. 
• A related documentary by Barbara Kopple, "Hot Type: 150 Years of The Nation," is playing at art houses. 

Bottom line: The Nation knows its audience, meets them where they live, and positions itself for the next 150 years. And it has spaced its anniversary publications and events across a full year, instead of relying on a single hit. Many good lessons here!

Exemplary 125th Anniversary Website by Barnard

Barnard College does almost everything right on its 125th anniversary website:

• Good video with a mix of old and new
• "125 Scrapbook" invites students and alumnae to share their Barnard stories -- oral histories with a soft touch
• Ultra-thorough timeline; the parallax design is confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy to slice and dice by category 
• Photos of alumnae from all fields tell a story of accomplishment. It's not clear at first that you can click on each one for a short bio (in fact, you can do that); I would have liked to have heard the voice of the person pictured as well, wherever possible. 

In all, excellent organizational storytelling and a fine use of archival material. It's a site that should also work well as a recruiting tool. (And keep in mind that this praise emanates from someone who made it a point not to attend an all-female college.)

Happy 110th anniversary, MTA

Commemorative MTA MetroCard

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, those folks who bring us the New York City subways and buses, is celebrating its 110th year. MTA's commemorative website is robust and well-organized, as befits an organization with professionally managed archives. CorporateHistory.net president Marian Calabro was filmed there when she gave commentary on pneumatic subway pioneer Alfred Beach for The Travel Channel's program "Mysteries at the Museum." It took awhile for non-pneumatic subways to develop; the first predecessor line of the MTA officially opened on October 27, 1904, so the 110-year party has 10 months to rock on.

IRT map 1939 (copyright MTA)

Cool things about the MTA anniversary site that any organization can emulate:
1. Loads of pix and memorabilia, including maps, many also uploaded to Flickr 
2. Google translate button appears on every page, a courtesy that helps a worldwide audience
3. MTA wasn't afraid to celebrate 110 years. Why wait until 125?

Things that can be better:
1. Timeline is not labeled as such (it's under History of the Subway), is overly detailed, and only extends to 2012, a very weird omission
2. There's a link to MTA Arts & Design, but when clicked, this unwelcoming message pops up: "There are currently no Open Calls to artists. Please check back again." Why not run a yearlong 110th anniversary call for art instead?

 

 
 

Dodge's 100th Anniversary Campaign: What Works & Doesn't

Dodge celebrated its 100th anniversary in the best way an auto brand probably can: with centennial editions of certain makes of cars. Its TV ads grabbed me during the summer, the ones in which old Dodges morph into new models on wide country roads. Now that Dodge's total business anniversary and corporate storytelling campaign is five months old, what works and what doesn't?

Core message: consistent. "The Dodge brand is tearing into its centennial year as America’s mainstream performance brand, celebrating its 100th anniversary on July 1, 2014. With the purification of the brand and consolidation with SRT, Dodge is getting back to its performance roots with every single model it offers." "Tearing into" and "purification" are odd ways to put this core message of "Focused on Its Performance Roots," and you have to be a Car Guy or Gal to groove on the SRT part. But Dodge carries through the message consistently, and they unveiled it right on time, which means that they started early. These are two basic essentials that every company can emulate, even the smallest business.

Web timeline: tough to navigate. I think it's time to retire so-called parallax timelines, and I say that as someone who has written and project-managed a few myself. The layers are just plain clunky. Dodge's timeline is divided into nine chronological chunks, but each one is sprawling. I'd rather browse an e-book ... they provide a much tidier container.

YouTube videos: fun to watch. I'm a sucker for the historical simulations of the brothers Dodge ("Their spirit lives"), but to my surprise I also enjoyed the "Don't Touch My Dart" spots. Obviously I'm not alone, since the various videos have collectively racked up millions of views. 

Media information: sprawling. Reams of PDF downloads include 20-page chronologies, 37-page lists of Centennial events, and brand overviews, many of them divided into past, present, and future . . . again, this is why books are much neater containers. But kudos to Dodge for archiving, organizing, and making public this vital info.

Archiving secrets revealed

Good glimpse of what an archivist does in this New York Times article, which profiles Mary Hedge in her daily work at New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority and as she prepares for an exhibit that will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The exhibit opens on October 30 at the New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn. The 1920s newspaper (image at right, courtesy MTA Bridges & Tunnels Special Archive) was an imaginary depiction that came true when the V-N opened in 1964. 

My favorite part of the piece: The archivist "records oral histories when longtime transit executives approach the end of their service. She interviewed the officers who were on duty in the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel on Sept. 11, 2001, as people fled Manhattan following the terrorist attack, and after Hurricane Sandy she recorded the stories of staff members who were involved in dealing with the storm and cleanup. 'Retirements and disasters,' she said." 

CorporateHistory.net recently helped recruit an archivist for one of our current clients. She and an assistant did a tremendous amount of work in a single week, bringing box-level order to almost 40 years worth of paper. This material will support other projects in the client's history plan. The client was thrilled and is considering bringing the team back to archive its digital items. It was a good reminder that companies can keep archives under their own roof (no need to pay monthly fees to a warehouse) -- and that even a small investment in archiving pays ongoing dividends. 

