Investor Relations (IR) on Corporate Websites

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for May 25 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ir.html

Summary:
Individual investors are intimidated by overly complex IR sites and need
simple summaries of financial data. Both individual and professional
investors want the company's own story and investment vision.

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Usability Week 2009 conference

  > San Francisco, June 22-27 
  > New York City, July 13-17 
  > Sydney, July 27-August 1

In-depth training:
  > 3-day camp on Usability in Practice

Specialized topics:
  > 14 in-depth tutorials

Full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

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MORE COUNTRIES SEE THE USABILITY LIGHT

Our conference in London last week had participants from 32 countries.
It's no longer news that there were people from many eastern European
countries, because Poles and Russians have been coming in big numbers for
several years. What was new is that usability has now spread beyond the
bigger countries: we had conference participants from many small countries
that didn't even exist when I started in the usability field 26 years ago:

Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Also much stronger participation from the Middle East (we've always had
many Israelis at the conference).

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EXAMPLES WANTED:
Intranet Governance Issues

We are working on a new whitepaper on Intranet Governance. The following
are just some of the topics we will explore in this report:

   - How should an intranet team be structured?
   - Branding and advertising/promoting the intranet
   - Advisory councils or governing boards
   - Intranet ownership
   - Stakeholder participation
   - Evolution & adoption
   - Change management
   - Content ownership/best practices
   - Corporate culture
   - ROI

We are looking for companies that have insights into all aspects of
intranet governance, companies that can discuss their real world
experience: successes and challenges. Our research tells us that very few
companies have mastered governance so don't feel your process has to be
perfect in order to participate.

If you can contribute examples, case study insights, lessons learned or
challenges we would like to speak to you about your experiences.
 
If you are interested in participating please contact Patty Caya with a
brief overview of your interest in this research: [email protected]

More info:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/governance

Deadline: THIS FRIDAY, May 29

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NY TIMES R&D LAB

The Nieman Journalism Lab has produced a series of online videos reporting
from the New York Times' research lab, showcasing various demos of ways of
integrating multiple devices. Something that will be a definite trend in
the future.

I am less enamored with their demo of how printed advertisements can
include an RFID chip that would allow users to take the printed magazine
or newspaper to their computer and go directly to the appropriate landing
page on the advertised site. This sounds like something that companies
might like but that wouldn't be particularly useful for users.

In fact, this exact idea was tried before (with a different technology) in
the form of the CueCat, which died an ignorable death during the dot-com
bubble.

  > http://tr.im/NYtimesRD