What’s Awesome About Gov.UK

Posted on February 1, 2012 by JoannaH

The UK government have just launched launched the beta of their GOV.UK site, which is the first step towards creating a single website for information on public services and will eventually replace Directgov, which launched in 2004. The beta stage invites users feedback on whether it’s more efficient and easier to navigate than Directgov, as well as suggestions on how it can be made more user-friendly.

So, What’s Awesome About It?

  • Better design. Not only is it less orange, the prominence of searching, categories and popular links in the design make it much easier to find what you’re looking for (reducing time taken to complete a task by a third). They’ve even included a handy tour of the new site to help unfamiliar users, as well as showcasing the UI improvements.
  • It’s open source. We’re big fans of open source at Delib. The code for GOV.UK is available on Github.
  • The integration of geo-tools. The new site allows users to set their location so the site can be customised to show information about local services.
    We like geo-tools: Jess has recently blogged about how Delib uses geo-tools in our Citizen Space app to help users can find consultations which are relevant to them.
  • It’s predicted to save public money. The Financial Times has reported that millions could be saved if the new site can help reduce the calls to government call centres, which cost an average of £6.28 each. Better service + less cost = win for government.

With some further usability tweaks which feedback from the beta will provide, GOV.UK will (hopefully) become an example of how to provide a user-friendly and cost-efficient online hub of information about public services which can be adopted by other governments. It’s also nice to see the UK government leading the way :D

The GDS team (the team who built the service) are looking for feedback on how the site can be improved, which can be provided through Get Satisfaction, Twitter or via email.

What is GOV.UK slideshare (1)

View more presentations from UK Government Digital Service
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5 Interesting Links about Police Authorities and Elected Commissioners

Posted on January 31, 2012 by BenF

Police Authorities are going through an era of unprecedented change, and the challenges faced by those working within them are numerous.  Ever since the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill was first announced people inside and outside authorities have been trying to ascertain what all of this will actually mean in real terms.  I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look at some of the many articles and blogs which discuss the challenges and opportunities faced, whilst also casting an eye over some of the interesting work that is being undertaken currently.

The Guardian posted this article last week looking at some of the issues around transferring power, and the less than visible public nature of Police Authorities as they currently exist.

As the volume of noise around Police Commissioners builds, somewhat inevitably candidates have begun to poke their heads above the parapet.  This piece from Channel 4 suggests a few, namely New Labour dinosaurs, who are out for another crack of the whip.

The BBC also stuck their oar in last week with a look at the balancing act between occupying a political position and maintaining a supposedly neutral stance.  It also raises a lot of concerns as to the nature of manifesto promises against operational needs.

If you work in a Police Authority, or indeed any aspect of the emergency services, why not share your misgivings, challenges, and even dare I say it, positive experiences with others who work in similar roles?  On Sunday the 15th of April BlueLightCamp will be happening in Manchester, an ‘unconference’ style event allowing attendees to pitch sessions of their own design.  If it’s anything like UkGovCamp12 it’ll be well worth attending.

And what about Police Authorities who are already doing things well and preparing for a change of leadership?  One of our recent blog posts covers just that, looking at the way Avon and Somerset Police Authority have utilised their instance of Citizen Space to tie together all of their consultation activity.

Finally, why not take a look at how Police Authorities have used our Budget Simulator to help engage stakeholders more effectively around their budget consultation?  It’s had many happy users which you can read more about here.

Avon & Somerset Police Authority Fridge Magnets

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How Young People Use The Internet

Posted on January 30, 2012 by JoannaH

In 2007, I was interviewed by a colleague in order to compile a blog post on ‘How Teenagers Use The Internet.’ It effectively served as my response to an article making the rounds at the time: a briefing paper on how teenagers consumed media that was written by a 15-year-old intern at Morgan Stanley. My response was complete with grammar errors and all sorts of crimes against the English language. (In my defence, I was unaware that what I wrote would be copied and pasted onto the blog in its entirety. Apparently it added to its “authenticity” of the content being from a teenager).

