where do good ideas come from

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Summary of She Says event August 2011 @ Saatchi & Saatchi

“ Tori Winn from iris up first @shesaysuk on #goodideas
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ Google where do #goodideas come from and watch film by Stephen via @shesaysuk
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ Ideas don’t behave. Come out of nowhere. Trust the process. Show up. Be generous. And collaborate. #goodideas
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ Good ideas come from a constantly refreshed perspective @toriwinn
shesaysuk
August 4, 2011
“ flotsam and jestsum then question gives you a focus and acts like a filter for your #goodideas
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ #goodideas come from problems via @shesaysuk
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ Next up Becky Power from Grand Union
shesaysuk
August 4, 2011
“ Light bulb moment is misleading. Takes focus and time for #goodideas cc @shesaysuk
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ #goodideas Becky Power says know your audience. Talk to them! What are they like, what do they think?
shesaysuk
August 4, 2011
“ Every brief is good brief. More restraints often lead to the best #goodideas #shesaysuk
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ Be a bit of actor – remember you aren’t finding an idea for you #goodideas
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ #goodideas @Sprinzette @madebymany Wr work in a radial way rather than linear. An idea can come from any of the many
shesaysuk
August 4, 2011
“ The lovely @anjali28 kindly posted my deck from yesterday’s @shesaysuk, with notes n all: Where do good ideas come from? http://madebymany.com/blog/nicki-sprinz-where-do-good-ideas-come-from
Sprinzette
August 5, 2011
“ #goodideas Now our last speaker Willow Tyrer
shesaysuk
August 4, 2011
“ Follow Willow at @vvillovv
shesaysuk
August 4, 2011
“ Villages have less disruptions = less ideas than those in cities with disruptions #goodideas
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ Extreme queuing in stolkholm – a way to get ahead in life… Or at least a queue #goodideas
spirals
August 4, 2011
“ And to those who want to get more of Stefan the interview is here: http://bit.ly/qVVCtB @shesaysuk
vvillovv
August 5, 2011

bringing your best self to work

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I haven’t really written very much about my UCLA course. But someone asked me about it recently so I thought I’d give a taster of some of the content.

The following video was part of the session on bringing your best self to work. It’s typically american and quite cheesy but some good take-out thoughts and themes if you make it to the end. Enjoy…

http://youtu.be/aM2-1qOp-_A

tales of single sign on

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SSO sounds like some sort of distress call. For a time I’m sure a few at BHF probably thought it was. A recent project to develop a single sign on (SSO) approach took quite some time and had it’s up’s and a large number of down’s. But the new BHF community is a testament to collaborative working to overcome issues, it’s also a testament to the value SSO brings.

It all started as a seedling of an idea in 2009 when it became clear to me that a toolbox made up of many different technology platforms was the ideal situation if only we could integrate the user journeys and the data behind the scenes. Why did I think this?

  • Avoiding over reliance on a single partner or platform.
  • Using the best tool for the job (by the time I left BHF we had; Magento for the shop, Drupal for the community and Alterian WCMS for the main site plus many other supporting tools).
  • Cost efficiencies of using out of the box functionality that might exist in one platform but not another.
  • Streamlining user journeys across sites – lessening confusion and drop off.

The first opportunity to use SSO was with Vielife who provided a lifestyle check tool. We implemented a SOAP based one-way sign-in to allow people to take the lifestyle check without having to re-type all their personal details. It took about 10 – 15 working days effort to put in place as Vielife had already built SSO connectivity into their platform – so we only had to create the Alterian WCMS end. It all worked very nicely!

Around a year later we decided to implement a Drupal platform for the new BHF community, with the plan that we would use this as an opportunity to build a standard two-way SSO layer to our technical architecture. This layer being the key to delivering on the ideal multi-platform approach in the future.

Following investigation by the two delivery partners (Sift and Positive Technology) and BHF IT it was decided to use SAML this time around. The core reason for this was the wider compatibility offered that would allow for future integrations (eg Magento). It was a challenging project for many reasons; multiple agencies, open source vs proprietary platforms, differing understanding of requirements, internal team changes and more. But we all learnt a lot along the way and came out with something that is beautifully simple as a product.

Would I do it again? Yes, and whenever I run a tender exercise in future I’ll always ask about examples of the platform in use with SSO (plus API‘s and Web Services) even if I don’t intend to make use of these at first.

I’ve only heard of one other UK charity making use of two-way SSO in their digital work. So if you have any SSO tales please do leave a comment – I’m sure there’s more I could learn!

getting more digital resources

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Let me get to the point – you will never have enough people in your digital team to do everything your charity needs to do digitally. There will always be something you don’t know and something that blows your ‘to do’ list out of the water.

So how do you get enough digital resource?

I completely advocate a hub and spoke model where shared ownership for delivery of digital activity sits across the entire organisation. This is enabled by a central digital team who develop and oversee a framework (tools, guides, training, processes etc) that empowers the whole organisation, a team who are able to drive a digital strategy and also trend spot for the next big thing. At times of course the central team will still have to knuckle down and deliver too.

