A Few Thoughts from Tom
Please take a moment and read this one!
For the first time since I started doing three posts a week, which started a few months ago, I missed a day, which was last Saturday. This tends to be a busy time of the year for me. Yes, there is the day job, but the garlic has to get planted, there is general garden cleanup, and the Dahlia tubers need to be dug out and stored for the winter. I pushed my busy fall by spending two days at SUNY Geneseo, which was well worth it, and I’m about half way done planting about 1800 flower bulbs (daffodil, crocus, fritillaria, and anemone). If all goes well, I’ll post some pictures in the spring.
Anyway, this is a good time to do a reader survey. I would really like to know your thoughts, while at the same time, I know you really probably don’t want to do another survey. I recognize that you are doing me a favor here. I’m asking that you please take a few minutes to answer some questions and maybe provide some responses. Here we go, and thank you in advance. The poll will be open for three days.
Substack doesn’t offer a poll option with an open-ended question, but this can be done with comments. Please click the leave a comment button (note that this won’t be anonymous) and answer any of these questions that you have thoughts about. If you don’t want to leave it in the comments, then respond to the email or just send me an email at thomas.pfaff (at) sustainabilitymath.org. Note that I’m not looking for praise (not that it will bother me), but instead I’d like useful critical comments and suggestions to improve Briefed by Data.
What could Briefed by Data do better?
What should I make sure I continue doing at Briefed by Data?
What should I do that I’m not doing?
What thoughts do you have to help Briefed by Data attract readers?
Again, thank you for doing this. I really do appreciate it.
I like reading your posts, and I know each of them takes considerable effort. If you want to grow readership, probably the longer posts are the ones that might do that. It seems most people who have big Substack followings typically write medium to longer posts ... some that I follow are Noah Smith, Ethan Mollick, Meghan Daum, Matt Yglesias. If you could ever get someone with a bigger following to link to your work, that would likely lead to more readers.
I try to read all your posts and have for years. I miss some of the classroom connections you did earlier. I prefer the longer more in-depth posts to the briefed by data posts. I sometimes skip parts of the briefed by data posts, but rarely skip any of the longer posts. Thanks for all your efforts.