When pulling together content for your next e-newsletter, sometimes all you have to work with is, literally or figuratively, a flyer. This can happen when others submit items to run but they do not try to follow e-newsletter style. Do you work to beat the item into shape? Or do you sometimes run them more-or-less verbatim, perhaps because of time constraints? How would you handle an e-mailed submission like this, sent on short notice up against your deadline?

————————————-
27th Annual Congress of Big Buildings and Little Structures
October 3-5, 2009
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Registration is filling up fast, don’t miss out on an opportunity to attend - Register Today

Hotel Room Rate Reduced until September 28th
make your room reservation at the
Bellevue Stratford Philadelphia

The challenges to improving the performance of big buildings and little structures are as broad and varied as the individual structures themselves. How should they be evaluated and strengthened? What assumptions were made? Were they built as designed, and if not, what modifications were made but possibly (probably) not documented?

This 27th annual conference, organized by the Generic Technical Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, is dedicated solely to improving the performance of big buildings and little structures and includes:

We offer a Great Technical Program - View it online

Six Keynote Plenary Speakers and two Luncheon Speakers.

Over 20 poster displays are scheduled, and

Special Thursday Night Black Tie Gala -Celebrating New Innovations in Big Buildings and Little Structures Over the Last Decade
————————————-

Not only is this submission just a series of info-bits lacking cohesion, it is full of links throughout. (I’ve substituted unlinked blue here.) For it to work in ASCE’s e-newsletter style, it needs to be tightened up a lot. Here is how it was pulled together. Compare and contrast to see how the elements fell into place, and what was omitted.

————————————-

Registration Filling Up for 27th Buildings Conference
[insert graphic of conference logo, or cropped copy of conference Web site banner]
Come to Philadelphia this October 3-5 for the 27th annual Congress of Big Buildings and Little Structures. The Bellevue Stratford room rate has been reduced until Sept. 28. The challenges to improving the performance of big buildings and little structures are as broad and varied as the individual structures themselves. How should they be evaluated and strengthened? What assumptions were made? Were they built as designed, and if not, what modifications were made but possibly (probably) not documented? ASCE’s Generic Technical Institute is again organizer of this 27th annual conference. More than 20 poster displays are scheduled. Attend and earn up to 16 PDHs.

>> Make your room reservation before the Nov. 12 reduced-rate deadline. Get more details at the official conference site.
>> Check out the great technical program. The schedule also features six keynote plenary speakers and two luncheon speakers, plus a special black tie gala celebrating recent innovations in seismic strengthening.

————————————-

Notice that much of the content hasn’t changed, only how it’s arranged in a more readable way that follows e-newsletter style. The headline is focused on the “news” of the submission and implies a call to action, which is the point of the announcement.

Here’s hoping you have a better idea of how a handout can be edited into a workable e-newsletter item on short notice. Let me know in the comments below if and where I could be clearer.

John Marston
Web Content Editor