Sharkey’s Machine

The functionality of The North Face online newsroom leaves something to be desired. The page is visually appealing and organized with a tiled list of articles in chronological order. Within each tile there is a brief synopsis of the article and a relevant picture. The newsroom consists of 18 articles ranging from March 26, 2008 to November 18, 2008; there is no archive link to view previously posted articles. Within the 18 articles, I felt like only seven belonged in the newsroom; these articles where related to new store openings, recently received awards, the sponsorship of a ski competition, and articles relating to innovations in facility sustainability. The remaining 11 articles revolved around accomplishments of TNF athletes. While many of these feats are impressive and newsworthy, I don’t think the corporate newsroom is the appropriate place to post these articles. The corporate online newsroom should predominately revolve around the business functions of an organization. The North Face could place the athlete articles on its community blog page with the rest of its athlete information; or it could restructure its current newsroom to provide for categories of news (e.g. Personal, Facility, Athletes, Products, New Opportunities, Archives, Recent, etc.) The online newsroom could also provide an excellent venue to shed light on new products and technologies, corporate strategy, and new business opportunities and partnerships, which are currently lacking from the current news page.