ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

The Division of Marketing and Communications is pleased to announce the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now newsletter, the long-awaited replacement for ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Dailyand the Beak.

We launch on Monday, October 5. Information sessions for web maintainers and other interested employees will be held throughout this week. (Details are at the end of this news item.)

For most people in the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ community, no action is needed. You'll start receiving the new newsletter on Monday. You can stop reading now!

However, if you're a regular contributor to ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Daily or theBeak or just curious—read on for all the details.

A New ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Publication

Unlike ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Daily and theBeak—which for the most part just aggregated what was in our website news feeds and calendars—ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now has been conceived from the ground up as an online publication. Elaine Jacobs Smith, editor in chief, and our ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now team will be working to plan, build, and edit each issue for maximum impact and readability.

The ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now newsletter is the first phase of a revised news, events, and communications presence for ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ. The second phase, a thoroughly revised ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now website, will be built after we've completed our migration to a new website back end.

What's Different?

A lot. Here's a rundown of some of the biggest changes.

• ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now is the newsletter forallof ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ.It will be delivered to students and employees.

• A new, more visual, less busy design. Visually, ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now is much easier to read. We're also cutting down the size of the newsletter by only including each news item once.

• Works better on mobile devices. The newsletter is responsive and easy to read on phones and tablets.

• Only four issues per week. Between theBeakandÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Daily, we had been sending out ten newsletters per week.

• Employees will receive all student-oriented news items. As a student-focused institution, it's important that all employees know and understand what's happening with and for our students.

• Continuous improvements. Our new email software will provide us with quantitative data on how many people at ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ are reading ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now. We'll use those insights, along with comments from our readers, to improve the newsletter over time.

• Deadlines for content are earlier. See below for full details.

Say Less, Communicate More

Ever have trouble figuring out what's actually new in ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Daily or the Beak? Us, too.

One of the major issues with our current newsletters is that they look substantially the same from day to day. That's partly because the design is the same from day to day and partly because the content is substantially the same, if not identical, from day to day.

To fight against this sea of sameness, ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now presents different types of content each day of the week:

• Monday: A feature story and achievements from throughout the ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ community.

• Wednesday: News and announcements.

• Thursday: Central calendar. Everything happening at ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ for the next seven days.

• Friday: "Catch-up day": news, announcements, success tips for students, bulletin board for employees.

Deadlines

In order to make ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now the publication that ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ needs, MarCom needs everyone's contributions a day earlier. This change will require some additional planning ahead, but it will also result in a substantially better newsletter.

In brief: make sure your contributions are in two business days before the next newsletter. Here's the full schedule.

[2/17/23 Update: See the current ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now publication schedule.]

What's the Same? No Unsubscribes.

Without a doubt, the number one newsletter request we've gotten over the years is "Please unsubscribe me." We have always turned down those requests for students and employees—and we'll have the same policy for ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now.

Here's why: ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now, like its predecessors, will be the university's primary, official communication to students and employees. If the university community needs to know it, it'll be in ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now. Any students or employees who unsubscribed would be missing vital information that they need to be successful at ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ.

That said, if what you're getting is ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now isn't what you need, or you see ways to make ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now better, let us know. We are dedicated to making this newsletter the best it can be.

What's Coming Next?

There will be many changes along the way for ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now, but we'd like to call out two important ones:

• Our transition to our new email software will temporarily prevent us from sending ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now to off-campus subscribers. Once we've restored that functionality, we'll take all current off-campusÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Dailysubscriptions and turn them into ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Nowsubscriptions.

• We plan to give student organizations easier access to post their news and events on the website and ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Now. This will require updating our website back end, currently scheduled for spring 2021. Once that's accomplished, we should have the ability to import events from Crimson Connect and other platforms.

Information Sessions

If you have questions not answered above—and here you are at the bottom of this very long post, so maybe you do—we have four information sessions coming up. They are oriented toward our web maintainers but are open to all:

• Tuesday, Sept. 29, 9:00 a.m. 

• Wednesday, Sept. 30, 1:00 p.m. 

• Thursday, Oct. 1, 1:30 p.m. 

• Friday, Oct. 2, 9:30 a.m.