Weeknotes S01E05 — embargoed
Hi, I didn’t do weeknotes last week because the main thing I wanted to tell you about was embargoed until what was supposed to be last Tuesday. We STILL aren’t allowed to tell you. I’m pretty sure that Brexit is involved — no surprise there. Keep your fingers crossed for me for THIS Tuesday!
One embargo has gone though — we are out of consultation , so I can share that in December my team will have the Business Partners join us. I’m really pleased. They are an excellent team of hard working, dedicated and fun people. It means that all the people I manage have got working with services as a top priority. We will be focused on User needs and forming positive and collaborative stakeholder relationships. We will also be moving from being called the Digital Design team to the User Centred Design team. Thank you to everyone who helped me think about this change in this twitter thread:
The other change is that rather that User Centred Design Manager, my title is going to be User Centred Design Lead. We had some chats about this as I was a bit worried about council types who love a bit of hierarchy reading it as lower down the pecking order than it is. Much as we love flattening hierarchy in CDS, the move to networking can be a little slower elsewhere. I need to meet heads of service regularly and I need them to listen. My job is a lot of relationship management with senior stakeholders.The hierarchy of titles goes Chief Exec -Exec Director — Director — Head of Service — Manager — Team Leader. Inside the organisation the word “lead” might well be interpreted to mean less superiority. Outside it definitely means more! Isn’t that interesting? I’ve decided screw it I will just go with the cool title and explain that I report directly to the Chief Digital Officer if I need to :)
The team have done a cracking job on our website alpha. The Adult social care pages are really taking shape. You can see before and after examples of one of the pages in our blogpost:
I’ve been helping a friend with her website over the weekend and getting it right becomes obsessive! I’ve found making the SEO scores turn from red to green addictive — the little serotonin pings you get just like a “like” on social media for getting passive voice below 10%. It has given me more insight into how absorbing making website content good becomes. No wonder the content designers get so into perfecting each section. It’s tough to have to decide what to move and what to improve so that we stay on schedule. Hats off to them.
I’m excited that as from Friday we have now recruited to all our Product Manager roles too. The delivery and product people are all starting between a week and a month’s time. We can’t wait to have more experienced agile hands on deck. There is an air of anticipation building!
Of course one other thing you might have heard happened in the Cronx was Banksy’s Gross Domestic Product pop-up storefront. It really was pretty incredible. Photos and video on instagram here.
Croydon’s image doesn’t match its reality. #Croydonisrising and deservedly so. We have had a harder time recruiting people than I had imagined given it’s well placed location for commuting. I’m glad I am now one of the people in the know and am determined to spread the word!
