Nobody trained you for this

Where to start

They are ordered to be read straight through, but almost nobody arrives with a blank page. Start wherever your situation actually is.

You have been asked to start a list

Begin with your first list, then getting people to sign up. The second one matters more than it sounds: a list with eleven people on it does not change anybody's week, and almost everything that goes wrong there is distribution rather than design.

You inherited a list and it has gone wrong

Keeping a list clean explains why it happened and what actually stops it, and organising your lists covers the case where the real problem is that there are fifteen of them.

Somebody has asked whether you are allowed to send this

Do you need consent for internal emails?sorts your messages into the ones people must receive and the ones they chose to, which is the distinction the question usually turns on. It is not legal advice and says so.

You are not sure what this kind of product even is

What is a preference centre? defines the category without selling anything, including the cases where you do not need one.

The idea underneath all of them

Every guide here is a version of one observation: the person who knows a detail has changed is never the person allowed to change it. Somebody moves from one site to another and knows on the first day. The list finds out months later, if at all, and only because they mentioned it to somebody who mentioned it to you.

Almost every practice that internal communicators are told to adopt - the quarterly audit, the annual data cleanse, the reminder to update your details - is an attempt to work around that gap by trying harder. None of them close it, because the gap is structural rather than a matter of effort. What closes it is giving the correction back to the person who has it.

That is also why these are guides to the problem rather than documentation of buttons. A page explaining what conditional logic means would help nobody. A page explaining what to ask on a form, and why asking less gets you more, helps whether or not you ever use this product.

All 5 guides

• Your first listFrom nothing to a link you can share, in about the time it takes to make a cup of tea. What to call it, what to ask, and when to publish.4 minute read
• Getting people to actually sign upA form nobody fills in is a spreadsheet with extra steps. Where to put the link, what to say, and how to reach colleagues who pass a notice board more often than they read an inbox.6 minute read
• Keeping a list clean without chasing anyoneEvery list falls out of date - people move team, change site, leave. The answer is not to chase harder; it is to stop being the only person who can make a correction.5 minute read
• Do you need consent for internal emails?Employment does not make every internal email lawful, and consent is often the wrong basis to claim. Which messages need what, and the record that settles an argument.7 minute read
• How to organise your internal mailing listsMost internal lists are organised by who somebody is, because that is what the directory knows. Nearly everything people actually want is organised by interest, and the gap between the two is where the administration comes from.6 minute read