RWL at 350! some stats and history
RWL #350
Greetings from the Last Homely House! I am back from my trip to Maryland for the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) annual meeting (pic above is the concourse at Reagan International Airport), I had a great Independence Day with family, and I am pleased to be writing to you for the 350th time! Yes, this is officially the 350th issue of RWL! (350 does not count the new BITW posts)
I thought I’d share some facts and history about RWL for those of you who haven’t been along for the ride the whole way.
Some stats:
Right now, RWL has 294 subscribers. There isn’t an option for paid subscriptions, so that number is zero. I ported RWL over from another service in December of 2020, bringing 207 subscribers at the time. So RWL has grown by almost 50% in the last 2.5 years, which is nice.
Since bringing RWL over to Substack, the newsletter has had 43,519 views. Which isn’t much compared to some newsletters, but I’m pleased you all still seem interested.
The average views per post is quite variable, but I think it looks like 275. About 42% percent of subscribers open any given post. I get a lot of reads from other sources, like LinkedIn. Here’s the last 8 posts, including the new Being in the World (BITW) newsletter.
A little history:
RWL 1.0: I started teaching at UNH in January of 2015. In August of 2015 I was told I would be the faculty advisor for the HMP class of 2019. Over the 2015-2016 school year, I had a chance to get to know the handful of students who had matriculated into the major, and even teach a few in my US Healthcare Systems class I taught in the Fall of 2015. As my students left for the summer in the spring of 2016, I decided that they needed to stay connected to their major over the summer. I decided that I would send them a weekly email with some material that they could look at that would keep them learning about healthcare management. This was me, not yet coming to terms with the fact that I was teaching undergraduates, and dealing with underclassmen to boot. The very first email I sent happened to have an article, a video, and a podcast that all related to healthcare management. I was somewhat intentional about that, reflecting on what I knew about different learning styles. But it was really something of an accident. When it came time to write the next one, I thought, “Well, that’s actually kind of cool”, so I went with the idea of something to read, something to watch, and something to listen to, and that became the format for the rest of the summer.
RWL 2.0: Sharing links with students wasn’t a new thing for me. I had done it for years while I was teaching at Army-Baylor. When I sent out a link to students, I would start the subject line with “BM:” for “bonus material” and then tell them what I was sending them and why. I actually had a number of students from those days tell me they wanted to stay on my mailing list even after they were done with my classes. Whether the kids were reading the emails I sent or not that summer, I don’t really know. I think I heard from a couple of them, but I was having fun with the concept. During that first summer I heard about a service called TinyLetter, a free email newsletter service. On July 17th, 2016, I published my first RWL newsletter on TinyLetter and offered it to former students on various FaceBook and LinkedIn groups where I was a member. Here’s a link to the very first, official RWL:
https://tinyletter.com/markbonica/letters/rwl-1
I picked up 30 subscribers that week, and that was the official beginning of RWL.
RWL 2.1: In the March 14, 2020 RWL, I shared the fact that we were going remote, at least until early April, due to the COVID-19. RWL #166 was focused on price gouging because the shelves at the grocery stores were suddenly emptying out. Like most people, I was taking this in stride and assumed it would be over in a couple of weeks. Yeah, not so much.
In fact, here’s the opening to the very next RWL (RWL #167):
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire - Forward Operating Base Last Homely House (FOB LHH)! Well, so much for coming back to in-person teaching on April 6 - UNH has joined most other universities and announced it is going to online teaching for the remainder of the semester. I’ll be honest - I’m not thrilled. My limited experience with online teaching tells me it’s not my comparative advantage. I prefer the immediate feedback of seeing my students drift off to sleep right in front of me, rather than waiting to see view counts on the learning management system. But we will do what we have to do - and we will survive! (see Bonus Watch below)
I called RWL #167 the “double bonus COVID-19, you shall not pass! Issue”. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, and the way I dealt with it was to share more stuff, including a caramel popcorn recipe. RWL #167 was a turning point because after that I started sharing more than the set 3 items each week to 5 or 6. I don’t know if you all liked that or not, but it helped me cope to write. We all dealt with COVID in our own ways, this was one of mine. I liked not having the constraint, so that was RWL 2.1 - more.
RWL 3.0: I don’t recall when I first started reading publications on Substack, but as you can probably tell, I really like to play with new kinds of communications technology. I liked the interface for Substack better than TinyLetter, and it seemed to give more flexibility, so I decided to port the newsletter over.
RWL 3.1: This happened tentatively, but I started realizing I wanted to do more than curate other people’s content: I wanted to write original content. I just didn’t know if you all would want to see it. So I started writing longer introductions that were really full-blown essays, like my series on mentorship (RWL #242) to test the waters. This eventually led to …
BITW 1.0: After I could see you didn’t hate my original content, I finally mustered the courage to launch a new section of the newsletter, Being in the World (BITW) on April 23, 2023 with my first piece, Begin with the End in Mind. I’ll be writing the 12th essay in the BITW series this weekend. These essays are getting higher numbers of views and more feedback than the RWL “linkletters” (as I am calling them now), which makes me feel really good because these letters are very personal for me. In BITW, I am trying to articulate some personal philosophy, but also exploring the literature about what it means to live a worthy life, and also how to lead a worthy life. For me, these are life’s key questions. So I am grateful that you seem to find them interesting.
Coming soon:
BITW 2.0: I am preparing a new podcast that will be associated with the BITW newsletter, and will have the same name. I will be interviewing people who I think have something useful to say about the key questions of BITW - what does it mean to live a worthy life? How should we go about living a worthy life? I am so excited to share these once they are ready. Hopefully by the end of the summer I will have 3-4 done and will launch them as a group so you can get a sense of the project’s goals.
A few Lessons Learned:
When I was in the military, we always took time to do after action reviews (AARs) to discuss lessons learned. Here are a few I’ve learned over seven years of doing RWL:
More isn’t always better. Sorry. I know I lose some of you because I write too much. I’m thinking about ways to be more concise. But also, this is how I think. This post is a good example of me learning the lesson, but not implementing it.
Most readers don’t take the time to leave feedback, but that’s ok. Writing is a solo activity. It doesn’t mean the work isn’t landing. But I really do appreciate any feedback you guys give.
Writing a weekly newsletter, and now writing a twice-weekly newsletter, is a great way to organize your thoughts and push yourself to learn. And if other people want to come along for the ride, that’s even better!
I’m better at being earnest than snarky. Some people are really good at being fast and clever. I’m not one of them. Also, I think earnest is better for a project like this. I’ve been called out on being snarky a few times, and I know I’ve lost some readers because of it. I’m consciously trying to be true to my better angels and be earnest. Sometimes readers won’t like what I have to say - I do have opinions - but I don’t have to be a jerk about it. It’s best to not be a jerk. Especially if you’re not good at it. Instead, I want to continue to explore, and hear from you when you have a chance.
Finally…
A truly heart-felt thank you to all of you who have chosen to let me into your inbox. The world is a crowded place, and the most costly thing today for most people is their attention. I appreciate you sharing a little bit of yours with me.
I really appreciate likes, comments, and emails. It does help me keep going.
Thanks for joining me on this ride! See you Sunday with another essay. As usual, willing good for all of you!
Mark, Sometimes I read your writings from my email, sometimes I read them on LinkedIn, and maybe sometimes on another platform, but I don't often hit the link to bring me to Substack. So maybe your readership is a little wider than the stats imply.
Well done, sir! Congrats on 350. Keep up the terrific work!!