Page views

For the last four months I've been the interim managing editor of a biweekly employee publication, leading a team of contributors from across a big company. I helped my client launch the company-wide newsletter, which replaced six regional publications.

We just published our ninth edition, a  16-pager packed with news, features, great photos and not-so-great photos, lists of new hires, service anniversaries and retirements, a person-on-the-street interview, project updates, the results of a contest, and so on.

Being a newsletter junkie, I look forward to getting the first box of papers delivered from the printer. There's something primally satisfying about the smell of fresh ink on the page.

As I held the latest edition in my hands and thumbed through it, I thought to myself: this is Web zero point zero. My hands and eyeballs are the still the most sophisticated browser on the planet. For every employee who picks up the publication, it's going to get 16 page views, to put it in webspeak. Even if only half of the employee base picks up the publication (which is more uptake than many online newsletters get), that would be 2,000 readers times 16 page views, equals 32,000 page views per issue.

Even if the reader just glances through, maybe reads a few headlines and cutlines here and there, lands on one or two stories and reads them, that's already more communication in a five- or ten-minute browse than most intranet sites can accomplish in a week, if not a month...if not ever. And it's easier to read than a glaring computer screen.

As my friend David Murray says, the employee publication is no longer a news vehicle because of the speed of online communication, but it's still relevant because it's often the only physical manifestation of a company's brand, its values and its culture.

I agree. And good old ink on paper is still one of the most effective communication channels in the corporate world. It's a shame so many companies still cling to the notion that the print employee publication is a thing of the past.