Communications Update
Feb 2006
A news-heavy month: Five news releases covering work by seven PIs: Brendan Foley and
Hanu Singh (Chios shipwreck project using SeaBED), Ken Foote (a new sonar method to help
assess California squid fisheries), Karen Bice (evidence for much warmer tropical Atlantic
temperatures in the ancient past), Mark Baumgartner (monitoring baleen whales with AUVs)
and Jeff McGuire and John Collins($1-million Keck grant to build new ocean bottom
seismometers). Also released February editions of the tip sheets Ocean Pulses and Eyes on the
Ocean, each featuring four items. The tip sheets are now distributed monthly instead of
bimonthly. Terry Joyce did a two-hour interview for ABC News on climate work, to be aired
this summer as part of a one-hour special on climate change.
Where do WHOI Trustees get their news? Shelley completed a media survey of trustees
and corporation Members, with a response rate close to 60%. Tabulation complete in March,
and comparison with the 2000 survey, which asked the same questions.
Internal communications efforts: produced WHOI Buoy newsletter; hosted Cape & Islands
Tour Group Association, educating tour leaders who bring groups of visitors about WHOI;
drafted plan for more effective use of all-hands emails. Beginning implementation.
HROV on Discovery Channel: With Andy Bowen’s help, drafted a nondisclosure agreement
with Discovery Channel for documentary on HROV. With Discovery for review.
Another Alvin suitor: Representatives of the MIT Museum toured in Feb, to consider making
a proposal to host Alvin on retirement. They also met with Jim Yoder to discuss possible
education links.
Diving in the Antarctic: Larry Madin’s Antarctic salp cruise is featured on Dive & Discover
(through March 10), which was linked at the NSF IPY Website, and through a Dan Fornari
connection on Scholastic News. See http://www.us-ipy.gov/index.cfm?id=fea and
http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/news/archive.asp?archive=022206
Also a letter of intent Jim Yoder prepared between WHOI and the MIT Museum may expand
the reach of Dive & Discover, and of teacher training programs run by the Information Office.
Ocean Sciences meeting update: Five days of daily updates from Ocean Sciences 2006
meeting in Hawaii, with dispatches on work by 22 WHOI investigators, written by Hugh
Powell and Dave Fisichella. 1,117 visits to the site in the first week. By comparison, the 5th
most visited section of the WHOI Website, the OCCI climate change section, got 1,459 visits
over the same period.
Oceanus editorial plan presented to Development officers, to gather feedback on topic, and
priorities.
1
Set up March meeting with CORE communications team (Kevin Wheeler and Tomeka
Rawlings), and Curt Suplee and Cheryl Dybas at NSF, on possible repurposing of WHOI
content on NSF Web site, and other possible communications collaborations.
Upload R Gagosian Mass Tech Collaborative speech to the Web:
http://www.whoi.edu/administration/president/news_speeches.htm
Redesigned OceanSITES web site, developed a new logo, and prepared final proof of
OceanSITES brochure for P. White and B. Weller
2
Media Relations (Manager: Shelley Dawicki)
MR Office Visitors: 15 (excluding Communications Department staff)
Press clippings: 86 Broadcast stories: 8 News release initiated clips: 31
Phone calls: 343
Emails: 2,096 Licensing Revenue: $1,662.50 Web visits: 22,445
Visual Requests (non-WHOI): 42 WHOI: 24 Cameras (still and video loaned to staff): 4.

Prepared five news releases with Brendan Foley and Hanu Singh on the Chios
shipwreck project using SeaBED, a new sonar method to help assess California
squid fisheries with Ken Foote, evidence for much warmer tropical Atlantic
temperatures in the ancient past with Karen Bice (for the AAAS annual meeting),
monitoring baleen whales with AUVs with Mark Baumgartner (for an Ocean
Sciences 2006 press conference), and a $1-million Keck grant to build new ocean
bottom seismometers with Jeff McGuire and John Collins. Stories have appeared
on National Public Radio, Discovery Channel Canada, in the Cape Cod Times,
Falmouth Enterprise, Science, Mail and Guardian (South Africa), Electronics
Weekly magazine, Hindustan Times (India), The Economist, Monsters and
Critics.com (Glasgow, Scotland), Honolulu Star -Bulletin, United Press
International, Scripps Howard News Service, and in numerous other media.

Prepared and distributed February editions of the tip sheets Ocean Pulses and Eyes on the
Ocean, each featuring four items. The tip sheets are now distributed monthly.

Sent a second mailing of the three recent issues of Oceanus in its new format to
media and others.

Completed a media survey of Trustees and Corporation Members; response rate is
54%, with returns still coming in. Results are being tabulated.

