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3/14/05</title></head><body>
<div>MIT EDITORS' CLUB<br>
</div>
<div>*Meeting Notes from March 14, 2005*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A warm welcome to Emily Kearney and Kathryn O'Neill, two new
members of Editors' Club. Emily is the new communications officer for
the<font face="Times" color="#000000"> Center for Technology, Policy
and Industrial Development</font>, while Kathryn is the new News
Office news manager (try to say that 10 times fast :)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Key Contact*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>MANY of you will get to know Kathryn O'Neill well. As the News
Office's news manager, " basically I'm in charge of all words
going out of the office," she said. As a result, she's the person
to contact about upcoming events, story ideas, etc. My other
colleagues and I are still quite happy to hear from you as well, but
Kathryn is now the primary contact. She can be reached at
kathryno@mit.edu, x8-5401.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Newsaggregators/Real Simple Syndication*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At an Editors' Club meeting just about a year ago Robyn Fizz of
Information Systems and Technology introduced us (well, certainly me!)
to these computer "thingies" (my word) called
newsaggregators or Real Simple Syndication (RSS). At the time, she
said that RSS could spell a new way for communications offices around
the Institute to share news with the rest of the MIT community.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>RSS came up again at this meeting because more and more people at
MIT are using the technology, which is essentially a way for any one
of us to pick what publications we want to get news from every day,
and receive that news in the configuration we like best. "Think
of it as an online newswire," said Catherine Avril, director of
Communications for the School of Engineering. Next week the School of
Engineering hopes to initiate an RSS feed on its web site. The News
Office currently offers three RSS feeds from our web site at
<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www>. (Contact my colleague Lisa
Damtoft at damtoft@mit.edu, 3-3094 if you have questions about how you
can use the News Office feeds.)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Robyn notes that the April issue of her newsletter, i/s, will
feature an overview of RSS. In the meantime, you can also check
out the RSS Quickstart guide at
http://rss.lockergnome.com/resources/articles/quickstart.phtml.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*NSF Communications Update*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>A few months ago I told this group about how the National Science
Foundation is eager to collaborate with universities on press releases
about NSF-funded research. (I still have extra copies of their CD, the
Communications Toolkit for Researchers, if any of you would like
one!)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Well, here's a giant success story about a recent MIT-NSF
collaboration. Perhaps you'll recall the recent News Office story on
RoboToddler (<font face="Lucida Grande"
color="#000000">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/robotoddler.html</font
> ). A few weeks ago Toddler (and its two "sisters" from
other universities) was the focus of a press conference in DC held in
conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of
Science's annual conference.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>MIT, NSF, the two other universities, and the AAAS worked closely
together to make that press conference and the robots' debut a
success. Among other things, the NSF visited MIT last summer to film
our robot using MIT Video Productions.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Recently NSF sent me an *85 page* report on the media coverage
that resulted. Here's a summary:</div>
<div><br>
<b>Radio:</b> (solely from National Science Foundation satellite feed
-- others may exist):<font color="#FF0000"> 455</font> radio
broadcasts reaching<b> 3,316,950 people (est.)</b><br>
<b>Television:</b> Monitoring services currently show a total of<font
color="#FF0000"> 25</font> broadcasts with an audience of<b> 3,825,000
people (est.)</b></div>
<div><b>Print:</b> New York Times, Times (London), Washington
Post, NPR, BBC, AFP, AP and several dozen others (not including the
multiple wire service copies).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In sum: through this collaboration MIT not only received a great
deal of press, but NSF followed through with a media report AND the
video, which we can use, all on their nickle. Granted this is an
extreme example of the benefits of collaboration, but it sure makes me
want to keep the NSF apprised of any future MIT stories!</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*News Clips*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Every day my News Office colleague Patti Foley compiles an
electronic "clip packet" of media stories about MIT or of
general interest to the Institute. If you would like to receive that
packet, please send Patti a note at pfoley@mit.edu. Nancy
Stauffer of the Lab for Energy and the Environment notes that she
often forwards specific stories from the packet to faculty who might
be interested, which not only reminds them of her presence (and
interest in their news) but generates goodwill.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>*Next Meetings*</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The next meetings of MIT Editors' Club are:</div>
<div><br>
Thursday, APRIL 21<br>
<br>
Tuesday, MAY 10<br>
</div>
<div>Thursday, JUNE 16</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>All meetings will be in the News Office (11-400) from 12-1.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Cheers!</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Elizabeth</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>=================================</div>
<div>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>
</div>
<div><http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www><br>
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