Welcome to the first FreshSpectrum Challenge. In this series we start with a real-world dense technical report or resource (what I call Nerd Reports). Then through a series of activities, you do the work of breaking it down.
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Nerd Report 1: Medicare: Insolvency Projections
Our first technical report is from the Congressional Research Service, which is an independent research group creating reports to inform policy. There is an HTML version of the report but you can also download it as a PDF.
The full text of the congressional report is 19 pages (PDF version). It has about 3,500 words in the main body and around 1,800 in the appendix. It’s written at a college level (grade 13+).
Strategy Challenge
For this week’s strategy challenge I just want you to work through some of the basics. So that means answering a few basic questions (WHO, WHAT, and HOW). Just jot down your answers somewhere.
- Who is the primary audience? Who are some of the secondary audiences?
- What insights are in the report that you think would be useful to share with those audiences?
- Based on the insights and audiences, what specific mechanisms could you use to get the insights to the audience members?
When thinking strategy I want you to think broadly. But for the rest of the challenges, we’ll be focusing on creating one-page policy briefs.
Storytelling Challenge
One obvious adaptation for policy research would be a set of policy briefs. And policy briefs don’t always need a full story, just clean and clear copywriting.
So for this activity I want you to write copy for a set of four one-page policy briefs. The goal is to make each one more readable (around grade 8) than the original report. The one-pagers you write should be no more than 400 words.
Use insights from the strategy challenge as anchors for the different one-pagers. For audience, I want you to write for policymakers and their staff.
Design Challenge
Design a policy brief template that would work well for the four different policy briefs. I suggest using Canva or PowerPoint for this, but ultimately the tools you use are yours to choose.
The designs you come up with need to be able to accommodate the words you wrote (although you can also consider rewriting the words). For your briefs I want them to be one-sided and printable, US letter size (8.5 x 11) or A4. Each brief should have dedicated space for at least one visual.
Tip, don’t make it hard on yourself. You should be able to create one design that would work for all four briefs.
Illustration Challenge
For the illustration challenge I want you to create a featured image for each brief. I want you to create the images in two forms. The first will be the one you use inside the actual one-pager.
The second will be in a form for sharing via social media. I want you to brand the social media version in some way. Put in a link, a logo, or some other form of signature. Use color or some other approach to tie the different featured images together.
Bonus Challenge
Go back to original strategy challenge and pick another mechanism to create, something that would serve a non-policymaker audience.
For example, there are some figures and tables in the report that you could turn into interesting public facing infographics. Or maybe you could take a set of findings and adapt them into a social media carousel.
This is just a bonus challenge, if you decide to create something just try to have fun with it.
Want to share your work for feedback (of just for fun)? Or would you like extra tips and support?
Register for the free FreshSpectrum Challenge and I’ll send you a link to join our private discord. This is the place where I offer feedback and support.
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