A Museum Like None Other

CorporateHistory.net president Marian Calabro at Antwerp's
Plantin-Moretus Museum. This room contains the world's
oldest printing presses, dating from around 1600.

The Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium, ranks as perhaps the supreme museumgoing experience of my life. Surely it's in the top 5. What a gem! A Unesco World Heritage Site, this 34-room edifice was the home and business of a publishing family from the 1500s to the late 1800s. Words can’t do justice to the wealth of company history displayed and archived within these walls.

 

Here's how canny the Plantins and Moretuses were as businesspeople: they published the list of books deemed "forbidden to read" by the Catholic Church, and they also published a number of the actual books. After all, if the books didn't exist, how could the Church outlaw them? They also published the world's first multilingual Bible and compiled the first Dutch language dictionary. Medical students throughout Europe learned to care for the ill and do surgery by studying the anatomical engravings in Plantin textbooks.

Labore et Constantia was the firm's motto.

Flash photography is not allowed (rightly so), so I burned out my camera battery as I tried to grab visual memories. I marveled to see the thumbnail sketch of a title page, then a fuller sketch, then the copperplate engraving (remember, everything has to be engraved backwards), then the press proof, and finally the title page in the actual book--all in one display case. (Two of these photos appear below.) Labore et Constantia -- work and constancy -- was the Plantin motto.

I particularly enjoyed the intact Proofreader's Room. The audio tour noted that "correctors," as proofreaders were called, were the company's most intellectual employees: they had to have a thorough command of up to nine languages and be conversant with the commerce and culture of the day. "Productive in practically every field of knowledge, the Officina Plantinana was responsible for the global dissemination of the newest discoveries in the areas in the areas of the developing sciences, the new vision of man that the entry of humanism afforded, and the diffusion of new artistic trends, then only possible through the medium of the printed--and preferably illustrated--book," as the Visitors' Guide says. The English version of the audio tour, done in British English, offers a wealth of corporate storytelling.

This short report barely scratches the surface. I'm ready to return to Antwerp just to spend another day here. Watch for more corporate storytelling from Belgium in upcoming weeks.

Hartford Stage's 50th Anniversary Misses Some Opptys

To celebrate its first 50 years, Connecticut's Hartford Stage created a traveling exhibit of design elements from 350 of its productions. Superb idea to excavate 50 years of history and send the show on the road--but why isn't some or all of the exhibit viewable on the web as well? The Stage's website downplays the anniversary, sadly, without so much as a single photo immediately evident. (Remember Commandment 6 of CorporateHistory.net's 10 Commandments of About Us pages: "Honor Thy Visuals.") Similarly, a link to the video and photo archives contains no images. Theaters are always underbudgeted and understaffed; that's all the more reason to pack the website full of enticement and put it to work for a full anniversary year's worth of corporate storytelling.

Info from the Connecticut tourism bureau (kudos to them for providing the attached photo): "The exhibit consists of a selection of costumes, props and scenic elements from Hartford Stage's extensive collection. A hallmark of the theater's work is the quality of the work that appears on stage, all of which is built in Hartford. Scores of locally-based artists, craftspeople, and technicians created these pieces to animate the visions of some of the world's most prominent theatrical designers." Remaining dates and locations for the tour, which started in September 2013:
Until June 10, 2014: Connecticut State Capitol, Hartford.
June 10-July 23, 2014: William Benton Museum of Art at UConn, Storrs.

Addendum on May 22: Chuck MacNaughton, Digital Media Manager at Hartford Stage, sent the following. I had a little trouble loading the microsite, but once it came up, I found it well worth exploring. Thanks, Chuck!
"I read your recent post. We do appreciate your noticing and recognizing both our traveling Stagecraft event and our 50th Anniversary. We would like to point out, however, that we we have featured our anniversary prominently with a dedicated microsite, which is featured in the main panel on our home page at http://www.hartfordstage.org/. It is also featured on our Facebook page "about" block at https://www.facebook.com/hartfordstage. In case you still have trouble locating the Anniversary microsite you can go directly to it at http://50.hartfordstage.com/. While the heaviest promotion of the microsite was in November, marking the official public launch of our anniversary season, both the panel on our home page and the link on Facebook have been present since September 2013."

NY World's Fair Lives On

It was an antidote to the tragedy inflicted five months earlier, the assassination of JFK. It was an opportunity for NJ kids to ride the subway for the first time--the 7 train, built specially for the event. What else but the New York World's Fair of 1964-1965? I visited at least six times, led eagerly by my mother, who'd been a young woman during the 1939 Fair. She had great memories of that event and wanted to pass along her excitement to me. 