Yet, despite the post now being several years old, it still attracts a significant amount of traffic from Google searches. Therefore, I thought it was about time to try and update what I would see as *typical* media consumption for a young person in the UK at the moment, based on my own observations of the behaviour of my peers. There’s a particular emphasis on how young people are using the internet instead of ‘traditional’ media channels.

Internet:

  • Facebook is easily the preferred social network of young people. An interesting statistic is that the Electoral Commission have said twice as many 18-year-olds use Facebook (1,050,000) than are registered to vote (520,000). It’s also the first point of call for the procrastinating student.
  • Facebook groups and events are the most common way to organise societies and social events. Also many students form private Facebook groups to organise meet-ups and share information for group projects at university.
  • Twitter is also becoming increasingly popular, yet the majority do not have it or actively use it. Of those that do, there tends to be two types of regular user – those who use it as a form of expressing what they are thinking/doing and those who use it more to ‘follow’/engage with people of interest (celebrities, journalists etc.) and share interesting links/blog posts.
  • YouTube is the main website used to stream short videos such as music videos and virals/memes, but not for watching TV shows (see Television section below).

Television:

  • Television is only really used to watch a specific program – it’s no longer used to try and cure boredom (the Internet or games consoles tend to fulfill that role)
  • Of those who watch TV shows, they will tend to switch to another channel during an advert break.
  • BBC iPlayer and 4oD are frequently being used instead of watching live TV as the show can be viewed at any time (therefore accommodating the often nocturnal nature of a young person) and it avoids the expense/hassle of paying a TV license.
  • Those who watch American shows (Dexter, Desperate Housewives etc.) will tend to stream them online on sites offering similar services to the now defunct Megavideo and TV Shack, generally because the latest episodes are available in the US before the UK.

Newspapers:

  • My general observation is that the majority of young people don’t read a newspaper regularly. This mirrors trends such as those found in America, where a 2009 Pew Research Survey claimed only 20% of 18-24 years were said to have read a newspaper the day before the survey, the lowest of all the age categories.
  • Of the very few that do, I’ve noticed the most popular is the ‘i’ from the Independent, which is seen as concise and affordable (20p), although nobody I know buys it on a daily basis.
  • Many will use the internet instead of a newspaper to learn about current affairs, with BBC News seeming most popular website.
  • A fairly new trend is using newspaper applications on Facebook (The Guardian and the Independent are most popular) which publishes what new stories they’ve read online onto Facebook. The overwhelming majority of the stories read are ‘student related’ (e.g. news on the graduate job market, tips for undergraduates) and often the articles are from several years ago (as the app does not specify when the article was published).

Cinema:

  • Young people do still go to the cinema to watch films they are interested in, although you’ll be unlikely to find students there on a day other than a Wednesday (taking the advantage of the 2 for 1 Orange Wednesdays promotion), as the cinema is relatively expensive and many will have to use public transport to get to one.

Devices:
Mobile Phones:

  • The majority of young people I know have a smartphone, either an Android (generally a HTC), iPhone or Blackberry.
  • In terms of gender, Blackberrys seem to be more popular amongst females, with the majority of Android users being male and the iPhone seeming to appeal to both genders.

Computers

  • The majority of young people who are students will at least one laptop or netbook, as they’re needed to take to the library to work or to type lecture notes as opposed to hand writing them.
  • Apple Macs are becoming increasingly popular with students because of the discounts they give to students (between 10 to 15% depending on models), with Macbook Airs and Pros being the most popular (because of their portability). Yet the overwhelming majority will use Windows laptops because they are cheaper and are more used to the operating system and programs.

And Finally…

If anyone would like some more clarification on anything I’ve posted or to ask me anything on young people’s media consumption or internet usage, feel free to leave a comment or contact me on Twitter (@Joannaaa).

