The community got together for a workshop to talk about our vision. It was a small group, but that was beneficial in itself.
There were some great contributions. We didn’t settle on a final vision, but I’ll be sharing the ideas so far with the broader community on Basecamp for us to refine them and get more input.
Hi Mike here! Last week we decided as a team that the monthly comms show and tell should focus on the success and learnings of our recent user-centred design (UCD) lunch and learn campaign. Now as the comms lead on this particular piece of work, it was my job to summarise this 3 month campaign into a nicely packaged 45 minute session for our internal staff. No easy task! I had some great data and insights on the engagement and impact of the campaign but the important thing I wanted to get across for this session was how we worked with the brand new UCD team to design and deliver this particular campaign:
What was the production process? What internal comms channels did we use to communicate? Were there any challenges or stumbling blocks? Anything you would do differently next time?
By the end of the show and tell, I think we just about managed to cover all this and more. And what I hope the CDPS staff took away from this session was a better understanding of what it’s like to work with the comms team and how every individual can make a valuable contribution to the success of a campaign.
This week it felt like I was full in presenter mode and on this occasion I was asked to present our new events code of conduct and speaker policy to all staff at our monthly Neuadd y Dref (town hall) meeting. We have lots of new staff coming onboard, so it was important everyone is aware of the culture we are trying to build here at CDPS and the policies we have in place to make sure we adopt best practice and run due diligence when it comes to things like equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI). External speaking opps and events is something that definitely falls into this category. What came out of this session was a request from staff for a central place to log any invitations and requests we get to attend, speak or exhibit at external events. Within 24 hours an external events Slack channel was set-up and is already starting to be used and populated by staff. I have also used this channel to pin our latest code of conduct policy, so very much a win-win and shows how quickly things can be set-up when you have robust and secure digital platforms in place.
The first in a series of webinars looking at how the Office for National Statistics designed and delivered a digital first census took place on Thursday. It was really well attended with 31 attendees from organisations including Powys Teaching Health Board, Natural Resources Wales, Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council, Wrexham County Borough Council, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service and Welsh Government.
Missed out? You can catch up on the main points in this Twitter thread.
Our next webinar is on Thursday 27 April and will look at how ONS gathered and processed data.
https://twitter.com/mike_erskine_pr/status/1648974617346727936
Gem here! I represented CDPS at a Women in Tech network event in London. I was out of my comfort zone but I absolutely loved it. The event focused on how companies can support women in returning to the tech industry. I wouldn’t consider myself as working in tech but I work for a fully remote digital organisation so brought a different perspective to the panel. I spoke of the way CDPS is aiming to ‘do things differently’ with our forward-thinking policies. I spoke of how our flexible working policy supports me as a parent, how we’ve got a Period and Menopause Policy to support women long-term and also shared how I embrace our good meetings policy and do things ‘on the go’ by holding walking meetings. It was such a good experience for me personally, I think I will cringe when I look at the recording but it is an area I am really passionate about and I am grateful I had the opportunity to share my story and insights as a working female.
Following the event I ‘practised what I preached’ and posted about having a walking meeting whilst heading back on the tube. It was really well received on LinkedIn and I had some great comments. It was nice being able to share our working practices and I hope I inspired others to do things differently:
