Story Requirements
If you are on this page it is because You or Your Company has Risen Above the Crowd as an outstanding Innovator or Supporter of Innovation in your area and you have been selected for the Honor to Proudly Share your Story with the World.
To help you do that we have a team of dedicated professionals that will work tirelessly with you to craft a feature that will shine a spotlight on your awesomeness. The key phrase here is “with you” – without your input and swift action when needed, everything grinds to a halt and the world will have to wait.
So please make time in your busy schedule to get all the required elements to your production manager as soon as possible or at least designate someone else to get it done.
For best results, we need your logo in one of the following formats:
.EPS File
.AI File
.CDR File
.PNG File (this one must be transparent and at least 1 megabyte)
Want your logo embossed in silver on the cover of your books? Ask your publishing partner for more information.
This information will be published as part of your feature so that your newest fans can get in touch. Send us only the information you want to be public.
- Company Name
- Phone Number
- Website URL(s)
- Social Media links or handles
Feature
- AKA double-page spread, DPS, 2-page spread
- For every two pages, we need about 400-800 words. Keep your copy on the shorter end if you want your images to feature more prominently.
- A book is a timeless artifact, so this is your chance to tell the GREAT story that is your organization’s.
We have some suggestions in this regard:
- Headline: around 20 words on your company’s mission. (Be as catchy or quirky as you like!)
- Take one paragraph to describe what your organization does—like an elevator pitch.
- Every superhero has an awesome origin story; what is yours?
- Do you consider your organization an innovator or an innovation enabler? Why? What role has innovation played in your organization?
- What can your organization do or be in your region that it could not do or be somewhere else?
- Focus on milestones more than this year’s statistics alone. What are you most excited about going forward?
Great images tell a story on their own and pique a readers’ interest. We only print high-resolution images to make sure your feature or thought leader piece is as awesome as it can be.
Story images
- All images in high-resolution means each image is at least 300 DPI or over 1MB in size
- JPG, TIFF, PNG all work just fine
- Provide any captions you’d like to include
Thought leader images
- Headshot (also in high-res)
- 1-2 other images, if you so choose
Thought leader Pieces are opinion pieces in the front of the INNOVATE® books and only select individuals with an interesting story to tell get allocated a Thought Leader piece. (Speak to your publisher if you want to do a Thought Leader Piece.)
- Written in first-person (I/me/my)
- Think of this like a TED talk: it is not so much a bio or self-promo as it is an interesting story of your own expertise
- Typically a single page, or half of a double-page spread
- 300–750 words, 50 of which can be a bio, if you so choose
- Audience: entrepreneurs & innovation junkies
Some prompts for brainstorming are below. Don’t feel like you have to cover all the ground these suggest; they’re more like inspirations than pop-quiz questions.
1: Your Perspective on Innovation.
You have ideas and observations about what it means to be innovative—particularly in your industry and particularly in your city. The heart of your Thought Leader piece is your unique perspective on innovation. What does innovation mean to you?
2: The Future of Innovation.
Through your eyes, what does an ideal future in your industry look like, and what is required to grow the culture of innovation in your region? What are the potential obstacles and challenges you believe the innovation ecosystem will need to address to help achieve this ideal future?
3: Advice & Best Practices.
What practical advice can you offer someone who wants to be successful as an entrepreneur or company in your area? Are there best practices you can recommend to people who want to be innovative in this environment? Your opinions will be valuable to readers, giving them useful advice on how to innovate and succeed.
4: Why Your Region?
Why is your city or region an especially good place for businesses to work, invest, grow, live, and play? What are its competitive advantages over other cities and regions where companies and innovators could choose to work and live? How does the innovation ecosystem here support or enable innovation?
Arguably the coolest thing about the INNOVATE® series is its embedded Augmented Reality Video. This is the future of publishing—especially when AR wearables like Magic Leap, Hololens, Meta, ODG, and Intel’s Vaunt come into their own in the next couple of years.
With the AR-video technology, one of the images on your spread comes to life as a video, viewable right on readers’ cellphone screens. The video can also be updated after the book has been printed.
These are the requirements for making your embedded AR video as magical as Harry Potter’s newspaper.
Length: 2-3 minutes.
We all know modern folk have short attention spans….
Dimensions: 1920 x 1080 pixels.
The average cellphone-screen size. (We’ll make sure one of your images is this size, too, making it the perfect AR-video canvas.)
Text: As little text and as few underscripts as possible.
Most readers will use a mobile device to view the videos, so text won’t show up super well.
Format: Any video format, including MP4 or YouTube/Vimeo links (& excluding an actual film reel).
We’ll reformat it for use in any case. If you can give us an HD video, it’ll look amazing across our social media channels and website, but HD is not necessary.
Read more about our AR video feature here.
