Looking for great online annual report designers

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WE ARE putting together a list of Web design and development firms that produce outstanding online annual reports. This list will be published on IRWebReport.com and be available free of charge to anyone looking for service providers.

To qualify to be on the list, your firm’s reports must meet the SEC’s new requirements for online annual reports and proxy statements. The SEC’s rules state that proxy materials must be “presented on the Web site in a format, or formats, convenient for both reading online and printing on paper.”

The operative term is “convenient.” We recommend you look up the term in a dictionary to understand what it means and apply those definitions to the Web.

There is no cost to submit your company’s name. We are looking for firms anywhere in the world. IRWebReport.com will publicly endorse your firm as producing great online annual reports.

How to submit your company’s entry

1. Provide your company’s name, address, phone numbers (including international dialing code), email and website URL.

2. Give us links to at least two online annual reports that you believe meet the SEC’s requirements. These can be for different companies, the same company for different years, or different companies for different years.

3. Promise us that your firm will never, starting from the time of your submission to us, sell reports that do not meet the SEC’s requirements, e.g. image-based, Flash paper, and PDF-only reports.

4. Send the above in an email to service@irwebreport.com by August 27, 2007. (whenever you’re ready)

5. You will know we have received your email when you get a confirmation from us. If you don’t get a confirmation within 12 hours, resend your message until you get the confirmation.

Selection process

We will review the example reports you submit. If you know what you’re doing, you already know what we are looking for. The examples don’t have to be fancy, just “convenient for both reading online and printing on paper.” If your reports make the grade, and your email to us provides everything we’ve asked for, you’re on the list. Make sure your email submission includes everything we’ve asked for. We’re doing this for your benefit, so don’t make it hard for us.

Yes, we will check reports for acceptable levels of accessibility to users with disabilities. However, your reports do not have to pass WCAG standards for your firm to qualify to be included in the published list of qualified designers.

But we will identify those firms whose example reports do meet most accessibility standards. You know, so our corporate readers in the UK and Oz know who to go to if they don’t want to get sued, named-and-shamed, or some other nasty thing.

We will only publish the names and details of firms whose reports unequivocally meet the SEC’s standards. We will not disclose which companies did not make the list or why. So if you’re not sure your reports will make the list, there’s nothing to lose by submitting your entry.

The list of qualified online annual report designers will be published on September 12, 2007.

We don’t care how big or small your firm is. We don’t care if we like you or not. All that matters is that you can do the job well.

Why are we doing this?

We want to help connect good online annual report designers with companies that are looking for help, and vice versa.

By publishing a list of qualified online annual report designers, we hope to help companies find the right help so that they deliver online reports and proxy statements in 2008 which meet the varied needs of their investors, as required by the SEC’s rules.

We also want to recognize those many hard-working designers who have been producing great online annual reports in very difficult circumstances. Your time has come…

Final notes

We are looking for firms that design and produce good online annual reports for other companies. This isn’t an annual report competition.

Don’t expect that because we’ve written about your firm’s work before, or corresponded with you in the past, that your company will make the list. You have to send us your information even if we know about you.

Dominic Jones

Dominic (bio & disclosures) is IR Web Report‘s founder and an online investor relations consultant. He advises leading public companies and investor relations service providers worldwide on using the web for disclosure, engagement and profile building. You can contact him via the contacts page.