November Manager Meeting: Community Communication and Listserv

This month we were joined by Mark Kaprow, the GSA listserv administrator, and discussed community communication and listserv. We also recapped the October manager meeting on community best practices.

Our research into community best practices turned up six important communication must dos for communities. We encourage you to follow them as best you can! They are:

1. Develop a comms strategy for community campaigns
2. Provide venues for dialogue and problem solving vs. one-way presentations
3. Leverage technology thoughtfully to facilitate participant engagement and knowledge exchange
4. Document success stories and present results
5. Establish structure for sharing best practices and making them widely accessible
6. Provide community ample opportunities to provide feedback

The Digital.gov communication channels for you to take advantage of in helping you hit these must dos are the Digital.gov website, complete with blog posts and resources, Digital.gov events and Eventbrite campaigns, the Digital.gov newsletter and social media channels that reach tens of thousands of subscribers, and the ever crucial listserv provided by GSA. Reach out to us to make sure we can include your important information across these platforms.

Mark ran us through the following listserv elements and provided important takeaways to consider when managing your list.

• Two-factor authentication. Takeaway: You must do it to access your list. Download an authentication app and get started. Go here to access the listserv web interface and register for two-factor authentication if necessary.
• Dashboard overview. Takeaway: This is where you can access your list(s) as well as all listserv functionality.
• List activity reports. Takeaway: Run these reports to learn about your list activity over a specific period of time. Experiment with the different options included in the report, including posts and options related to subscriptions.
• Error messages and reports. Takeaway: Listserv does a great job of monitoring subscriptions for you and removing addresses from the list that are no longer valid. Visit LSoft’s Tech Tips page for self-help. It’s still important for you to review the reports, look for trends, and alert listserv-request@listserv.gsa.gov with anything that seems off.
• List archives. Takeaway: Use archives to browse past conversations. GSA maintains list archives for three years. Archives of messages sent on or before 9/30 of three-years previous are deleted. Ex. October 2021, GSA deleted archives of messages sent on or before 9/30/18. You must save any messages yourself that fall out of that timeline in order to save them.

Mark will be retiring in December. Happy retirement, Mark! Reach out to him anytime before then at mark.kaprow@gsa.gov to have any specific questions answered. Also review Katherine Spivey’s 8 Ways Community of Practice (CoP) Managers Can Improve Member Engagement on Listservs for tips.

Lastly, please check out the Digital.gov Content Calendar, let us know how our efforts align, and gear your content to these topics on digital transformation for prioritized publication.