Write a 1-pager for your boss

Okay, so it’s Monday morning after your conference or event and you’re finally caught up on email! So what’s the first big new idea you want to cross off your to-do list?

Back up first. You’re going to want to write a quick one-pager for your boss and their boss, summarizing what you learned, thanking them for letting you go to the event, and suggesting next steps. You want to send this as soon as you possibly can on your first day back in the office. It’s straight up just good manners and helps remind your boss that there was real value to the company for sending you to the event or training.

If you’ve already completed the exercise to organize and review your notes, then you’re mostly done! You’ve already identified several key takeaways and thought about how they could be directly applicable to your new organization.

The formula for a simple but effective memo looks like this:


Dear Boss and Their Boss,

Thanks so much for supporting my attendance at [conference name] this year.

I wanted to share a few big ideas that stuck out to me:

I THINK this is how we can take one of those big themes and apply it directly to our news organization both in the near and longer term. (see below for some suggested ways to do this)

ALSO:

NEXT STEPS: This is how I think we should move forward / this is how I’d like to share what I learned with my team and my colleagues across the newsroom.

Thank you again, Your Name Here __

If you aren’t sure what your big themes are, try answering one or more of these questions to help you boil it down:

If you aren’t sure how to make those themes actionable, try suggestions such as:

This resource is part of the OpenNews After Party toolkit, developed by Emma Carew Grovum. It’s meant to help you get the most out of SRCCON—or any journalism event—and share what you learn with your own organization. The toolkit is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and we’d love to see you use or adapt it for your own event—all we need is a link back here.

We’d also be thrilled to hear how you put what you learn into practice, so please tweet us at #OpenNewsAfterParty, or if you have any questions, let us know!

← Back to the After Party toolkit