AHRMA has had a newsletter for over 50 years and it always has evolved over time to meet the needs of the membership. Most recently, in 2007 we transitioned from a printed and mailed newsletter to the online PDF format. This saved AHRMA and its members considerable money on printing and supported a more eco-friendly solution. Starting in July, AHRMA is changing the format of the monthly newsletter from a downloadable PDF to an email newsletter integrated with the AHRMA blog website. This is an exciting transition for many reasons.
Today, we email the link to the downloadable PDF. This is a two-step process for our readers. They receive the email and must go to the website and download the PDF newsletter file.
The downloadable PDF format has several restrictions. Many members are behind firewalls and cannot download files. The amount of content and media we can include is restricted because it can make the PDF file too large to download easily. With each download, we are creating another copy of the same file. This is a form of electronic waste. Information must be submitted well in advance so our talented and creative graphic designer, Noel MacDonald, can prepare the design and layout each month. This means some content ages by the time it reaches our readers. Other content may not be included at all because we are unable to submit it by the deadline or it simply won’t be relevant by the time it reaches our readers. While the individual PDF is searchable, we have no way of searching through the historical archives of newsletters.
With an emailed newsletter, the information is delivered directly to your inbox. The email will include the headlines and the first few lines for each article. To continue reading, you click the link and it will take you directly to the full article located on the blog website. For those individuals who are not yet comfortable browsing the blog, they can return to the email and continue previewing articles that may be of interest and follow the links to the blog.
With the blog, the newsletter content, articles and information are in a single location at http://blog.austinhumanresource.org. This reduces multiple downloaded copies and the proliferation of electronic waste. Once on the blog site, you can browse or search for articles based on posted date, category, or author. The blog also contains a perpetual archive of content so it is easy to search, reference, and even link to past articles. Blogs are a very collaborative tool. We can have many authors with the ability to draft articles. These articles can be reviewed and published by a team of volunteer editors. This means we can have new articles and information posted daily from a variety of sources!!! As a result, our readers can visit the blog website at any time to read timely, relevant information. As well, our readers can submit comments about the articles or share more information with other AHRMA members, the HR profession, and the Austin community.
Amy Goldenburg, PHR
VP Communications
vpcommunications@austinhumanresource.org
Filed under: Communications Committee
I would like to receive AHRMA’s newsletter to my work email address. How to I sign-up?
To sign up for the AHRMA newsletter, go to your member profile on the AHRMA website. http://www.austinhumanresource.org and select Member Area – Member Profile from the top menu. On your member Profile settings, make sure you are set up to receive email from AHRMA. Emails are automatically sent to your preferred email account.