Articles/stories about other WHOI research projects appeared in such print and electronic
publications and broadcast programs as Cape Cod Life, Cape Cod Times, Sea
Technology, Science News (physorg.com), SeafoodIntelligence.com, Grand Rapids Press
(MI), Newsday (NY), Mother Jones magazine, Wired magazine, History Channel,
LiveScience.com, Hawaii Public Radio, Materials Performance, and Hispanic Link
Weekly Report.

Images and information were provided for a number of individuals and groups around the
Institution, including George Hampson, Tatiana Rykova, Jim O’Connell, Bob Brown,
Brendan Foley, and Lee Freitag.
Coming in March
Hosting a camera training session, completing compilation of trustee media use survey
results; one or two “News at Noon” sessions with PIs, depending on their availability.
3
Web Group (Manager: Danielle Fino)
1) MyWHOI
a. Demos to MC&G department, G& G department, ITAC
b. Added new MBLWHOI Library RSS feed – “Recent Publications from
Woods Hole Authors”
c. Work with MIS and HR to develop an “Employee ID Manager”
d. Work with HR to develop workflow process for timely
activation/deactivation of new and leaving employees
2) Image of the Day
a. Programming and template design completed
b. Initial images entered and caption written
c. Next steps are to activate once enough images are in the system and also
to add an image to the internal/external homepage and media section
3) Google search engine
a. Google servers installed for internal and external searches
b. Initial set up and internal search indexes completed
c. XML interfaces and templates completed so can change the look and feel
of the searches
d. Plan to launch within MyWHOI/Internal home first and then implement
on external sites
4) Converted WHOI Headlines into new design
5) New pages/sites/content highlighted on WHOI.edu this month include:
a. Two Oceanus Magazine articles
b. Five press releases
c. Ocean Sciences Conference site
d. Dive and Discover’s Expedition 10
e. Students at Work – Sheri Simmons
f. Hazardous Materials Form
6) Strategic Planning website
a. Met with Jim Luyten to plan development of internal site that enhances
ease of feedback from staff. Users can also participate in a online
discussion.
b. Set-up basic structure, comment form and discussion board
7) WHOI.edu redesign/site builder full
a. Ongoing planning of site builder full architecture
b. Met with undergraduate, GFD, and postdoc coordinators to review
structure and content of their areas.
c. Template development
d. Added WHOI.edu template to content management system so can begin
adding content to the database.
e. Further development of administrator user interface
8) WebTrends – new reports and maintenance
9) Homepage Builder bug fixes and several Site Builder one-on-one demos
10) Search engine optimization work begun to find ways to move WHOI Web pages
higher in search engine results.
4
Graphics (Manager: Fritz Heide)
Publishing and Illustration
1. Launched Expedition 10 of Dive and Discover Site and posted daily updates (ongoing
through March 10th)
2. Posted 5 Oceanus articles to oceanusmag.whoi.edu
3. Update WHOI Buoy website with 2005 Year in Review
4. Updated Geodynamics Web site and each of the Ocean Institute websites
5. Redesigned OceanSITES Web site, developed a new logo, and prepared final proof of
OceanSITES brochure for P. White and B. Weller
6. Began redesign of Coastal Systems Group website for J. Tierney and J. Donnelly
7. Designed and printed Ocean Science Meeting posters for P. Richardson, B. P. Weibe, B.
Groman, A. Bucklin, and B. Pickart.