So it’s rather convenient that my new role of Head of Digital Engagement for UNICEF UK comes with a recently formed and aptly named Digital hub team!

What are the benefits?

Spreading the work is of course the most obvious benefit but there’s a few others worth highlighting:

  • Subject matter experts become closer to the audience meaning more authenticity, more accuracy and more timeliness.
  • The whole organisation starts to think about digital as an embedded need, rather than an add-on which is rushed at the last moment.
  • Career development, lets face it everyone will need to know their digital stuff or risk being overtaken by digital natives who are joining the workforce.
  • Ideas, ideas, ideas. Fresh perspectives are the melting pot that generates new ideas. The more ‘spokes’ the more perspectives.
  • Cost efficiencies. Firstly there will be fewer middle men, less briefing more doing, a shorter chain of requests for delivery. Secondly, technology is addictive, once someone knows how make something easier with technology they’ll look for other things they can do this with, the digital bug can spread to internal working practices.

How do you achieve this model?

It can take a while to get this mindset and way of working spread through an organisation. After my three years at British Heart Foundation I think we were there with some teams and activities but still had work to do in to do in some areas. Getting there was a mixture of tactical development of the framework/s and individual confidence and skills, accompanied with strategic re-enforcement, sharing successes, learning and painting a picture of the future.

Of course there are pitfalls of this model. But I’m not sure any is significant enough to persuade me that the hub and spoke model isn’t what every organisation should be striving for. If you think I’m wrong – you know where the comments box is 🙂

when should you use a microsite?

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Microsites aren’t bad intrinsically – they’ve just often been a lazy (sometimes expensive) way to avoid integration considerations when delivering a campaign. Fortunately it seems the needless spawning of microsites has very much slowed as many brands have realised the same aims through social media and better use of their main sites. In fact it feels a bit old school to write about them but a recent experience has made it quite fresh for me.

While at BHF I worked very hard to streamline a vast number of microsites during my three years working there ( I think we went from around 30 sites to 6). I was really quite chuffed to have shifted the culture so much and saved vast amounts of money in doing so. But before I left we broke my no microsite policy for a campaign. So why did we break the rule?

Here’s a summary of the questions that made it happen. They might be useful as a decision discussion tool if you find yourself in a similar situation.

  • How distinct is the audience we’re trying to reach when compared to the main site?
  • Would the audience be distracted by other main site ‘furniture’ so much that the activity effectiveness is at threat?
  • Would the standard brand risk the effectiveness? i.e. put the target audience off? Or not fit with a big reveal tactic?
  • Is it jointly branded and not solely owned by the organisation?
  • Do we want to distance ourselves? And not get our existing audience engaged?
  • Do we foresee selling / passing on the activity to an outside agency / organisation in future?
  • Would the technology or messaging compromise the main site?
  • Would it be more cost-effective to use a different platform but stop being cost-effective when integration is considered?
  • How long will the website need to be available?
  • Are we prepared to accept the following impacts:
    • Burden of build and maintenance
    • Potentially less exposure over longer term
    • Establishing search footprint from scratch
    • Fragmentation and potential for confused user journeys
    • Potential reduced capitalisation of existing ambassadors.

So what happened after the campaign?

Exactly as expected, the microsite traffic plummeted, but we’d planned ahead and had our exit strategy ready. We’d purposely had assets designed with the main site in mind too – so we migrated the useful stuff to the main site, redirected the domain and called it a day.

coping with BHF’s biggest online event

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I’ve been reflecting on my last few months at BHF (I’ll be starting @UNICEF_UK on Monday 27 June 2011) and thought I’d share a big learning experience that will stay will me.

There is always a huge spike in bhf.org.uk traffic on the day that standard places are released for the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton Bike Ride. The first year we switched to online applications was 2009 and each year we learnt something new and tried different things to improve the process for our supporters.

In 2011 we tried using a virtual queue system. Unfortunately not everything went to plan and quite a number of people were left waiting for quite a few hours. Applications were getting through – just slower than expected because the queue was being over efficient (like a jobs worthy bouncer). After a few hours of this we decided to switch the queue off completely as we felt it was better to risk the site falling over than continue the frustration for everyone (ourselves included). By this point the traffic had lessened too – meaning we were more confident that the site would be able to cope (it did).

Here are a few entirely personal thoughts about what we learned:

Communications on the day:

  • Use social media and be transparent about the problems – people genuinely had more patience when they knew we were equally frustrated and working as hard as we could. My favourite thing was seeing a response which recognised the dilemma of balancing technology spend with charitable spend.
  • Instant messenger was good for keeping all the teams in touch with each other – but needs to be topped up with additional teleconference calls when quick decisions are needed.
  • Be clear about roles for the day and stick to them even when in a pressured situation – including who has the final say on various elements.