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Gov Camp 2012 – 15 take home pointers

Posted on January 23, 2012 by RowenaF

GovCamp 2012 was awesome. With two days of packed and uber interesting un-conference style talks, coupled with an opportunity to talk to and debate with a whole host of varied people, the event was truly worth working on a Saturday for ;) .

In a true round-up style I thought I would go for a nice take-home-pointers blog post.

5 things we learnt from meeting people:

  1. Best practice needs to be shared more. We need to build a greater network of conversation and trust.
  2. Consultation needs to be fluid. Statutory rules on consultation may be too rigid?
  3. Digital maturity is varied within organisations. Recognising this both internally and externally is key.
  4. We need to find and target key nodes within a network. Once we have recognised this we can start to connect people. Connecting people leads to better governance.
  5. Is digital by default over-rated? One camper mentioned heralding The WI as a key player.  Grounding consultation in a digital age is still important.

5 things we learnt from the awesome un-conference sessions:

  1. ‘Radical’ websites should become the norm and designed from the bottom up. We need to start looking at websites in terms of what people actually want. We like Utah and Calgary who both use clean and user friendly search portals as their home page sites.
  2. Agile working methods are awesome. We should move away from ‘black-boxing development’.  Agile methods should be heralded as the norm.
  3. Don’t forget the end user. We need to advocate a culture of starting with the end user when designing websites and consultation questions. 
  4. Manage expectations within consultations. People need to have context and a reasonable set of boundaries.
  5. Sites need to be streamlined and simplified. As one camper mentioned “portals can end up being a hungry mouth which needs feeding information”.

5 things we would like to see next time:

  1. More real life examples on how to apply things in practice. Examples help people go away from Govcamp and start putting their thoughts into practice.
  2. Further examination of bottom up thinking – where does the user journey start and how can we get back to this point?
  3. More focus on futurology - what will our digital environment look like in 5-10 years? What counts as digital literacy and how can we aid this?
  4. How can we connect the feedback loops? How does the nature of decisions change as a result of consultation.
  5. How can we promote buy-in and the awesomeness of digital. Practical tips for spreading the word need to be advocated.

The two day event certainly prompted some take home thoughts – if I am honest this blog post started off as a small essay; I have trimmed it for snappy readers. Thanks to Dave Briggs and Steph Gray for making such event possible and happen :)

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How to run your whole consultation process using Citizen Space

Posted on January 20, 2012 by ChrisQ

You may or may not know that Citizen Space is used to run some of the most high-profile consultations in the UK in the last few years. I won’t bore you with reasons why Citizen Space is so good for these kinds of consultation – it’s just good at its job. What I did want to share are some tips on how Citizen Space and related Delib services can be used to make running large scale / important consultations better.

Importantly, key things I wanted to pick up on was how Citizen Space can be used as a hub where consultation teams can manage their whole consultation process through – including bringing together both offline and online feedback together, so you’ve got all your consultation data in one place – enabling you to be more organised, and allowing you to more easily and quickly analyse and report your consultation findings.

Here’s a quick overview of how Citizen Space could help you do this:

Policy_consultation_process

As noted above, the key parts of the consultation process Citizen Space can help improve are:

  • Collaborative drafting: draft your consultation questions together with colleagues, and allow others to edit and update – showing how the consultation questionnaire would look and work but in a closed secure online space (rather than endlessly sharing word documents between your team!)
  • Publish your online consultation and supporting documents in an interactive format: Citizen Space allows you to upload all your consultation documents in one place, alongside your consultation survey – allowing stakeholders to read background information and feedback easily at the same time.
  • Ongoing management and tracking: once your consultation’s underway and people are feeding back, you can keep an eye on the results as they come in, and do quick analysis any time during the process.
  • Collating online and offline feedback together: one of the big challenges in managing a consultation process is that you’ll often get feedback from stakeholders in different formats: e.g. paper surveys, emails, .pdfs, comments from events. What Citizen Space allows you to do is collate all feedback from whatever format (once transcribed) into one central database, so that you can then analyse all the feedback quickly and easily. The system also provides each feedback record with a Unique ID, so that all records are easily tracked. Delib also provide *transcription services*, to help you transcribe feedback from different formats into a digital format.
  • Analysis and reporting: finally, at the end of the process you can easily analyse all the data you’ve collated using Citizen Space. Additionally, we can provide a 3rd Party analysis and reporting service from YouGov if you’d prefer 3rd party validation.

