Nobles Magazine for iPad: Download. Read. Watch. Listen.

I searched “private school magazine” in the App Store and came up with nothing. Zilch. A result like that begs the question of whether my enthusiasm is misguided: If introducing an iPad magazine for Nobles is good idea, why aren’t other schools creating similar publications?

Nobles—for the uninitiated—is a really great Boston-area school with a mission to inspire leadership for the public good. Finding ways to tell Nobles’ story is a pleasure. Last year, our communications team began working on a magazine redesign with Kelly McMurray, Creative Director at 2communique. When our second issue came back from the printer, Kelly wanted to talk about a tablet version of the magazine:  Our school’s multimedia content is good so why weren’t we leveraging it better? When I saw Kelly at the CASE District I conference in Boston, she pulled her iPad—and our inaugural tablet publication—out of her bag.

I was wowed. Like everyone else in our field, I’ve been trying to figure out the balance between print and digital content and delivery. Like other magazine editors, I’m not a huge fan of flipbooks. But this is different. The experience of reading a magazine while discovering layers of related content is pretty awesome.

I’m intrigued by the resonance that we can deliver in this format. One example: A Nobles grad published her first novel. The print version of our publication features her reflections on the writing process. The related content includes an audio file of the author reading an excerpt, a video promotion, and a link to the book on Amazon.

This issue also features NBC sports exec Sam Flood, a student-opera singer, a
podcast with study tips, a documentary trailer, bonus photos, links to related blogs and a lot more.

Our next step will be an analysis of ROI. How many downloads? How many views of featured multimedia content? Can we figure out how to measure attitudinal changes among various audiences?

For now, thanks to Kelly and her colleagues Chris St. Cyr and Morgan Jordan at 2communique. And thanks to Julie Guptill, Tiffany Tran and Melissa McClung in the communications office, my partners in creating and curating content at Nobles.

 

This post was kindly contributed by one of our TruePartners, Heather Sullivan, Director of Communications at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts. 

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