Hometown History from Auburn, NY

It was a delight to be on hand yesterday in "History's Hometown" -- Auburn, New York -- for the dedication of the newly refurbished Emerson Park Pavilion. This community asset has been a meeting place for Auburnians for more than 100 years. In 1944 industrialist Fred L. Emerson donated the land, which he had owned and operated as a park for his employees, to Cayuga County "for the perpetual and free use of Cayuga's citizens for outings and leisurely wholesome enjoyment." The park and pavilion are just a few of Fred Emerson's legacies; he also founded the Fred L. Emerson Foundation, Inc., which celebrates 80 years of "Quiet Philanthropy" this month. CorporateHistory.net is proud to have chronicled that history.

For more on the ceremony, here's a link to the local daily newspaper:
http://auburnpub.com/news/local/community-celebrates-emerson-park/article_5e946cd4-6099-5c7c-b759-4008f562bd0d.html?mode=story

Branding Report from the Disney Institute

Delighted to share a report from writer and fellow ASJA member Rodney J. Moore on his experiences at the Disney Institute. From the very first day I delved into corporate history, I’ve contended that all organizations bear the DNA of their founder. Rod's story confirms my instinct:

“One of my first takeaways was how much Disney believes in storytelling. I knew that going in, but it permeates everything they do. Walt is the foundation of the Disney brand and so we started our course with details about his story. It was fascinating to hear that Walt was influenced by one main person and experience in his childhood. It wasn't his parents. It was his uncle. Walt clearly was an artist at heart so his creativity was boundless. But he had no outlet for it after his family moved to a farm when he was 5. His uncle gave him that outlet by allowing Walt to ride with him on his train. Walt's uncle Mike was an engineer. So Walt had a different adventure every time he rode that train. I think it inspired him to dream and those dreams are what birthed the brand we know today.”

More to come here! Meantime, check out Rod’s blog for additional insights: http://www.rodneyjmoore.com/blog.htm

“About Us” Evaluation: Tempur-Pedic Gets a B

Tempur-Pedic makes mattresses, pillows, and other products based on pressure-absorbing material that was invented by NASA for astronauts in the 1970s and was refined by a team of Swedish and Danish scientists. Sale of Tempur-Pedic products  in the United States was initiated in the 1990s by Bob Trussell, who built factories and an R&D center in Virginia and New Mexico. The company’s main About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: B

Products/Services: B

Tempur-Pedic’s main About Us page is simple but effective: five links (Our History, Our Passion, Recognition, Employment, Investor Information) with a teaser for each, for example, “Our History: Where we came from and where we’re headed.” The left-hand navigation bar offers all these plus a set of “Why Tempur-Pedic?” pages. In addition, the About Us pages also offer a useful feature that’s frequently overlooked: a horizontal menu at the top that allows us to choose among Tempur-Pedic products, at whatever point in our reading they become irresistible. Points to Tempur-Pedic for keeping the product in sight.

The layout of all the About Us pages is well designed, with numerous headings and short, digestible paragraphs. The pages could be even more effective if there were links among them. On the Our Passion page, the mention of Swedish scientists should have a link to the section on Our History that explains how the Swedes were involved with Tempur-Pedic. The warranties and tryout should have links to pages that explain them. The “legendary wine glass commercial” should have a link to the YouTube video of it. If the commercial was so effective that people remember it decades later, why not let new customers see it, too?

On the Recognition page, we commend the use of the logos of NASA, Good Housekeeping, Consumers Digest, and so on. Many visitors who are in a rush will probably see the logo here and not even feel the need to read the words.

 Personality: B

We are bored by Tempur-Pedic’s Board of Directors and Management pages, which don’t offer any sense of where the company’s going or who’s leading it there. But we are willing to ignore that because the About Us pages and the Why Tempur-Pedic pages use the magic word: “our history,” “our passion,” “our products.” “We,” “us,” and “our” are the easiest possible way to give a visitor to the site a sense that the company is run by actual human beings who care about their product and their customers.

 Accessibility: B

Across the top of every page is a navigation bar that includes a toll-free number and a link for retail store locations. At the foot of every page is a link to a Contact page that offers an online form, a mailing address, and several phone numbers, with notes about which to use. None of this is novel, but it’s adequate.

TAKEAWAY

Tempur-Pedic’s content is well presented, but the site could be improved by having more links to its own material.

 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 500th, Sistine Chapel

My friend Vincenzo Drago, a Louisiana native who lives in Rome, reminded me that Michelangelo's magnificent fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was completed 500 years ago. If you think Renaissance Europe wasn't a hotbed of business history, or that the Vatican doesn't understand marketing, think again! The dealings of Michelangelo, his patrons, and his acolytes would make a great cable TV mini-series. I urge you to visit Vincenzo's "Sights of Rome" blog for a post that "celebrates this event with a little history and some curious and interesting facts about the making of this incredible work of art." http://sightsofrome.blogspot.com/

 

“About Us” Evaluation: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. Gets a D

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) is in charge of artistic programming at Lincoln Center, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Every year it arranges some 5,000 programs, initiatives, and events, among them the Mostly Mozart Festival and Live from Lincoln Center. LCPA also plays major roles in arts and education nationwide and manages the Lincoln Center campus that is home to ten resident organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the Juilliard School. LCPA’s About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: D

It is always a bad sign when the Wikipedia article on an organization is more informative than its own About Us pages. That’s the case with Lincoln Center, on whose website high-tech bells and whistles overpower content. The background of each LCPA page is a full-screen photo of Lincoln Center, over which the text is superimposed in tiny white letters against a semi-transparent black background. It’s difficult to read on screen. When printed out, the text appears in pale gray on a white ground, surrounded by part of the photo: a lot of ink, but not applied to what we need to read. Menus heads and subheads duly appear if we hover over them, but sometimes they overlap, obscuring the choices that are offered.

Products/Services: D

The perfect place to display Lincoln Center’s vast artistic scope would be on the History page. Instead, the history is a series of six separate timelines with over a dozen items each. Every head of the organization is listed, every major building renovation or initiative, every major festival … without a single illustration. There’s no emphasis, no way to know if any of the content is more important than the rest.

To top it off, the History page isn’t available as one of the About Us subheads. It’s only accessible from the footer of the main LCPA page, under General Information.

Personality: E

The Board of Directors and Senior Team are merely lists of names and titles, with no photos, contact information, or links – no sense of where these leaders want Lincoln Center to be heading. Surely LCPA could have found at least one inspiring quote from Reynold Levy, who has been its president for ten years.

Accessibility: D

The Contact Us link at the foot of the About Us page is a drop-down menu, with a link for an online form or a phone number. Oddly, there is no mailing address for the administrative offices of LCPA, and no option for queries from potential donors, media, or researchers.

TAKEAWAY

LCPA’s website fails to convey – either through content or visuals - the excitement of an organization that presents some of the world’s finest art performances. Content is held hostage to chic design that might work in a print publication but is all wrong for the Web.

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.