Today sees the beginning of Digital Fortnight within BIS. And to make things more interesting it’s running from Wednesday to Wednesday. We’re quite fond of the posters that internal comms colleagues produced for us.
We’re very much stressing the links with open policy making and the recent Civil Service Capability plan. So, today we’re also launching our guidance on using digital in support of open policy making, showing how digital engagement can be used in a wide range of roles that policy makers find themselves in. We’ll blog on that guidance separately.
And to reinforce the message that the best policy makers are digitally-enabled, we’ve asked a few to take part in an inspirational video showcasing some of the great activity that’s already taking place across the Department. We’ll be releasing extended versions of these video case studies (exclusively) on Yammer each day as well. Hopefully they’ll show some real senior staff commitment (many of our cases are Director Level and above), and they neatly reinforce a lot of the messages that we put forward in the guidance.
So what else will we be covering during the two weeks? We’ll have
- A session (today!) with Demsoc’s Anthony Zacharzewski on open policy making.
- 5 x 90 minute sessions for staff who want to take their first digital steps, see what makes good digital content, and learn how they could use digital in their day jobs.
- A more advanced session for people already using digital engagement channels.
- A digital surgery dedicated to the work of some of our case studies.
- Sessions for individual teams
Our regular digital surgeries will also be taking place in their normal Wednesday morning slot.
We’re also delighted that Consumer Affairs and Employment Minister Jo Swinson will be our guest for a digital lunch session, explaining her use of digital, and hopefully giving an insight into how Ministers might want more policy makers to go digital.
We’re not just focusing on digital engagement, though, but showcasing some of the other excellent work that’s happening as BIS continues its implementation of our Digital Strategy. So we have:
- Roo Reynolds talking about GOV.UK
- A BIS exemplar project (the Insolvency Service)
- How one transactional agency is using agile project management
Already it looks like we have reached out beyond the “low hanging fruit” (those who have already done something digital) to those whom we haven’t yet worked with. We’ve noticed that some of the same people keep coming along to our sessions – but don’t actually do anything as a result. While enthusiasm and building awareness is great, it’s not that impressive if nothing happens as a result. So, we’ll be encouraging our attendees to take some positive action.
We’ll be using a number of measures to evaluate whether the fortnight’s been a success or not, including:
- Number of sign ups to sessions
- The number of new people coming along to sessions
- New projects resulting
And of course we’ll blog on that once the fortnight’s complete. We’ll also let how you know how we’re getting on each day through our Pinterest board.