8. Printed and laminated 20 posters for the Oceans Sciences Meeting
9. Designed, printed, & laminated posters for L. Amaral-Zettler, and C. Palacios (MBL)
10. Produced illustrations for Sus Honjo, Phil Richardson, Gene Terray, Jeff McGuire, and
Oceanus Magazine
11. Printed and laminated 4 posters for MBL clients
12. Produced a 2 page flyer for R. Evans on his Controlled Source EM System
13. Produced a Northeast Consortium poster for B. Groman
14. Prepared 4 business card orders
Video, Animation, and Conference Support
1. Videotaped a three part Oral History of Tom O’Brian at USGS
2. Produced a movie from an interview with Rob Sohn regarding the TAG Hydrothermal
mound for D. Fornari and compressed it for pod-casting
3. Provided various tape duplications and transfers to DVD for S. Dawicki
4. Provided video conference support for various committee meetings and an NSF
sponsored video conference for J. Waterbury
5. Arranged A/V support for R. Gagosian presentation in Florida
6. Prepared and presented a sample of our capabilities to representatives of the MIT
Museum and MBL Ecosystems Center
7. Edited and compressed various video clips for Stephanie Murphy, Scott Gallagher and
Dive and Discover
Photography
1. Ongoing event, lab and people shots such as the inside of the XRF, Adam Soule with
rock samples , HROV and human hair, Jeff McGuire and John Collins, Karen Bice, Bill
Jenkins, and ONS’s for Media Relations and Oceanus and entered them in the IMS
2. Photographed a variety of people for the MBL Ecosystems Center Annual Report
3. Photographed 3 passport portraits
4. Produced 150 CD dupes for MBL
5. Produced 30 DVD dupes for K. Patterson and 14 DVD dupes for S. Dawicki
6. Matted and framed 4 retirement photos/posters
7. Reproduction Highlights for the month:
a. 54 proposals
e. 2 manuals
i. 1 form
b. 1 postcard
f. 1 bookmark
j. 1 parking permits
c. 5 flyers
g. 1 invitation
d. 2 Tech Reports
h. 1 tickets
Coming in March
Oceanus Vol 45, No 1 should be off to the printer for an April distribution
OCCI marketing brochure; Redesigned Graphic Services Web site
5
February 2006: Information Office & Exhibit Center (Manager: Stephanie Murphy)
ACTIVITIES
JANUARY 2006
FEBRUARY 2006
Visitors to Exhibit Center
15
32
(Closed for season)
Group Visits to Exhibit Center
4
1
Gift Shop Sales
$1682.60
$1,775.75
Exhibit Center Donations
$0
$20
Peanut Butter Club attendees (4
209
135
weeks)
Peanut Butter Club donations (4
$324
$205
weeks)
 PUBLIC INFORMATION (Sandra Murphy)
o Produced & distributed four issues weekly calendar
o Arranged 2 special tours: MBL, Zeiss Representatives
o Information Requests – received 406 email requests for info.
o Met with MIT Museum director and Nautical holdings curator; held
meetings with H Singh, A Bowen, B Lange, R Catanach, J Lund. (Steph)
 INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS
o Headlines - produced & distributed four issues (Sandra Murphy)
o Conducted first in a series of informal coffee hours. Held in Info Office,
approx. 30 people attended, including scientists, engineers, tech staff, and
administrators. Positive feedback & good input on internal
communications issues. (Steph, Sandy, Kathy)
o Published “year in review” issue of the WHOI Buoy. Preparing printed
flyer announcement. (Steph)
o Drafted plan for more effective use of all-hands emails. Beginning
implementation.(Steph)
o Launch revised Information Office/Exhibit Center internal Website.
 EXHIBIT CENTER (Kathy Patterson)
o Updating WHOI Store site design
o Resolved compatibility issue with e-commerce software
o Exhibit development: final phase of Titanic exhibit, HABs, and Coastal.
o Hosted Cape & Islands Tour Group Assoc. –educated tour leaders who
bring groups of visitors about WHOI.
o Sent monthly email blasts to gift shop users requesting information on
Associates Program.
o Sent email blast about Dive & Discover to WHOI Store registered users
who have requested that info.
o Meeting with vendors; bringing new products into store.
 OUTREACH (Stephanie Murphy)
o Vent CDs – 91 requests from teachers.
o Email blasts to Dive & Discover users
Coming in March
o Three Falmouth public school group visits to EC
o Organize Naval Command College visit – Info Office
o Work w/carpenters on EC repairs, new installations prior to new season
6
Editorial (Managing Editor: Lonny Lippsett)
• Oceanus: Published 4 articles on www.oceanusmag.whoi.edu involving 7 WHOI scientists,
students, or staff: (Bice, Simmons, Edwards , Owens, Valdes, Goisan, Donnelly, Woodruff,
Hughen), plus Hawaii ASLO meeting coverage.
• Oceanus: Reporting, writing, and graphic development for stories: (Blusztain, Soule, Gallager,
Foote, Joyce, Toole, Weller, Jin, Lin, Ashjian, McGillicuddy, Ledwell, Buesseler, Jenkins,
Sholkovitz, Moore, Bender, Bradley, Yoerger, Lynch, Reddy, German, McDowell, Lynch, plus
Alvin, Sentry, ABE and all ships).
• Oceanus: Researching new subscription/mailing/database/marketing operations
• Annual Report: Articles and graphic research for 3 Dept. feature stories completed (Singh,
Buynevich, Winsor, Puecker-Ehrenbrink, Anderson/Keafer/McGillicuddy/Erdner), (Madin,
Carlowicz, Nevala, Canavan), plus Marine Ops (Nevala), MPC (Carlowicz) and Acad. Programs
(Madin) sections. Working on final 2 Dept. features (Singh, Peucker-Ehrenbrink) (Lippsett)
• Dive & Discover: Writing, photography, etc., for Expedition 10 (Madin).
