April 2002

EXPO Tech: Physician, inform thyself

Case study: OTO EXPO publishes online daily news

By Cathy Chatfield-Taylor

Moira DeWilde had been producing daily newspapers for her annual meeting for seven years when the Web threw a potential kink in the works: Why not publish online, too?

Luckily, all it took was a computer, an Internet connection and an on-site Web administrator.

Now, daily news from the Annual Meeting and OTO EXPO is available at www .ENTLink.net. “We were delighted to do it online, because not all of our members can attend our meetings,” says DeWilde, Director of Communications for the American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) in Alexandria, VA. “They’re physicians, and especially if they’re in private practice, at least one doctor has to stay behind to see patients.”

Publishing online dailies added just a couple of steps and next to no direct costs. Working with Atwood Publishing LLC, a division of GEM Communications (parent company of EXPO), DeWilde and her team produced print and electronic editions of the preview and four daily editions.

 Here’s how:
1. DeWilde sent the preliminary program and story ideas to Atwood Senior Medical Editor John Austin.

2. Atwood wrote some stories in advance — interviewing keynote speakers and gathering photos — and designed templates for the print edition.

3. AAO-HNS Web Designer/Administrator Liz Shaw designed templates for the online edition using ENTLink’s proprietary content management tool.

4. Atwood produced the preview and first-day print editions from its Overland Park, KS, office, mailed the preview to Academy members and shipped the first-day edition to the show site.

5. Shaw received the content on CD-ROM, including QuarkXPress and word processing files and Web-formatted digital images. She published the first online editions from her Alexandria office.

6. Austin then took two reporters on-site to attend sessions, write stories and shoot digital photos. Working from laptops, the team produced proofs of the next day’s edition by late afternoon.

7. After DeWilde approved the proofs, Atwood e-mailed Quark files to a local printer and delivered content to Shaw on CD-ROM.

8. Working from a pressroom computer, Shaw uploaded the news stories and images and published the daily online.

Announcements in AAO-HNS’s monthly magazine and e-mail newsletter invited members to stay abreast of meeting news on ENTLink. And, the 2001 dailies are still available online, subtly encouraging members to attend the 2002 meeting.

Having launched a new version of ENTLink in February, Shaw is primed to make this year’s online dailies more dynamic with streaming audio and video. “Our content management tool is incredibly powerful for daily updates and expanding functionality, so the potential is there,” she says.

Cathy Chatfield-Taylor covers meeting technology as a freelance writer/editor.   E-mail: cathy@cc-tunlimited.com.