Translating Politics Into English in 60 seconds – sharp.
As an email newsletter aficionado, I subscribe to many. Most are aggregators of other news outlets or letters, and have one thing in common: TL:DR. It means Too Long, Didn’t Read. So many organizations try to be all things to all readers, or provide all resources to a subset of people that the sheer number of articles and content in a newsletter is overwhelming. In fact, one paragraph in many of these newsletters could serve as an entire post.
The Good
While we’re not going to name names for the bad, we want to highlight a few of the good – the newsletters we always read.
SGR 10 in 10: It includes 10 resources with a short description of why it’s relevant to the demographic they serve – local government leaders. Plus, it’s all from a servant leadership perspective, which gets my little Robert Greenleaf/John Maxwell fangirl heart a-flutter. Sometimes it’s a link to fun research on what smiling does to your brain chemistry. Others highlight best practices for sanitation in large cities and how small cities can make the solutions work for them. Every issue concludes with a quick video from the director with a commentary and tips for state and local governments. It makes the newsletter personal and relevant.
The Hustle: This has a little bit for everyone, in bite size pieces, as well as occasional long-form, deep dives into business issues. Even then, it’s fun stuff, like the fascinating path of Gatorade from a lab at the University of Florida, or how a family made its millions in pre-packaged nacho cheese. Some tech, some business, some random fun facts and OTD (On This Day) tidbits. The hilarious tweet and photo at the end is the cherry on top. Most of the 352 tabs on my screen come from The Hustle. Plus – while writing this newsletter, they did a deep dive on Servant Leadership! Excellent segue…
Got a Minute?
The fastest way to someone’s memory is through a bullet point. Each Friday, we will serve up actionable, measurable tips for providing good public service (or just being a good neighbor) in 60 seconds, sharp (pun intended ;). Each post will be 160-200 words and can be read in one minute. From time to time, we’ll include links to outside sources for additional learning beyond the 60-second timeframe.
Serve60Sharp will focus on public service, where candidates and incumbents are the target audience, but the concepts are broadly applicable. We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas! Send us your serve concept and we’ll highlight you in the newsletter – or write it up in under 200 words as a guest contributor. Let’s serve each other to make our corner of the world a little brighter.