Annual reports: Analytics, bests, greatest accomplishments and the power of storytelling
Several years ago when I project managed annual and quinquennial reports for a health sciences university, I experienced the importance of publications such as newsletters and annual reports.
Work on a quinquennial report began and a committee had been formed to reconstruct the organizations's landmark "bests, and greatest accomplishments. Today I'm sure analytics would be an important part of similar conversations.
At that time the campus still had a printed campus newspaper and it made much of the task easy. Stories of importance to both internal and external entities appeared on the cover, and important institutional milestones were published above the fold.
New programs, open houses, ribbon cutting events, statistics and awards were organized by month and year due to the constraints of a printed monthly publication.
I compiled two seven-to-nine-page reports capturing the "bests," "greatest accomplishments" for the growing institution (divided into health care and academic reports), passed them to leadership for approval and was asked, "how did you accomplish this project?" From what i was told, the committee that had been tasked with recalling and collecting the bests & greatest content was in its beginning stages.
I have empathy for communication / marketing / PR departments today. Until the emergence of social media and online communication, there was a cost to capture and share information, including purchasing and developing film, extended timelines for printing newsletters and newspapers, individually faxing, calling or making visits to newspaper offices for each news release. However, the important items could easily be reviewed later because content was physically published for distribution on real paper instead of endless scrolling and / or online searches.
Also, paths to completion were more easily traced because minor stories that appeared on page nine or 13 eventually moved to more prominent places in the newspaper, showing the history and key players.
Today, so much content is posted so easily to so many platforms including online newsrooms (just keep scrolling, everything appears with the same importance) for so little cost that the real value of information may become muddled.
The softer side of many annual reports are personal stories. But good storytellers and places and time to develop the craft are not easy to find, even in the entertainment industry. I remember asking several professors at USC why they didn't write books about what they were teaching about writing. Every week after class I would leave the USC campus feeling energized, having gained writing tools that would change how I structured the information I was sharing. I felt energized even though those were long days with some classes beginning at 7:00 p.m. and ending at 10:00 p.m., and this was after I had worked a full work day in the Inland Empire, about an hour away from campus.
To show the value of the work an organization is doing, existing data is often collected, studied and shared internally, with emphasis placed on examine the past, always looking over one's shoulder.
While by their nature annual reports record their success -- a job well done -- by highlighting the past, faith in their ability to move into the future can be woven into the content through storytelling.
After the annual report's theme was chosen a group from departments on campus including marketing, public relations and philanthropy worked together to suggest and choose seven to nine stories to highlight.
As I interviewed the individuals and families who generously offered to share their stories, I asked several questions about how they had experienced the theme of the report for that year. Each feature story included a quote that used the exact word that appeared in writing on the cover, resulting in a beautiful prism highlighting the theme on every page, made stronger because the words were authentic -- real.
The report's theme was further emphasized through storytelling techniques I learned while taking screenwriting and fiction writing courses at USC.
An example is "changing in place."
One annual report feature read as simple as a family's bedtime routine, tucking in their baby at bedtime, but the story uses changing in place to show the deep impact the institution had made on the family.
Their baby had been born with a cleft palate and her doctors needed to wait a year before corrective surgery could be scheduled. Though an alarm had been installed in the baby's bedroom to alert her family if she stopped breathing, her family took turns sitting by her bedside throughout the night, every night for the entire year to make sure she was safe.
"Changing in place" is a literary technique that brings the audience into a space and shares happenings that transpire there before later bringing the character back into the same space. Though the surroundings have not changed it is as if the person is in a completely different space. Changes that have happened internally result in the person experiencing and interacting with his or her old surroundings in a completely new way.
The story begins in the baby's bedroom. The parents read a bedtime story to her as they do every night, singing a lullaby, tucking her in and dimming the lights before settling into a chair beside the baby's crib, protecting her, watching her every breath until morning.
The story then highlights care provided to the family, as told by the family, with a quote that, in their own words, restates the annual report theme.
The story ends in the same place it started, back in the baby's bedroom. It's more than a year later and the surgery has been completed. The little one has a beautiful smile. The parents read her a bedtime story, sing a lullaby, tuck her in. They then turn down the lights and leave the room, confident that she will be safe throughout the night. Changing in place. The family's lives will never be the same.
Simply told with a simple but powerful storytelling technique -- changing in place -- providing humanity and value to the numbers reporting an organization's hard work, projects completed, bests and greatest achievements accomplished.
