Newsletter melds with intranet for full in-house coverage

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s print publication makes judicious use of content, context, and color

With the entrance of intranet news, e-newsletters, internal blogs, digital signage, video, and much more into the internal communicator’s toolbox, it’s difficult for most to carve out a niche for the good ol’ employee newsletter. If employees already get all their news elsewhere — what’s the point?

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute asked the same question about its 14-year-old employee newsletter, Inside the Institute. But in 2007, after streamlining the design and color, adding a few employee-requested columns, and taking a hard look at which stories belonged in print and which on the intranet, the internal newsletter — which they call a newspaper — has become an integral part of most employees’ world every other Tuesday.