Day 153 – 9 September 2014
The news is filled with talk of Scottish independence. The referendum is only a week away. The whole thing reminds me of the book ‘Nudge’ which told the reader that the answer you get can be influenced by the way that the question is asked. People can be nudged into responding in a different way. Even a binary question like yes or no is interesting. Yes is full of positivity, it is a way forward while no is a negative word, filled with denial and prevention.
We’ll soon know the outcome but it is going to be interesting for the North East. A yes by the Scots would change the political dimension of our country and could lead to a greater perceived distance between us and the centre of government.
Back to reality. This morning I attended a Digital Transformation Leadership workshop arranged by the Association of North East Councils at Sunderland Civic Centre. It’s a long time since I’ve been there and the first time I’ve been in their chamber. It is a fantastic brick edifice, very much of its era. It’s interesting how each council chamber has its own look and feel.
The workshop was to provide a central and local government perspective on how councils are adopting digital delivery, which can improve customer experience and self-service, enhance democratic engagement and deliver cost savings. We got off to an auspicious start as we were fifty minutes late.
The first speaker, I didn’t catch his name but he was working for the UK Foreign Office in Turkey, described the government’s approach to digitising services. A service to transform is identified by its demand pattern including number of users and access times. From this a group is set up to identify areas for change and is then immersed in the customer experience. Only once they understand what the customer requires a timetable is agreed to make the necessary changes. It was a good description of an agile approach. Their slogan is to put in the hard work to make it easier for the customer. He also talked about social media and open data but I felt his message was lost on the audience.
The other speaker didn’t add much and I’m not sure I learnt anything new. The architecture of the building was the most exciting aspect of the morning. There’s a couple of hours I won’t get back.
In the afternoon I met up with our newest Head of Service. Jane, the Head of Commissioning in Children’s and Adults Services, replaced Nick who retired a month or so ago. Our business relies on relationships and it was nice to meet her even though she’d only been here a couple of weeks. We talked about application mapping, Digital Durham and Big Data. At this point I was expecting her eyes to glaze over but instead she got as excited as I did. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
Learning points for today: An interesting subject presented badly makes it very dull indeed; Council Chambers are designed for debate and not presentations; access to information can make it harder to find something and; in order to innovate you must take risk.
Today’s enjoyment rating 7/10 – hard to find any nuggets in the bottom of the pan although saved by my meeting with Jane.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 