We're moving into the Halls of Power

Consolidating my newsletters into one easy place

Welcome and apologies for not writing much recently. The reason is that I’ve got a new company - with its own newsletter and podcast - that has been taking up most of my time. To streamline things, I’m going to be merging the two into one. You don’t have to do anything for it. I’ll move the mailing list over and it will continue to be free. But I wanted to take a moment to explain the backstory of why we’re doing this.

From consulting to software

The day-to-day of political risk is generally about writing reports.

They can be long reports, short reports, briefings, memos, intelligence updates, etc. But basically we think about what’s happening in the world, we digest it, and then we tell what we think to our boss/clients/audience. It can often feel like a cross between a journalist, consultant, or intelligence analyst.

While I was working in this field, I started to move away from this model by teaching workshops. I realized that no matter how accurate my reports were, my clients were still doing a lot of analysis themselves. By showing them the best techniques for forecasting or anticipating changes in the political environment, we could help them achieve their goals without an executive summary or a slide deck.

Then I joined a ballot campaign in Massachusetts trying to pass electoral reforms.

It would be an understatement to say that it was a turbulent ride. We had highs of a successful hearing at the State House and the lows of losing by 11 points. But one thing that I saw in the world of state government was just how busy everyone was.

It wasn’t a normal level of busy, like what I had seen in my previous jobs. People in the State House, on the campaign, and in other organizations were all struggling to keep up with the constant flow of information coming at them. They had emails from constituents and notes from meetings and policy briefs from advocates. They were juggling meetings and huge contact lists and volunteers.

My consultant experience told me that these people needed help to get through the day, but I also knew they didn’t need yet another report to read. They needed a way to manage all of their office’s information while keeping up with what was happening out there in the world. They, in short, needed an app.

Startup and stories

So I decided to launch a startup to address this problem of informational overload and sprawl in the policy and political ecosystem. It’s a bit of a mix between Substack, Salesforce, and Slack - a way to manage notes, follow issues, and share your own thoughts. It even has an email integration, too. It’s also free to sign up for at app.legislata.com.

To support that project, we decided to create a newsletter and podcast that is the kind that we would advertise on if it existed. We called it Halls of Power and it has stories and advice on working in this world. The goal is to be something like How I Built It, but for public service.

If you found this newsletter interesting for pulling the curtain back on life on political careers, then you’ll really enjoy Halls of Power. And we’ll still have innovative looks at what’s happening in politics, like this one comparing presidential candidates’ email signup forms.

As a note, the Two Lanterns Political Risk Academy is still up and running, and I’m still working on political risk consulting projects (under the Legislata brand now), so please reach out if you want to know more about how to better forecast what’s coming around the political corner.

Hope you enjoy our new direction. And if you want to try out the Legislata platform, it’s completely free to sign up.

Thanks,
Chris