Giving OSI a Stronger Voice Across NASA

The Office of Strategic Infrastructure resides within NASA's Mission Support Directorate. Based at NASA Headquarters, it includes the agency's Environmental Management Division, Facilities and Real Estate Division, Logistics Management Division, and Space Environment Testing Management Office. OSI assures that the right infrastructure is available to meet the agency’s mission requirements. Its work reaches across all 14 NASA centers and specialty components.

When I first arrived, OSI reminded me of a giant octopus, with tentacles reaching far and wide across the agency. Yet few people understood its reach or its impact on the NASA mission. That's where I came in.

OSI's communications were fragmented. Information lived across multiple Microsoft SharePoint sites, while a quarterly newsletter created by a third-party contractor arrived as a PDF attachment that was easy to overlook in a busy inbox. The design and storytelling were inconsistent with NASA style, and the content lacked a clear editorial strategy.

The more I reflected on OSI's impact, the more I realized it deserved more than a quarterly PDF sent to a limited audience. It needed a central destination that made its work easy to discover and accessible across the agency.

I redesigned the main OneNASA Community site to serve as a communications hub, with links to OSI's four subdivisions, dedicated news sections, and an area highlighting employee accomplishments. To complement the change, I transformed the quarterly newsletter into a news bulletin featuring clickable headlines and one-sentence teasers, allowing readers to choose which stories to explore at their own pace. For the employee spotlights, I created trivia questions pulled directly from each article to encourage readers to learn more about their colleagues.

The new communications strategy transformed the way OSI shared its work. Topic submissions more than doubled, growing from eight stories in the first bulletin to 17 by the third edition. The increase was so significant that I split the third edition into two bulletins to keep the content concise and easy to digest. Each publication also drove a substantial increase in SharePoint traffic, creating a lasting home for OSI's stories and making them easier to discover across the agency. Today, OSI has a stronger voice across NASA, and the people who do the great work get the visibility they deserve.