• by Shawn Mawhiney , March 5, 2010

Every year, our media department discussed ditching our tried-and-true printed annual report and creating one exclusively online.

And every year we bought into all the reasons not to: We needed printed versions for handouts. We'd get tons of complaints. What about the mailings we do to the board and to donors?

This year, we held fast and took the plunge. See for yourself.

This paper-free, multi-media report is about as different as can be compared to a hospital's usual year-in-review. Instead of an expensive printed product, we have videos, podcasts, audio slideshows, photo galleries and more information than we could ever include in print. Viewers can see and hear our hospital's accomplishments and commitment.

We haven't had a single complaint, we saved lots of money and we've been noticed. We've been asked to explain how we did it to the Connecticut Hospital Association and other hospitals.

When's the last time a newspaper wrote glowingly about your annual report? Here's an unusual excerpt from a story in The Day of New London, Conn., in a story about our year-end fiscal results:

"This is the first time the annual report was created solely as a digital document, and instead of the dry, staid reports of years past, this one includes colorful graphics and several videos about the life of the hospital in the past year."

Here's how we did it -- and you can, too:

• Convince hospital leadership this is the way to go. We explained it differentiated us from others, was environmentally friendly and cost us nothing but our time.

• Wow them. We made sure it was no simple page-turning PDF. It's a multi-layered, multi-media experience.

• Do it in-house: From writing to videos to designing the site and programming it.

• Use work from throughout the year. Many of our links go to videos, PDFs, podcasts, photo galleries or other online content we had already produced. A key part of this annual report showcases and repackages multimedia offerings we create year-round.

• Promote it. From flyers to flash ads to e-newsletters to Twitter and Facebook, we talked it up.

• Measure it. Thanks to the free Google Analytics software, we can see that our report -- and which sections of our report -- is being viewed.