Thank you to the more than 500 ITT Industries employees who responded to our recent readership survey. By answering a dozen questions, you have greatly helped us determine what is effective about this publication, and how we can make it even better in terms of content, design and distribution.
Here are some of the key findings and reader comments, and an explanation of how they will shape extra going forward.
60% of you are regular readers.
While this is an encouraging number, we would like it to be closer to 100 percent. To make reading extra a habit, we will do more off-line promotion and make sure the publication comes out on a set schedule - the first of the month - so employees know when to look for it.
90% of you are directed to the publication by a flagged e-mail from ITT headquarters or your management company.
We will continue sending out the flagged e-mails to announce the arrival of a new issue, but our goal is to make extra easier to find. We are currently discussing ways to increase its profile by moving an extra link to the ITT Internet and Intranet homepage, and to your management companies' homepage. Since these homepages are the desktop defaults for many ITT Industries employees, you will see the new issue when you log on in the morning.
80 percent rated the relevance of the articles good or very good.
We will continue searching for the most interesting, timely and informative subjects around ITT Industries. If you have any good story ideas, don't hesitate to send them to tom.martin@itt.com.
90 percent rated the "readability" as good or very good.
We will continue writing the articles in straightforward language, always attempting to make them interesting without losing the message of the story.
90 percent rated the "attractiveness of design" and "ease of navigation" as good or very good.
We have attempted to make the publication as intuitive and attractive as possible, through the use of photos, color, sidebar boxes and multiple links to other parts of the publication. Based on your feedback, we will retain this design and navigation.
80 percent rated the "quality of translations" as good or very good.
While most of the survey responses came from employees in the U.S. and English-speaking countries, respondents who read extra in languages other than English rated the translations as "good" (4 on a scale of 1-5). We will continue using the translators who have been doing extra since its launch in late 2002, but we will also conduct random country-specific surveys to better assess the translation quality.
You want people news, product news and sales stories.
When asked to rate what topics/subjects should be covered in extra, your top 10 list was as follows:
1. People News
2. Product New
3. Sales Successes
4. Best Practices
5. ITT Policy Updates
6. Community Efforts
7. VBSS Stories
8. Value Center Profiles
9. ESH Efforts
10. Other
We will use your feedback as a template for future storyboards.
Your Ideas
There were many useful comments about how we could improve the newsletter and its distribution. Here are a just a few great ideas that we will work to implement:
Improving Content
"More stories about average workers and how they impact the company." - Andrew Roussey, Fluid Technology
"More descriptive sales success and contract win stories." - Leonard Borowski, Defense
"More news about what's on the horizon for ITT Industries, as well as the future of the management companies." - Brenda McCart, Defense
"Include a recreational section. I.e. competitions, puzzles, cartoons, notice board etc." - Darren Hill, Fluid Technology
"More articles on how ITT products and services effect the end user." - Mark Smith, Defense
Increasing Readership
"Have posters of each issue's cover posted in facilities or at key entrances." - Jeff Powell, Defense
"Put an extra icon link on all company Intranets." - Glenn Leibowitz, Electronic Components
"Make sure that communication managers in the business units post the newsletter onto noticeboards for those without e-mail to read." - Trevor Parrett, Fluid Technology