So, there you go! Hopefully that gives a good overview of how Citizen Space can be used to help ensure you run robust and pain-free consultation processes. If you’ve got any questions, just drop us a note: info@Delib.net

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Tips on how to develop up your online engagement capacity

Posted on January 19, 2012 by ChrisQ

When you’ve been used to running all your engagement processes in a more traditional way – for example, town hall meetings and postal surveys – the idea of *going virtual*, and starting to run online engagement exercises can be quite a scary prospect.

Although the Delib team are 100% geeky digital natives, we do understand the engagement landscape and the need to integrate online and offline to create the most effective multi-channel mix.  After all, not everyone in the world are Angry Birds champions!

So, to help government organisations make that transition from offline to online (multi-channel), we’ve developed up some quick tips as to how to develop up your online engagement capacity (see below).

I suppose one of the key points to make is that online and offline aren’t mutually exclusive.  In particular there are two great ways online and offline can merge and help each other:

  1. Management / organisation / data storage: using a consultation management system like Citizen Space allows you to organise and manage all your consultations (across your organisation) in one place.  Databases / calendars, enable citizens and staff to understand when consultations are taking place, and also provide a useful data record / archive of past consultations and their outcomes.
  2. Using Apps in live events: possibly more exciting, is the use of online apps in live events.  Both the Dialogue App and Budget Simulator are both used regularly by our clients in town hall meetings, to help facilitate open community dialogue.

More tips and tricks below!

Consultation Infrastructure Tips

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An interview with Delib’s new Australian consultant: Verne

Posted on January 12, 2012 by ChrisQ

It’s always nice to welcome new people into the Delib family. The most recent addition to our Australian team is Verne Krastins – an extremely experienced engagement consultant based in Victoria, and a keen guitarist (which is obviously of equal importance!).

As a quick introduction to Verne, we thought it would be a good idea to do a quick interview with him – so here you go:

Delib: When did you first use the internet, and what did you use it for?

VK: My first job in local government communications coincided with me and the internet. Councils in Victoria were amalgamated in 1994, bringing about major investment in communications infrastructure in the new bigger organisations. Then there was the Cluetrain Manifesto a few years later.

Delib: What’s the most awesome difference you’ve made to the community through your engagement work?

VK: I can’t imagine one person can make a lasting difference without others taking over the reigns at some stage. Unfortunately, sustainable engagement is not well done by governments. I’m proud of my part in the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games – I directed a many layered year long community engagement campaign to connect the sectors, and broker them doing things together.

Delib: What’s your top community engagement tip?

VK: Be clear what the engagement is for, and what you’re going to do afterwards with (1) the information, and (2) the relationships, connections and databases created along the way. I’d also add that community engagement is marketing in disguise.

Delib: Who’s your hero [and why]?

VK: I have many. Frank Zappa (musical genius and satarist), Erwin Schrödinger (he described my favourite concepts, and a fellow theoretical biologist), Salvador Dali (turned me into a part time artist), and of course Jules Verne (who gave me SciFi, and my name).

Delib: What’s your favourite internet meme / phenomenon?

VK: Convergence. The day is coming when we’ll have a device in our pocket that does everything, foldable, expandable to whatever screen size you want, phone/computer. Social networks will have effectively collapsed into me-at-centre.

