Annual Report 2004
Client: RTI International
Research Triangle Park, NC
Annual Reports
You need an annual report writer who can help you find your company's story, and tell it with style.
Best Foot Forward
The annual report is
a company's most prestigious publication. It looks spectacular. Why then is the text so often... deadly?
One answer: the AR gives each corporate function a yearly bully
pulpit. Non-writers – often top managers responsible for summarizing their unit's accomplishments, go hands-on with the writing.
Not a good thing for communication.
It's an understandable trap: this is their chance to shine, and they want to get it right. Thus they define too fully, pack sentences with too many modifiers, say too little (or too much) with too many words.
The result? A mass of verbiage nobody wants to
read.
Boring.
Does it really matter? It does.The annual report ought to be more than just pictures, numbers, and dense, unreadable prose. No part of it should ever be a "turn-off."
As a writer, my special skill is to help top managers and executives recapture the meaning of their work, and turn it around for publication, into clear, graceful prose.
My Partial Client List
If you like what you see here...
It's a quick dose of the way I'm thinking about the challenges and rewards of marketing communication in today's internet-driven business environment.