I gained my first public perception of history there. The Pieta! The Sinclair dinosaurs! Belgian waffles! Corporate history too: who can forget Pepsi-Cola's salute to UNICEF ("It's a Small World" is one of the most earworm-producing songs ever), the Ford Mustang, and General Electric's "World of Tomorrow"? (When they highlighted the pre-World War II refrigerator, my dad called out "I recognize that one!") And how about the Westinghouse time capsule, pictured here?

Wish we had the equivalent today. Sure, the Fair was commercial, but Disney World and Las Vegas don't have the same nonpartisan scope. Great piece in today's Record newspaper by Jay Levin on a collector from NJ whose items are truly archival: http://bit.ly/QCU7rW.

Manage your digital legacy

New Jersey Transit recently let seven trademarks lapse, including those covering its logos and taglines. This is another coup reported by The Record of North Jersey, which also broke the Christiegate story. Apparently no one at TNJ was minding the digital store, where so much of our business history is now stored. TNJ already has plenty of detractors after its flawed handling of Hurricane Sandy and the recent Super Bowl; this latest error adds more negativity to its corporate reputation. 

Let's learn the lesson and attend to these tasks. Here's a good article by Crystal Sharp on a related subject: "Managing Your Digital Legacy: Will Others Be Able to Access Your Cloud-Based Files When You No Longer Can?"

 

 

 

Cool app for biz anniversaries

Diomedia's Calendar Historica app for iPhone and iPad is a cool tool for all of us who love history and anniversary timelines. At the same time, it's a sales tool for the photos licensed by this international stock photo house and digital media agency -- but still an informative showcase.

Looking ahead to December 7, Calendar Historica tells us that Persian astronomer Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi was born 1,110 years ago, that Italian composer Pietro Mascagni would be turning 150, and that Willa Cather was born 140 years ago. As is visible from the attractive little interface at left, you can click on each entry to see more than 20 related images. 

You can also browse at top level, by the year. 

This may replace Solitaire as a way to pass the time on my next subway ride! 
 
 

The Joys of Ephemera

Ephemera! As a corporate history writer and publisher, it’s one of my favorite resources. I even did a YouTube video on the uses on ephemera in business history celebrations. Delighted to pass along the news that The Library Company of Philadelphia and The Ephemera Society of America will join forces to present “Unmediated History: The Scholarly Study of 19th-Century Ephemera” on September 19-20 at the Library’s premises on 1314 Locust Street in Philly--a history-loving city that's always worth a visit.

Ephemera from
CorporateHistory.net's
history of Sandvik in the US
(courtesy of Sandvik)

The conference “seeks to further acknowledge and promote printed and graphic ephemera not only as sources of striking illustrative images, but also as primary evidence in the reconstruction of popular movements and visual cultures.” Business travel makes it impossible for me to attend, but I hope you can do so. To learn more about the conference, click here. The Library Company asks that you register for the event. For questions, call them at 215-546-3181 or e-mail Alison McMenamin there. 

Dictionary definition of ephemera, courtesy of Merriam-Webster: "paper items (as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles."

Every Object Tells a Story

Although I usually find business history more fascinating than military history, I'm making a point of seeing "The Civil War in 50 Objects" at Manhattan's New-York Historical Society before the exhibit closes on September 1. There's a companion book, too--hooray.

Whether it's company history or personal history, relating history through objects is a long-standing idea that is much in vogue. And why not? Every object radiates history. People made that object; people used it; people saved it for a reason. With luck, an archivist formally catalogued it. I've been known to squeal when CorporateHistory.net unearths an object that illustrates a client's story in a way that nothing else can. A few that come to mind:

• a 1960s candy striper uniform for our Northwest Community Hospital 50-year history book; 
• a battered little cabinet containing delicate watch springs for CorporateHistory.net's Sandvik US history; 
• one of the original glass bottles that was used, sanitized, and reused hundreds of times in the 1920s for Clorox liquid bleach. (Those bottles were recycled, too--The Clorox Company has been green since 1913.)

Draft Wheel, ca. 1863. New-York Historical Society,
Gift of Frederic C. Wagner.

Even to read a short list of objects in the NYHS exhibit is enough to evoke a range of emotions: "A soldier’s diary with the pencil still attached, John Brown’s pike, the Emancipation Proclamation, a Confederate Palmetto flag, and the leaves from Abraham Lincoln’s bier." Pictured here (with thanks to the NYHS) is a draft wheel used in conscription.

What objects would go into your organization's history?

Archives crawl!

Some cities get excited about their sports teams, some about their archives. Cambridge, Massachusetts, qualifies both ways. The city best known for Harvard University is amidst the largest archives tour in the United States. Proud to report that Christine Reynolds, who has beautifully designed and production-managed several books for CorporateHistory.net clients, is participating. I wish I had time to hop up there for the fun, which continues through June 21. (Not that I'd see a Red Sox game too, however. I draw the line at that, even if the team is temporarily in first place.) Details on the archives crawl can be found at http://cambridgearchives.org. Take me out to the archives, take me out to the stacks....

Cambridge Room at the Cambridge Public Library, 1920 (Courtesy of cambridgearchives.org)