Welcome to a new way to experience Convene content.
For the past year, we’ve been working closely with the same talented design team behind our print magazine, Point Five Design, to develop this site. Senior Editor and Director of Online Content Barbara Palmer and Web Editor Kate Mulcrone have been doing the heavy lifting on the backend in order to carry it across the finish line this month — so I asked them to share their thoughts about what you can now expect from our virtual space. Why this new site?
Barbara Palmer: We wanted to create an online experience that more closely mirrors the print magazine while offering the advantages of an online, responsive platform. We know that readers might start an article in the print edition, pick it up in the middle on their phones, and then share it with a friend via email or on social media. We tried to make all of that as easy as possible.
One of the changes readers will see is that we have organized our content into six main areas, intended to help users find stories about specific topics, such as career development, event design, logistics, or venues and destinations. We think we’ve got a great mix of nuts-and-bolts articles, quick takes, and longer think pieces.
We’re also hoping that this new platform will make it easier for readers to add their own comments and thoughts. I know that when I visit a particular site, I am often as interested in reading the comments as I am in reading articles. What will be the biggest difference in the way our content is served up? We’ve been blogging for five years, and now the magazine content and our online posts will be seamlessly integrated and easy to find in one place.
Kate Mulcrone: We have only been posting magazine stories once a month, which we know isn’t how readers access content online. We will be posting stories on the homepage five days a week, so there will always be something new on pcmaconvene.org. And it will better complement our weekly newsletter, which we are inviting people to sign up for. It will be a different experience from the print magazine — which is still the most popular format among readers. Our aim is to create the best experience we can in both offline and online mediums.
It’s Michelle again. I’m grateful to my smart and hardworking team for their efforts and contributions, and to our colleagues at Point Five for giving us a website we can be proud of. Let us know what you think!
