Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World by Peter Merholz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reports, where good insights go to die. Really?

Most reports and presentations aren’t effective ways to help others develop empathy. This is one of the many interesting insights from this book. Merholz even developed the Wilkens’ law. Wilkens’ law says: “The effectiveness of a research report is inversely proportional to the thickness of its binding.” +Todd Wilkens

In the Funky Business Forever book, authors also claim that in a real-time society, companies keep on publishing reports and balance sheets about atoms – machines, buildings, etc. – but do companies that way really capture the most critical assets by measuring that stuff?

I think integrated reports could by joining environmental, social and governance activities (ESG) as a supplement with required financial statements greatly improve readability, effectiveness and help other to develop empathy (f.e. shareholders in case of annual reports) of the current reports.

As a design manager I believe that by creating and designing reports from the start in mind that in these real[on-line]-times the thickness of the reports binding is only (maybe) necessary but the real report should always be accessible on-line and interactive as wide as possible on every system available.

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