If there is a compelling reason to send internal email publications, then you might as well do it right. This is an example of our weekly email publication that is sent each Monday to all employees. It has a nice design. It is branded to look like our intranet so there is no question as to what it represents. It summarizes the interesting news headlines from the previous week. This is useful for users who were away from the office. The photo in the top left corner is a nice touch. It comes from users who submit pictures that represent our company values.
The contents are chunked and provide hyperlinks if the user needs more information. It also contains quick announcements that can be read at a glance. The poll it actually not very usable since it jumps from the email client to the browser after the user clicks the vote button. Also, there are some users that get an error message due to some inconsistent Outlook settings. However, this is a popular feature that most users like.
Will RSS eventually replace this? Everything in this newsletter could be incorporated into an RSS feed. It is a nice idea, but I have a feeling that marketing will insist that it stays around.
