Like everything, the fancy designed reports (annual or otherwise) come and go out of fashion.

Yesterday it was a requirement. Today it is too expensive and the COO got credit for cutting expenses. Tomorrow the CFO is jealous of Company X's report and it's back.

Sounds like the newest buzz in biz - "Business Intelligence".

Not new anymore, that started with the "Big Data" craze back around ~2012/2013.

But at the core it makes sense - it's just businesses making better use of the tons of data their systems are generating.

I was about to dispute this because of my experience using the term widely in late 2008-2010 range but Google Trends shows you are probably more accurate on timing. I work in corp finance and BI was pushed on us early.

> It never came back.

Just like any kind of fun left in the company?

True, once cost cutting started it became a drag to work for the company.

  1) computer, generic
  2) microsoft keyboard 
  3) microsoft mouse
  4) visual studio

red staplers now need VP signature

If you want fun on the company's dime, convince your boss to take your team to a go-kart track. That would provide a much better fun:money ratio.

Once the cutting has started the company is unlikely to have set the morale/team/event budget large enough to support go kart outings. That or the entire years budget would be gone at once.

If you want a motivated, enthusiastic workforce, don’t try to crush fun for profit.

See, go karts seem like much more fun than pencil pushers making fancy word documents. But for each their own I suppose.

There's a difference between having fun at work, and having fun allocated by work. What most companies have is enforced fun - once or twice a year you'll go to an offsite location with free booze and try some ridiculous forced activity, and the desperate hope from corporate that that can take the place of actually enjoying your job. What most companies want is an atmosphere where people have fun and are passionate actually doing their job. That's what you see in these early annual reports from Netflix - people enjoying what they do. Now, in reality in business sometimes the imperatives change, but that doesn't make those two things the same.

How many people earnestly find fancy reports fun, and how many are just smiling and playing along to avoid being a wet noodle? In the case of Netflix, it was apparently one guy's passion project. Great for him, but how many netflix workers really feel like they're having less fun now that he's not doing it?

Seems like an interesting thesis to test. Does internal brand recognition (annual reports that consumers probably won't see) carry any weight? Because consumer brand recognition sure does.

Sound like it was fun, and now it's boring, was it worth it?

Yes it was fun to be part of it. The cuts were not worth it to me but it was for the company. It's been many years and the company is still around.

It happens to all companies. New executives get hired and they make their points by cost cutting and increasing productivity. Employee morale is not really part of the equation.

> Employee morale is not really part of the equation

If that’s the case they cannot claim to care about productivity.

always