The More You Write...

To get data literate, check out Downrange Data

My first attempts at writing weren’t great, the process came in fits and starts and never hit a groove. Throughout the process my friend August Cole kept telling me ‘The more you write, the more you write’. At first, I thought it was an encouragement, but now I’m starting to wonder if it was a caution. Since publishing my first article last fall, I’ve ended up writing a handful of other articles on disparate topics like online mentorship, married military life, force modelling, and rank. Seems August was right.

My first published article was born out of a frustrating morning at work. I left an early meeting fed up with hearing ‘I’m an analog guy’ from one too many of my leaders. So I went back to my office and started writing the article that would eventually call for data literate commanders. That was in April of 2023.

I submitted the article to War on The Rocks, and when they weren’t interested, I tried the Modern War Institute, who also passed. I’ve learned this is part of the writing process. ‘Writers face rejection’. I shelved the idea until the fall when War on The Rocks put out a call for articles suggesting new Army talent management ideas. A peer who had helped me edit my original draft poked me about it and, as I set off for my own run at the Command Assessment Program, I resubmitted.

Even with my edits, the article needed a lot of work, but the editors at War on The Rocks helped me. First, they encouraged me to change the tone: ‘…disdain for data "illiterate" commanders comes through a little strong, and is going to be taken as unprofessional’. They also helped me describe a way forward since, ‘Like it or not, DoD and the Army are large bureaucracies, and it takes time to change training and educational curriculum to produce the new type of leader the author wants’. The editors made sure I rounded out my responses to anticipate counter arguments. Finally, they made me scrub my text thoroughly to get rid of all acronyms and jargon.

The article was published in October, and while it hasn’t gone viral, it did have an impact on several people who read it. The AFC commander asked for a phone call to discuss the idea as well as other data initiatives, and a 4th Infantry Division alum reached out to tell me about some of the work they’d done in Fort Carson. He even invited me onto a podcast to discuss data literacy.

To prepare for that podcast, and because so many people kept asking me what I meant by ‘data literacy’, I sat down to scratch out a handful of vignettes from my career. I wanted to tell stories which would help illustrate how using data had made a difference for me. Except every vignette I came up with unearthed three more. Suddenly I had thirty different stories to tell. The more I wrote, the more I wrote. I just needed a place to put them. I looked back at The Harding Project, and that is where I found Substack. Downrange Data went live just a month later.

While still a niche topic, I’ve been surprised to see how many fellow service members have had the same experiences as me and have found their own ways to bring data down into the dirt to solve their problems. I’ve reached out to a few soldiers who commented to see if they’d like to join the Substack with a guest post, giving them a platform where they can tell their own story. But I should probably warn them, ‘The more you write…’.