XPLANE is a design company that creates illustrations for corporate clients. The company aims to distill complex processes into easy-to-grasp illustrations, using visualization techniques which it calls Pictonics. XPLANE was founded in 1993 in St. Louis, Missouri by David Gray as a visual arts company creating graphics for magazines such as Business 2.0 (in particular that magazine's "XPLANATiONS"). It soon expanded into illustrating corporate presentations, business plans, and whitepapers; training; and interactive design.[1][2][3][4]
In 2000, the company was awarded the St. Louis Business Journal Best Places To Work award for People Development. At the time of the award, the company had a policy of flexible working hours and of allowing employees two weeks at full pay every year for workshops, seminars, and training. Other employee perquisites included discussion groups during the day, night classes taught by employees to other and to prospective employees, a weekly party on the company building's roof every Friday after hours, and a massage once per month.[2] The company's headquarters are now located in Portland, Oregon.[5]
On its website, the company hosts two web logs, the xBlog (information on design topics) and the bBlog (business applications of graphic design), and case studies that include graphical user interfaces, statistical maps, and discussions of Internet protocols and brand strategy. The weblogs are run by Knowledge Manager Bill Keaggy, a digital designer who spends between 10 minutes and 2 hours per day on them.

Chairman of the Board

Robin Davies

Director

John McLaughlin
Secretary

MH

One of the first responsibilities of top management is to provide the environment for effective organizational communication. Diversity was the buzzword of the 90's as TQM and Re-engineering were in the 70's and 80's. Now it is teamwork and speed. But all are based on effective organizational communication -- in different ways, depending on cultural, managerial and survival needs.

Before effective communication can be implemented, there must be organizational communication in place, unto which the first and foremost of all communication - verbal -- can be hinged.

Then organizational communication needs to be carried throughout the corporation verbally and visually. How can communication ideas be passed on to the people in the organization if there are no corporate visuals for everyone to commonly focus on?

Visuals are the charts, flow-charts, drawings, diagrams -- anything that creates a common mental picture that can be seen by everybody in the same way, and that can be used as common measuring tools. As I always say, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.

Setting the environment for positive and effective organizational communication is what senior management must do when undertaking changes, implementing ideas or inviting participative solutions from its members.
 
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