When global retailer IKEA cheekily described its annual catalogue as a ‘bookbook’ and poked fun at new technology in a YouTube video extolling the virtues of this ‘breakthrough’ development, the message was not lost on Business News.
Hard copy may be old technology, but it has its strengths. Our readers have told us this, which is why we have retained the print copy of our Book of Lists and returned to a more durable and longer-lasting hard copy format.
Mobile technology and desktop computers may well be nearly ubiquitous but there are times when the old-fashioned act of plucking a book off a shelf and scanning some well-thumbed pages is the most effective search process available.
As a business development tool, there is nothing else that will as easily and efficiently guide the reader to the top echelons of so many key industries in Western Australia as our hard copy Book of Lists.
The Book of Lists used to be a product that stood alongside our newspaper in the Business News stable, with only a little bit of crossover.
These days, both the newspaper and the Book of Lists are fed by an online engine, which much more thoroughly interlaces the huge depth of our database, BNiQ, and our news publishing past and present. Online, the two are almost indistinguishable – each relies significantly on the other.
This is the exciting part of technological development.
That engine is stoked every day by new data, prompted by news developments and other updates that keep the database fresh.
These days the Book of Lists is a merely snapshot of what we have on offer. While it remains a handy guide to industry leaders, like a local who’s who, it is also a window to a far broader and deeper source of information available online – where we have about 4,000 companies or organisations and more than 13,000 executives across more than 70 industry lists.
And, like IKEA’s catalogue, you can jump to any page instantaneously; navigation is simple and intuitive; and you can mark a place for future reading or make notes. Perhaps more importantly, you can bend it or even spill coffee on it without requiring a replacement, and it doesn’t need batteries.
