Respondents to Army AL&T magazine’s biennial survey of its readers were thoughtful and incisive, and provided much food for thought for the magazine’s staff. (And, oh, by the way, can we make the articles shorter?) If you’re a member of the Army Acquisition Workforce and are reading this magazine for the first time, maybe one of us isn’t doing their job. We need to know if it’s us.
by Mr. Steve Stark
We asked you to be honest with us about Army AL&T magazine in our recent reader survey, and those of you who responded were by turns insightful, silly, irritated, full of suggestions and completely unaware of Army AL&T’s existence. We tend to find little value in responses to “How are we doing?” such as “great” or “horrible.” The responses we value most are those that provide us with constructive criticism and give us insight into how you use the magazine and how it may better serve your needs.
Some gems from the 2016 survey:
- One reader wanted to see more on “rain forest depletion.”
- An irritated but polite respondent said, “Please allow an opt out for those who do not like getting tier [sic] inbox clogged with frivolous emails. Thank you.”
- Another helpfully opined, “I have never read an article from your magazine but considering its [sic] ‘Army’ I highly doubt anything is credible.”
- One, perhaps a staff member, wrote: “Tough, hard charging, born in the crucible of battle and tempered in the fires of combat, Army AL&T is there, shoulder to shoulder acting as a force multiplier for the Acquisition Workforce.” Yup. Funny. Good writing, though.
The vast majority of our respondents, however, took the biennial survey seriously and in the spirit in which it was meant: It’s part of our continuing mission to improve the magazine, and we take seriously every comment we get. Even if, like those above, they appear to be frivolous, they tell us something about our readers—or those who have access to the magazine and are not yet readers.
ANONYMITY’S COSTS AND BENEFITS
Our surveys are always anonymous. The only identifying information we get is what respondents choose to provide. We operate the survey this way because we believe that Army AL&T’s audience deserves the chance to speak openly and be brutally honest about what it likes and doesn’t like. Seldom are respondents brutal. But sometimes respondents are so thoughtful that we wish we could reach out and say, “Tell me more.”
That is the drawback of an anonymous survey: When someone makes what we think is a great suggestion, we have no idea who they are. For example, in this year’s survey we had a request for articles on facilities engineering. We’d love to do that. When we think about the installations the Army has all over the world, from hospitals to dining facilities to landing strips, we want to hear about those—how they’re created, what the pitfalls are, where and how fascinating solutions to seemingly intractable problems have emerged. If the respondent who provided that observation happened to be knowledgeable about the topic, we’d most certainly reach out to talk about writing an article. Unfortunately, we can’t do that. But the respondent is welcome to get in touch.
Another respondent wondered why we don’t have letters to the editor. The answer, actually, is that we do receive them. This is, however, another angle on anonymity.
Our audience tends to be cautious or risk-averse. So it will surprise no one that even though the letters we receive have been thoughtful, articulate and incisive about articles that the writer sees as a poor representation of how the Army does or does not do something, the letter writer in every recent case has requested anonymity, for fear of an adverse effect on his or her job prospects or perhaps fear of retribution. Whether that fear is justified is a question only that person can answer. The reason we don’t publish letters to the editor anonymously is that we believe our contributors, having put themselves and their reputations on the line, deserve an open and honest dialogue. If you’re willing to take part in that dialogue and let us publish your name, we’d love to hear from you! We do our best to provide the most career-enhancing information we can. We are trying to increase the number of staff-written articles to inject a little more lightning, but because we don’t do anonymous, you will probably never see the phrase, “said a senior Army official on the condition of anonymity” in Army AL&T magazine.
That gets to a fundamental aspect of Army AL&T magazine—one we’d like to see change. Indeed, the Hon. Katrina McFarland said, in our last Editorial Advisory Board meeting, that she’d like to see more “lightning” in the magazine, that it should be a place where discussions about potentially hot-button issues can freely unfold. We’d like to see that, too. But that’s not the kind of contributor that Army AL&T has. Yet.
AN UNUSUAL MAGAZINE
Army AL&T magazine is the trade journal of the Army Acquisition Workforce. Our writ is to provide news on best practices, lessons learned, career developments and useful commentary—content that helps the workforce do its job better.
Army AL&T magazine is unusual in that virtually all of our contributors are not professional writers. We don’t have a staff of reporters or staff writers or contributing editors with beats in acquisition, science and technology, logistics, contracting and so forth who fan out across the acquisition enterprise and hunt for articles to pitch to their editors, although we do have some savvy public affairs officers who know journalism and effectively promote their commands’ interests in the magazine. We depend on them nearly as much as we depend on our staff.
Mostly, we have an array of subject matter experts who feel passionately about what they do and about the Soldiers they do it for. They want to share their experiences with others in the same profession so that we can all do a better job. We have a small staff of extremely dedicated editors who are professionals and do their best to make the articles we receive as thoroughgoing and authoritative as possible. This unusual state of affairs has been the case for more than 50 years.
