51ºÚÁÏÍø

The Division of Marketing and Communications is pleased to announce the 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now newsletter, the long-awaited replacement for 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 51ºÚÁÏÍø Daily or theBeak or just curious—read on for all the details.

A New 51ºÚÁÏÍø Publication

Unlike 51ºÚÁÏÍø Daily and theBeak—which for the most part just aggregated what was in our website news feeds and calendars—51ºÚÁÏÍø Now has been conceived from the ground up as an online publication. Elaine Jacobs Smith, editor in chief, and our 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now team will be working to plan, build, and edit each issue for maximum impact and readability.

The 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now newsletter is the first phase of a revised news, events, and communications presence for 51ºÚÁÏÍø. The second phase, a thoroughly revised 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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.

• 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now is the newsletter forallof 51ºÚÁÏÍø.It will be delivered to students and employees.

• A new, more visual, less busy design. Visually, 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 theBeakand51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 51ºÚÁÏÍø are reading 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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, 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now presents different types of content each day of the week:

• Monday: A feature story and achievements from throughout the 51ºÚÁÏÍø community.

• Wednesday: News and announcements.

• Thursday: Central calendar. Everything happening at 51ºÚÁÏÍø for the next seven days.

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

Deadlines

In order to make 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now the publication that 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now.

Here's why: 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now. Any students or employees who unsubscribed would be missing vital information that they need to be successful at 51ºÚÁÏÍø.

That said, if what you're getting is 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now isn't what you need, or you see ways to make 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now, but we'd like to call out two important ones:

• Our transition to our new email software will temporarily prevent us from sending 51ºÚÁÏÍø Now to off-campus subscribers. Once we've restored that functionality, we'll take all current off-campus51ºÚÁÏÍø Dailysubscriptions and turn them into 51ºÚÁÏÍø Nowsubscriptions.

• We plan to give student organizations easier access to post their news and events on the website and 51ºÚÁÏÍø 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.