Keith R. Herrmann - Visualizing Your Business: Let Graphics Tell the Story

Cover

Page i

Let Graphics Tell the Story

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VISUALIZING
YOUR BUSINESS

Let Graphics Tell the Story

Keith R. Herrmann

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Copyright 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Page v

For Brenda:
Were it not for her, the book would
never have been written and
my life would be unimaginably dimmer.

Page vii

Keith Herrmann's book should be required reading for managers at all levels.

Frederick Smith
Chairman and CEO, FedEx Corporation

Keith Herrmann has provided business executives with an indispensable guide for exhibiting data with clarity and effectiveness to ensure successful business presentations.

Burton Malkiel
Professor, Princeton University
Author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street

My passion has always been to make large quantities of investment data accessible to everyone. Keith Herrmann's new book provides 101 ways to better communicate business information. It's fun and easy to read.

Roger G. Ibbotson
Professor, Yale School of Management
Chairman, Ibbotson Associates

Mr. Herrmann has done it again: taken a seemingly simple task, preparing (and, of course, delivering) charts and graphs, and turned it into a learned if entertaining treatiseas usual, with a deft touch and an intimate knowledge of how thirsting for knowledge CEOs and other corporate executives are. He has turned a simple subject into a minor masterpiece. All you never knew you needed to know concerning charts and graphs and their preparation.

Sid Cato
President of Cato Communications
Publisher of Newsletter on Annual Reports

Mr. Herrmann addresses an increasingly important communication area with clarity and breadth.

Gary DiCamillo
Chairman and CEO, Polaroid Corporation

Herrmann's book is like a Swiss army knife; with it, you will be prepared for just about any contingency.

Mark Baric
President and CEO, Virtus Corporation

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All too often great analysis is lost in a fog of spreadsheets. The ability to present sound analysis with clarity and insight distinguishes great analysts from good number crunchers. Keith Herrmann's ideas provide invaluable wisdom on the practical realities of combining insight and communication to enhance decision making.

David A. J. Axson
Managing Director
Answerthink Consulting Group

This book is an excellent guide and reference book for using tools which will enable your company's managers to deal with and understand the high volume of data presented to them. They will learn how to weed out irrelevant data and turn it into more meaningful information.

J. Thomas Barranger
Corporate Headquarters Manager
Financial Systems & Budget
Lockheed Martin Corporation

Herrmann's book is an essential handbook for business executives who are seeking a clearer understanding of the nature and performance of their business. The reader is presented with a compendium of 101 charts and graphs which visually characterize business operations and strategy. Herrmann gives meaning and structure to many of the charts and graphs that most of us have used over the years.

Bill Raddi
Chief Technology Officer
Powerware Electronics

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I would like to acknowledge and thank the many professionals who provided both guidance and support along the way, and in particular all those who reviewed the manuscript and gave valuable comments and suggestions: David Axson, Mort Barlaz, Lester Bumas, Mark Herrmann, Alan Kritz, Denny LeSage, Ellen Levine, Bill Raddi, and Terry Ribb. I consider myself fortunate to have mentors and friends of their caliber.

K.R.H.

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I first got to know Keith Herrmann some years ago when he began submitting articles to my publication, Across the Board, the management magazine published by The Conference Board. We get many over-the-transom submissions, and usuallyand for sound reasonthey get short shrift. But despite initial rejection, Keith kept at it, and his pieces got longer and longer shrift, and eventually we began publishing his funny, pun-filled articles.

Some of his puns were good, some bad, and some were so bad they were good. Puns are a long way from charts and graphs, a long way from corporate finance, which is where Keith's professional expertise lies. But perhaps not: Puns demand a playful mind, one that is engaged by topsy-turvy (and what are the best charts and graphs but imaginative refram-ings of what can be some pretty dull stuff?); and corporate finance, of course, demands an engagement with numbers (or Numbers, as they are regarded fearfully by those of us who are mathematically challenged).