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12/16/03</title></head><body>
<div>MIT EDITORS' CLUB<br>
</div>
<div>*Meeting Notes from December 16, 2003*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Topics at today's meeting ranged from maintaining mailing lists
to older eyes. But Most Importantly: Susan Curran of i/s (you know,
Susan the spotlight lady!) gave us a primer on STOPPING SPAM.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*New Publication*</div>
<div>Alexandra Kahn of the Media Lab told us about that lab's latest
publication, a magazine/brochure dubbed Momentum that features little
bios of some 30 Media Lab researchers. The idea is to give a window
into the people behind the lab. To that end, the bios describe each
prof's ideas and vision and, in a wonderfully light touch, the
childhood toys that inspired them in their professions.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Momentum was created for sponsors, potential sponsors,
prospective students, UROPS and anyone else interested in the lab.
It's available in print and on the web at<font face="Lucida Grande"
size="-4" color="#000000">
http://momentum.media.mit.edu/</font>.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Sci/Eng Mailing List*</div>
<div>I've been slowly updating the science and engineering media
contacts on the News Office mailing list, and wanted to share some
highlights from that endeavor that should remind us all of this
university's reputation around the world.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Over the last three weeks I've sent out 400-plus e-mail queries
asking reporters if they'd like to remain on the News Office mailing
list for press releases about MIT research. I also ask them what
topics they're most interested in hearing about (e.g., neuroscience,
robotics, EVERYTHING).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Here's the cool part: I've received a 70 percent response rate.
Of those, only a handful asked to be taken off the list (because
they're no longer on the sci/eng beat). Plus, 42 percent of the
respondents asked me to send them EVERYTHING. And the EVERYTHING folks
include reporters from places like the Wall Street Journal and USNews
&World Report. One NYTimes reporter simply wrote back: "the
works. thanks."</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Working with the News Office*</div>
<div>An hour or so before this meeting I got a call from an Editors'
Club member who wondered who to contact at the News Office with a
story idea. She suggested that it might also make a nice topic for
this meeting....and she's right! So here goes:</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>If you have any questions/story ideas related to RESEARCH, call
me. Questions/story ideas about anything ELSE should go to Bob Sales
AND Alice Waugh at rjsales@mit.edu and awaugh@mit.edu. Their numbers
are: x3-1682 (Bob) and x8-5401 (Alice).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Alice reminded me that lots of cool resources/tips for working
with the News Office will soon be on the web. Our web site is going
through a nifty redesign that should be available at the end of
January. Of special interest to MIT Editors Club members, it
will include sections on "how to submit story ideas to the News
Office for Tech Talk and press releases," "A quick
new-writing primer," "getting your news covered by the
media," and "how to prepare for an interview with a
reporter."</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Older Eyes*</div>
<div>Debbie Levey, editor of the newsletter for Civil and
Environmental Engineering, told us of a call she received recently
from a Professor Emeritus who took her to task for reducing the
newsletter's print size. Thing is, she hadn't. Which led to a nice
conversation, she said, about getting one's eyes checked. Anyway,
Debbie's anecdote led to a tip from Susan Curran that's applicable to
all MIT communicators: Make sure that the type on your web site is
*resizeable.*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*SPAM, SPAM GO AWAY*</div>
<div>And now for the part of the minutes you were all waiting for: how
to stop spam. Spam Assassin is a service available at <font
face="Lucida Grande" size="-4" color="#000000">
http://web.mit.edu/is/services/email/nospam/index.html</font>.
Essentially it deposits suspected spam in a separate e-mail box that
you can then review every day to make sure something "good"
didn't get picked up as well.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A tip from me: I *thought* I'd already been using Spam Assassin,
and wasn't that impressed because I was still getting a lot of junk
mail. It turns out, however, that I was using just one tiny aspect of
the program. Yesterday, immediately after the meeting, I got the
entire program working (thanks to the web site above), and came in
this morning to find that it had caught 75 spam messages. Yay!</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Next Meeting*</div>
<div>I'll be in touch in the New Year with dates for the next Editors'
Club meetings.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Happy Holidays,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Elizabeth</div>
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</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>===================================<br>
Elizabeth A. Thomson<br>
Assistant Director, Science & Engineering News<br>
Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
News Office, Room 11-400<br>
77 Massachusetts Ave.<br>
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307<br>
617-258-5402 (ph); 617-258-8762 (fax)<br>
<thomson@mit.edu><br>
<br>
<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www><br>
===================================</div>
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