—-

We’re in the process of fully setting Verne up on our various systems, so once he’s fully up and running we’ll share details more widely.  Exciting times ;-)

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A very merry Melbourne Christmas

Posted on December 22, 2011 by ChrisQ

Travelling around Australia for the last few weeks has been pretty awesome fun. Obviously the sun has been a massive bonus, especially compared to the freezing cold of London I’d usually be facing at this time of year.

That said, I did find the idea of Christmas in the sun a wee bit of an odd one – this oddness was especially amplified by the festive decorations e.g. the sight of Father Christmas with his sleigh heading through Melbourne’s CBD in 30 degree heat. Though, when I stumbled across Jesus in his manger in Christmas Square it did make me think that given Jesus was born in a hot and sunny Bethlehem maybe a sunny Melbourne Christmas was more aligned to reality than a snowy London Christmas.

Anyway, amidst all these random thoughts I decided to create a photo tour of Melbourne’s Christmas decorations. So here you go . . . and have a great Christmas from everyone at Delib UK and Delib Australia ;-)

Fed Square’s Christmas tree forest
photo

Christmas carol concert in Fed Square School

Shooting star lights over Flinders Street
photo

Jesus in his manger in Christmas square
photo

 

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Five useful links for the new look NHS

Posted on December 15, 2011 by GillC

I speak to a lot of health care professionals about stakeholder engagement. The overwhelming problem faced by many in the NHS is the new engagement strategies needed by the GP Consortiums. I’ve gathered some helpful links to assist those re-thinking their Public and Patient Engagement strategies.

With all the uncertainty in the current state of health reforms, it is good to know that the NHS alliance is championing the cause of the GP Consortium.

A very real concern of many  health care professionals is how to engage all stakeholders, something Journalista has blogged about very well.

The Guardian have published a rather interesting article about the NHS use of Twitter and Facebook, which is well worth a read.

The guys at RCGP Centre for Commissioning have developed a ‘Rough Guide to Engagement and Experience for GP Consortia’ on the emerging national framework governing patient interaction. As a starters guide it’s invaluable.

Finally, a word to Stockport Clinical Commissioning Partnership who are using our very own Citizen Space to consult with the public. It’s great to see it working so well.

We’re speaking to lots of NHS organisations who want to engage more effectively with their stakeholders. If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of using Citizen Space, please get in touch or request a demo

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Angry Government (how government can learn from Angry Birds)

Posted on December 8, 2011 by ChrisQ

Last night I was given the opportunity to present at a *digital democracy meet-up* in Melbourne.  I very much subscribe to the belief in *giving* when it comes to speaking at events – the theory being, if X number of people (30 in last night’s case) have given up an hour of their valuable time to come and listen to me speak, then I am duty bound to share interesting insights that they (hopefully) didn’t know before.

So, in this instance, given Melbourne’s reputation as being a creative hub, I put together a talk called *Angry Government* – sharing thoughts on how government can learn from Angry Birds.

The basic tenet of my chat was pretty simple:  if Angry Birds is the most engaging / addictive thing on the internet, then how can government learn from the game (and online gaming in general) to engage better with citizens.

For those that missed my chat, here’s my short slide deck / notes I presented:
Angry Government

The basis of my thinking is all games are based around the same core drivers.  If you analyse these, you can then (fairly easily) apply these drivers to government engagement / consultation.

Importantly, implementing these drivers into government engagement work doesn’t have to be complicated and require high-levels of gaming technology.  Most of the drivers are pretty *soft touch* – i.e. are based around things like how to phrase a question (e.g. turning it into a community challenge) or ways of setting the narrative of the process (e.g. by using video / rich media).

That said, if you do want to be more creative and invest in technology to take your engagement to the next level you can – and we have.   An extreme example of this is our My2050 project for DECC around engaging UK citizens in CO2 emission targets, and on a less ambitious level is our Budget Simulator app that let’s local government consult on their budgets using a simulation process and our Dialogue App – for community crowd-sourcing.

photo

(photo from last night’s event in Melbourne)

@DelibThinks

 

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