More than anyone else, we understand that the content we provide is not perfect. One respondent said, “This publication leaves out all of the actual problems with the program. It is not realistic [nor does it] reflect the problems within equipment in the field.” The fact is, we would welcome a bit more “controversy” in our pages. We’d love to have contributions from the operational perspective, but we don’t get nearly as many as we’d like. When we see opportunities that we can realistically chase—given our small staff—we go after them. (Take, for example, the gem of an operational commentary, “Rule No. 1,” in the January – March 2017 issue of Army AL&T Magazine.)
WHAT ARMY AL&T IS NOT
In the abstract, controversy is simple enough, especially with social media: Say something explosive and watch it blow up. We see it all the time. But there is a very real difference between controversy for controversy’s sake (click bait) and controversy that consists of honest and thoughtful disagreement between respectful people who just don’t see eye to eye. Most of the time, though, you won’t find controversy in this magazine because there’s a very real hesitation on the part of the Army acquisition, logistics and technology community to point out the negative. We understand that and try to work around it.
Because we are the Army Acquisition Workforce’s trade publication, there are some things we don’t cover because they don’t fall under our charter. One respondent wanted to read more about the history of Cold War veterans. Unless we had an article that was germane to some area of acquisition by or about Cold War veterans, we wouldn’t run it, as interesting as it might be, even if it were prizeworthy writing. We have a very specific mandate.
WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SEE
Another respondent asked about follow-ups to articles we’ve published in the past. This is something we’re working on. We, too, think it’s important not to just put stuff out there and leave it. We do want to know “the rest of the story,” as that respondent put it.
One of the most common issues among our respondents was that our articles are too long. Comments such as these about the typical length of our articles are tremendously valuable to us, if not the easiest thing in the world to pull off:
- Long, drawn-out methodologies or excessively detailed case histories are NOT helpful. A short, crisp history or methodology would be better. Get to the point and tell me how this will help me do my job better!
- I realize the length is partially driven by the magazine being a quarterly publication, but its length seems to deter all but the most stalwart readers committed to further learning about the acquisition profession.
- The only challenge I have is that sometimes the articles are a bit lengthy. Shorter reads help get to the point and provide a quick snippet of useful information.
- One problem I have is time to read the articles. I think there’s useful information in the magazine; however, I don’t have time to read lengthy articles. Shorter versions or summaries would be nice to see, as long as it doesn’t impact the content too much.
You may recall the quote, “If I’d had more time I would have written a shorter letter,” which has been attributed variously to Benjamin Franklin, Woodrow Wilson and many others. Short is hard—this article is a testament to that—but that doesn’t mean we won’t take up the challenge.
More than any comment like “great magazine” or “it is completely useless to me,” these responses are news we can use. We’ve already made changes to address article length since our last magazine survey in 2014, but clearly we haven’t done enough. Look for more changes in upcoming issues.
CAREER AND FINANCE
Some respondents wanted more insight on the planning, programming, budgeting and execution process, with particular emphasis on finance. Indeed, one respondent wrote, “There is nothing related to budgeting, POM, financial management” in the magazine. He or she went on to say that “I believe that this is necessary, as I think PMs are least knowledgeable in this area. Without any leadership emphasis, they continue to disregard fiscal and appropriations law.” That is a fascinating comment, and one we will do our best to follow up on.
Another topic high on the list of respondents’ suggestions was career-related information. All of these suggestions are worth pursuing:
- Articles on how to handle difficult situations with your supervisor.
- Organic workforce requirements throughout the life cycle and why we need them/plan for them.
- Acquisition workforce professional development and career path to [product manager, project manager and program executive officer] positions.
- More up-to-date courses in acquisition workforce training.
- Talent management and opportunities for progression for newer employees are always interesting to me.
- Leadership and opportunities for low-ranking civilians.
- Future of the civilian workforce.
- Acquisition perspective from interns, DCS [deputy chief of staff] and employee concerns.
- Focus MORE on how contracting officers can improve, maybe a specific lessons learned section for them. Dos and don’ts.
Some of those may not be possible, but all of them are worth further thought.
CONCLUSION
You may think this sounds corny, but if you’re a member of the Army Acquisition Workforce, Army AL&T is your magazine. We make it our job to make Army AL&T such a useful and important magazine that it becomes a must-read in your job.
It would take years to implement every suggestion we received in our 2016 survey, but we will address those that we feel are feasible and necessary, even mission-critical, such as those mentioned, in whatever ways are available to us.
We intend Army AL&T magazine to be a continuous dialogue. It is incumbent upon our readers to do just what they have done in this survey: Be honest—brutally so, if necessary. Your active participation is critical to the success of the magazine, and the success of the magazine is best measured by the success of you, our readers, in doing your jobs meeting the needs of the Soldier. If there is something we can do better, please let us know.
MR. STEVE STARK is senior editor of Army AL&T magazine. He holds an M.A. in creative writing from Hollins University and a B.A. in English from George Mason University. In addition to more than two decades of editing and writing about the military, science and technology, he is, as Stephen Stark, the bestselling ghostwriter of several consumer health oriented books and an award-winning novelist.
Subscribe to Army AL&T News, the premier online news source for the Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (AL&T) Workforce.