• OCCI brochure: Edited text, graphics research, caption writing (Joyce) (Lippsett, Pires,
Daly)
• WHOI Arctic research poster: Editorial support (Oberlander, Lippsett)
• Ocean Pulses: Sholkovitz aerosol monitor (Lippsett, Dawicki); Madin Antarctic salp
cruise and Dive and Discover (Madin, Dawicki).
• News releases: Foote (Lippsett, Dawicki) and Bice (Lippsett, Dawicki, Nevala)
Coming in March
• Final editing and graphic development for Oceanus Vol. 45, No. 1, slated for printers
• Final Reporting and writing for Annual Report
• Editorial assistance on ABE news release
• Complete OCCI brochure
• Editorial help with poster for WHOI Arctic research
• Carlowicz shifts over to Web editorial
Oceanus online stats
Metric
October
November
December
January
February
34,922 (+23%)
36,157 (+4%)
32,467 (-10%)
28,969 (-11%)
24,623 (-15%)
Visits Average/day*
2,881 (+20%)
2,712 (-6%)
2,299 (-15%)
2,517 (+10%)
2,093 (-17%)
Visited more than once
600
(+63
2
mos
)
631
(+31)
654
(+23)
713
(+59)
769 (+56)
Total Online subscribers**
*Visits include visitors and search engine robots
** (54% from .com/.net; 20% .edu; 15% international; .06% .org; .02% .gov, .01% .mil)
Of interest: United Nations, NOAA, ONR, Boeing, EPA, NewScientist.com, IEEE, EOA Scientific Systems, NASW,
Scholastic, Petrobras (a Brazilian oil company), Exxon, and various aquariums subscribe
7
Top 4 referred sites: 56% direct (know us or emailed from friend), 15% Google, 5%
WHOI.edu, .1% Emerging Technology Blog
Sample referrers: Nature (blog), DeepSea.com, NSF-IPY,
Top 5 Pages: Float 312, Where Are You?, Is Global Warming Changing the Arctic?,
Photo Gallery, Printed Issues, Sort by Date
Top 5 keyword phrases: Oceanus, big sharks, high sea marine protected areas, squirts,
mid ocean ridge
Referrals
Oceanus Visits: October 2005 - February 2006
40,000
35,000
34,922
36,157
32,467
28,969
30,000
24,623
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
October
November
December
January
February
Months
Visits are down this month, but towards the end of February, our numbers started to spike
upwards and hit over 1,000 per day during the week. February is historically one of our lowest
months. The spike might be attributable to some successful marketing of Oceanus onto blogs:
besides to the NSF IPY page (credit to Shelley), we also got the five-story climate package cited
on http://oceanengineering.blogspot.com and the three-story whale package cited on the 1,700+member Marine Mammal Research and Conservation blog. We also saw continued robust
monthly increase in online subscriptions, perhaps attributed to Shelley’s promotion to the media,
Luyten’s notes to program managers, and Terry Schaff’s promotion to staffers on the Hill.
8
9
Image Management (IMS) (Melissa Lamont)
The IMS now includes over 103,800 images. Metadata for an additional 10,000 Media
Relations images, and several other loads, is scant and the next month will be spent
creating and editing metadata records.
Several alterations to the back-end system including incorporating a more user-friendly
look for the interface designed by Katherine Joyce. After some testing and a few
corrections the new interface should be installed in the next week.
This month Fran Halbrooks, Jeff McGuire, Hauke Kite-Powell, Mea Cook, Mike
Brennan, Shona Vitelli, Regina Campbell-Malone, Marj Holland, Al Plueddemann, and
Bob Brown all assisted with identifications and additional information for the metadata.
Ruth Curry and Terry Joyce reviewed and commented on the Abrupt Climate Change and
Global Warming topic pages for the OCCI web site.
Coming in March
M Lamont presentation to the Visual Resources Association Annual Conference: Lessons
Learned on building an image management system.
Other (Jim Kent)
Trying to schedule a meeting with editors from Marine Technology Reporter, to find
ways to link WHOI content in their magazine and Website. Connection through
Rakowski.
Continuing discussion with Smithsonian to find ways to repurpose WHOI science content
on SI Web site and in Ocean Hall exhibition. Meeting in DC in April with Scripps and
MBARI on the topic.
Coming in March
Layout and proofing of WHOI annual report.
Continued support of Dive & Discover content on Larry Madin’s Antarctic salp cruise.
Meeting with Curt Suplee at NSF and Kevin Wheeler CORE to identify opportunities to
repurpose WHOI science content for NSF and CORE, as well as possible collaborative
communications efforts with CORE.
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