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Moving your publication to the Net
How we moved an employee newsletter to an intranet by Paul Paquet APR If information is power, then an internal computer network, or intranet, is the ultimate power tool. One of the more common uses of an intranet
is for distributing newsletters. We recently helped Corcan, a special operating agency of Correctional Service Canada, move its employee newsletter to a new intranet site. But the exercise required more than simply
converting copy to HTML format. Electronic publishing liberates you from paper and that has profound implications. The very definition of the newsletter changes. Rather than arriving once a month, new information can
flow every day, with articles "published" whenever they are ready. Information flows two ways Because it is linked to e-mail, your intranet also gives readers a chance to interact with the
publication. You can build in features that allow readers to add questions or comments to the stories, to send in story ideas and to participate in polls. Make sound use of hyperlinks Take advantage of
hyperlinks to define terms, connect related pages or link to more detailed information. However, excessive hyperlinking can break a document apart. Hype to the contrary, readers still like a certain linearity to the
information they receive. Present readers with a highway that branches off onto clearly marked exits. Otherwise, jumping from link to link is time consuming and frustrating. Pack in the content When you read
a paper document, you keep the page within a comfortable focal distance from your eye, and you move your eye along the page. However, with a monitor, you scroll the text and keep your eye relatively stable at a fixed
distance from the monitor. As a result, you need to edit your text very tightly to prevent reader eyestrain. How to promote your e-zine
Launching an intranet site is one thing. Getting people to use it is quite another. At Corcan, we're promoting the intranet version of a newsletter in the print version and planning to e-mail a hyperlinked table of
contents. We are also planning a trivia contest. Fun questions will pique interest in the answers, which will be scattered over the site.
Cornerstone is a writing and editing firm that uses marketing and PR principles to create "words you can build your business on."
Call us from anywhere in the world for rush work.
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