# OSCAL Monthly Email Strategy - ADDRESSES: Pillar 1: Communication, item v: - Launch monthly emails to the community advocating for resources + the value. - Begin 2/1/23 - RELATED ISSUES: - P1.iv: Improve Community Onboarding (email communication was identified & possible need of new mailing list) ## Goal We highlight areas of work where we want community participation and highlight the value. The key goal is soliciting volunteers. ## Final Recommendations Send a monthly brief newsletter highlighting the research and/or engineerinf issues where NIST needs help. - [x] We will use one or both of the existing Google Groups. - [ ] We need an announcement email. (R: AJ; A: Michaela; C: TBD; I: All) - [ ] We need a template for sending the newsletter. (R: AJ; A: Michaela; C: TBD; I: All) - [ ] We will need to set up an archive location on one of our websites for prior newsletters after they're sent. (R: AJ; A: Michaela; C: TBD; I: All) ## Open Decisions for Recommendation - [ ] Which mailing list to send to, both (oscal-dev or oscal-updates)? - [ ] Which website to host on (pages.nist.gov or the CSRC website)? - [ ] Can we automate part of this? All of it? - [ ] Examine Michaela's recommendation for using a Google form to automate this. ## Background ### Content We need to focus on the action plan goal: "Launch monthly emails to the community advocating for resources + the value beginning 2/1/23" ### Means 1. Existing Google Group (e.g. oscal-dev@list.gov, oscal-updates@list.nist.gov) 2. New Google Group? 3. [GovDelivery](https://inet.nist.gov/pao/service-resource/use-govdelivery) 4. Alternate means, yet to be determined 1 and 2 have no ability to capture anonymized metrics, 3 does, and 4 potentially depending upon selection. Given the high-level goals, 3 and 4 seem excessive and the tracking will not help (if people volunteer, they volunteer, we measure that). Likely 1, not 2, is the safest bet. ### Key Context Q&A 1. Who is our target audience? Volunteers 3. Do we need to be able to measure readership? Not really, this is not marketing/advocacy. 4. Do we need to be able to produce relevant content every month and cannot skip? How far in advance? Yes, but where we need volunters, not organic non-technical or technical content.