Scoop pdf

The Southeast Scoop - Regional Newsletter TTP

The Southeast Scoop is the Southeast Region Network Enterprise Center’s (SE RNEC) monthly newsletter publication. The newsletter supports the Army Knowledge Management (KM) initiatives through knowledge sharing across the region and strives to include all four components of KM throughout each publication: people, processes, tools, and organization.
The mission of The Southeast Scoop is to help close knowledge gaps amongst regional personnel to better support decision making through shared understanding. This supports the RNEC’s efforts of regionalization as a learning organization and reiterates each month to regional personnel the need for information sharing.

Information for each newsletter publication is gathered from various sources. However, because the majority of knowledge resides as tacit knowledge (what individuals know), the most important element of the newsletter is input from the organization’s personnel to share their processes, accomplishments, tools, lessons learned, and more. Thus, tacit knowledge is converted to explicit knowledge to help ensure the flow of information. This facilitates a culture of knowledge sharing within the organization and the mission of the newsletter to help close regional knowledge gaps.

Southeast Region NEC personnel serve as the primary target audience of The Southeast Scoop. However, some information and processes enclosed in the newsletter (for example, how to install a printer, how to request a network account, etc.) may also apply to users outside of the organization that the NEC provides services to. For this reason, the publications are available for Army-wide read access, though some resources contained within the newsletter may not be available to all users.

Compiling the Newsletter
Content Must Serve the Reader
In order to start compiling the newsletter itself, a Microsoft Word template is located within the “NewsTools” folder in the newsletter document library as well as the graphics used for the document header. This may be downloaded for compiling the newsletter. Note that the format of the template is modified if opened via the web browser. The template must be downloaded to retain its intended format.
The most important thing about information included within the newsletter is that it must be either useful or interesting to the target audience. The information must also be accurate and clearly communicated to be useful. If the content does not serve the reader well, the newsletter will not serve its purpose. Because knowledge has meaning only in human context, the writer may at times need to clarify, expand upon, and relay how content relates to the reader – for example, by stating who the information applies to or how it may affect the target audience.
Information is obtained via numerous sources.
     •  Submissions from regional personnel
     •  Long Range Calendar
     •  Army Information Hub
     •  Regional KMRs
     •  Projects and processes developed largely by the Information Operations V-Team and KM team
     •  Monthly IMO User Group Meeting
     •  Miscellaneous Teams chats/channels
     •  Centers of Excellence – i.e., Power Platform CoE
     •  Higher command Knowledge Management Working Groups (KMWG)

Files linked within the newsletter that may be shared Army-wide will be stored and linked from the newsletter document library. Note that not everyone with access to the newsletter document library will have access to the rest of the RNEC SPO site. 

A key factor in the success of any newsletter is whether people actually read it. Though the content of a newsletter may be useful, interesting, accurate, and clearly communicated, none of this matters if nobody sees it. This emphasizes the role that people play within knowledge management, arguably the most important part of a KM program. Without people to give meaning to information, it would be meaningless.

To encourage others to read The Southeast Scoop publications, we must make it easy and widely accessible. We accomplish this by sending each publication directly to the reader’s inbox, as well as posting on the regional SharePoint Online site. What’s more important, however, is that people become personally invested in reading the newsletter each month.

A few ways to do so are to include employee shoutouts, pictures of teams and events, hosting a best dad joke contest, etc. Obtaining this information may often include reaching out to others directly. People enjoy celebrating others within their organization, having a sense of being “in the know”, and reading light-hearted commentary to break up the mundane. Once a reader gains something from the newsletter, they are more likely to read future publications in hopes of getting something out of it, and they may just be inspired enough to submit contributions themselves. Thus, it is especially vital to carefully select content that is pertinent to our counterparts across the region even after they become personally invested.

Publishing
The Southeast Scoop is published once a month on the last business day of the month. If the last business day of the month falls on a holiday or on a day that many people within the organization are likely to take leave, the newsletter may be published beforehand. On the day of publishing, Info Ops V-Team will ensure that the newsletter is posted on the SE RNEC SharePoint Online site in the locations outlined below prior to being emailed out to the region. Publishing the newsletter will take place before noon on the day of publishing.

SharePoint Online
The newsletter is published monthly in several locations on the NIPR SE RNEC SharePoint Online (SPO) site.

The Regional Newsletter Repository page is the primary home of all past and present publications. The file and media webpart at the top of this page is updated each month with the latest newsletter publication to replace the previous month’s edition.

Additionally, the hero webpart in the top right of the repository page will be updated with the previous month’s pdf version of the newsletter. The previous month’s publication will be added to the hero webpart so that it is positioned as the first slide in the hero carousel. The new slide’s header will state the month and year of the corresponding newsletter with naming convention “[Month] [Year] News” (i.e., August 2025 News) and call to action text of “Read now!”. Note that the hero webpart has a maximum limit of slides; the slide containing the oldest publication will be deleted.

The newsletter document library, RegionalNewsletter _TheSoutheastScoop, is embedded within the repository page. A new folder with naming convention [Month][Year] (i.e., August2025) is created for each newsletter to contain all applicable resources relating to that month’s edition. The corresponding folder will be updated each month with the pdf
version of the newsletter. This file location may be used to update the hero carousel mentioned above and is the preferred method to ensure version control.

The newsletter is also updated on the RNEC SPO Visitor page each month using the file and media webpart. The Visitor page permissions allow read access via the ‘everyone except external users’ SharePoint group (i.e., Army-wide read access). The most recent newsletter publication will replace the previous edition embedded within the page. The Visitor page also contains a link to the Regional Newsletter Repository page so that site visitors may browse previous publications.
Additionally, a news webpart is embedded throughout several site pages, such as the site home page, division pages, and v-team pages. This news webpart advertises the Regional Newsletter Repository page for quick access by end users.
The Southeast Scoop repository is also linked in the site navigation on the 93d Signal Brigade Knowledge Management site.

Email Distribution
The Southeast Scoop is distributed via email on the day of publication to the sernec_all@army.mil distribution list. This distribution list contains all users within the southeast region and is updated via Power Automate flow based on the personnel lists managed by Information Operations V-Team on the regional SPO site.

The “SE RNEC Regional News” A365 Group will be CC’d on the email. This allows users to quickly know what email to use to contact the newsletter team for story submissions, feedback, comments, etc.

The “SE RNEC Newsletter Mailing List” A365 Group will be BCC’d on the email. This group is intended for users who may fall outside of the RNEC organization who have requested to receive the regional newsletter via email.