Speaking & writing;First H&S photo contest;

              SPEAKING & WRITING
Beginning with this issue, Speaking &
Writing, the listing of H&S people who
give talks and publish papers, will be
published separately from H&S Reports.
This section of the magazine was quite
literally a victim of its own success.
Speaking & Writing has been a regu­lar
feature of H&S Reports since the first
issue appeared in the autumn of 1963.
Only the office profile has been a regu­lar
feature of the magazine as long. In
that first issue, the three-page Speaking
& Writing section listed a total of eighty-six
names. For comparison, in the spring
1976 issue of H&S Reports a total of sixty
names appeared on the first page of the
Speaking & Writing section—which con­sisted
of six pages in all.
The number of speaking engagements
filled by H&S professional people today
and the number of their published
writings together form a list too long for
convenient inclusion in the magazine.
Speaking & Writing will henceforth
appear regularly as a separate news­letter,
a format we believe will permit
more emphasis to be placed on this very
important element in the professional
lives of our people and the practice of
the Firm. It will also provide a more
accessible guide to individuals with
particular interests and expertise. In this
age of specialization, this new format
will certainly become an important
reference tool.
SUMMING IT UP
Now that we've announced the winners
of The First H&S Photo Contest and
displayed their photographs elsewhere
in this issue, some observations may be
in order. These are based on questions
asked during the course of the contest.
Probably the one question raised most
often concerned how the winners were
selected. All five of the judges were from
outside the Firm. They were Dane Bath,
picture editor for The New York Times,
a client; Renee Bruns, managing editor
of Popular Photography; Barbara
Richer, assistant art director of Ms. mag­azine,
an H&S client; Robert Sadler,
art director for H&S Reports; and Harold
Singer, senior vice president and direc­tor
of creative services for Wells, Rich,
Greene, Inc., a client.
Once the deadline was past and all
entries received — more than two hun­dred
photos were submitted by people
representing about forty practice offices
— an initial viewing was held to eliminate
those photos obviously not in the run­ning.
Since it would be almost impossible
to get five individuals to agree on ten
winning photos in a reasonable time, a
point system was used. Each judge gave
five points for first choice in each of the
categories (color and black-and-white),
four for second place, and so on down
to one point for fifth place. Winners were
selected on total points accumulated by
each entry.
Statistically, the selection of winners
proved interesting. Three of the winners
are from the New York office, three from
Executive Office. This, then, means that
60 percent of the winning entries came
from people in the Metropolitan New
York area. Was it favoritism on the part
of the judges? Not likely, since the photos
were assigned code numbers and the
panel did not know the names of the
contestants or where they came from.
The figure most likely reflects the fact
that although entries were received from
many practice offices, the largest num­ber
on a percentage basis was submitted
by people from New York and EO.
Other questions are intriguing but
impossible to answer. In the color cate­gory,
for example, what are the odds
on two of the five prizes going to peo­ple
in New York, while two more went
to people in Houston? Or in the black-and-
white category, what are the odds
against three of the five winning entries
being taken by people from Executive
Office? What are the odds against eight
of the ten winners living on the east coast?
In any event, we were pleased by the
response to the contest and hope that
everyone who entered derived some
enjoyment, perhaps even a small mea­sure
of excitement, from The First H&S
Photo Contest.
The Staff
H&S Reports