Tech:

  • There was lots of testing – but the wider stakeholder groups should have been involved in this earlier to ensure all scenarios were considered. Ideally involve a professional testing agency if you can afford it – it’ll pay off in the long run if everything goes smoothly even if it seems expensive at first.
  • Put tracking tags on everything – we didn’t tag the queue holding page to keep page weight low to lighten the load on the server but the info is far more valuable than you think and it’s worth the page weight.
  • Make sure all your relevant suppliers (web hosts, development team, credit card merchant etc) are on standby and have been engaged in designing the contingency plan, as well as the main delivery plan.

After the ‘storm’:

  • Establish a cross team comms and evaluation group which looks at everything objectively – throwing around blame risks things being swept under the carpet and reduces the potential for learning.
  • Collect as much data as possible as quickly as possible – some of it might expire and not be available forever, especially given the human tendency for forgetfulness.

What charities can learn from Twestival

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It’s been a little while since Twestival in March so I thought it was about time I penned a short blog piece on it.

I’d been aware of Twestival for a while and so when Amanda, Twestival’s founder, called out for volunteers with social media skills I jumped right in and offered my time.

I was one of around 15 people on the worldwide social media team- a few working in each country. We were there to take the pressure off the regional co-ordinators so they could work with each of the local cities in their region. It was a new role/team for Twestival and so it started off a little loose and ready to be shaped by everyone. But it was clear from the start that we were bubbling with ideas.

Harnessing it was harder as we were lacking definition and all looking to each other to make the first move. So it was great when one of the global Twestival team stepped in to give direction – he gave shape to our responsibilities and we agreed who was taking the lead on different things.

So how did it work?

  • Each channel was divided up to be led by a different person- the local city volunteers already run their own profiles while the UK national ones were covered by the social media team.
  • Each city received guidance and support from the rest of the Twestival collective through huddle.
  • We crowd sourced various strategies and documents amongst the social media team on huddle and skype chat. For example:
    • Our first skype chat resulted in the creation of incentives for cities for the first time – this being a tactic to get the most of social media chatter and produce great content eg best team photo and best logo.
    • A quick social media tips guide that covered comms, persuasion and bribery for attention- and social media fundraising tools
  • We continued to have regular skype or gotomeeting calls to keep in touch with what the next focus area should be and any things that need sorting out.

Learnings

What Twestival really demonstrates is the power of a loosely formed network connected together through social media. Success in this can only come from an organisation trusting the network and letting the network shape the activity rather than having a top down approach.

Completely unconnected to Twestival I’ve been reading some of the free MIT course notes and this quote really struck me:

“The rise of networks… means that conflicts may increasingly be waged by ‘networks’ perhaps more than by ‘heirachies’. It also means that whoever masters the network form stands to gain the advantage” – John Arquilla & David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars (Rand 2001).

This quote was in the context of Al Queda and conflict – but turning it on it’s head and thinking about it in the context of doing good works just as well, and Twestival proves it.

So I absolutely and totally agree with Cian’s blog post which has some great references on networks. This digest of how the Plymouth City Twestival engaged volunteers is also pretty insightful too.

QR codes are rubbish

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QR codes are those funny looking squares of black and white that have started to crop up on printed adverts. They’re a way to send someone straight from a printed advert to a website. Sounds great right? No way someone will forget or mistype your url, and a quick action a consumer can take to continue their journey with you.

Personally I think they’re pants. I’m somewhat contradicting the general view of others (Third Sector 2009, e-consultancy 2011) so here’s why:

  • Most people don’t have a clue what QR codes are.
  • You need to download and install QR software for it to work – already an effort.
  • Using a QR code is almost an act of blind faith – you have no idea where it’s sending you. It takes a huge amount of trust in a brand that many people won’t have.
  • It won’t be long before optical character recognition and image recognition technology is engineered to replace QR codes – Google already have a search which works on image recognition.
  • Did I mention… they’re ugly and are a distraction to the other messages in an advert.

Of course you can always disagree with me – that’s what blog comments are for. And the Know How Non-Profit QR How To Guide might be useful for you too.

digital fundraising – integrating online and offline @thebhf

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I recently spoke at the Third Sector Digital Fundraising Conference and gave a very hurried run through of our Mending Broken Hearts campaign. This is by far the biggest and most integrated campaign the British Heart Foundation have done. It blends an awareness message with a fundraising call to action.

It’s still early days as the appeal is for five years, but we’re already seeing the benefits of integrating across digital and traditional channels. So for anyone who wasn’t there on the day here’s the slide deck.


what should your bounce rate be?

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I’ve been pondering bounce rate. Bounce rate is when someone visits your site but then quickly exits without clicking into any other page. It’s natural to aim for the lowest bounce rate possible. Low bounce rate generally means a more engaged audience.

At the British Heart Foundation our bounce rate is currently around 40%. But this has been playing on my mind since a committee member from a well known commercial brand said they thought it was high. What should charities be aiming for? and is it really a bad thing to have a higher bounce rate? why might commercial and charity sectors differ?

According to my quick twitter poll 40% is similar to other charities, one person even said for their health professional information bounce rate is more like 100%. Taking a quick sweep of the internet – advice seems to be that 40% – 65% is an acceptable average range.

But having a high bounce rate can’t always be a bad thing. There are some cases when you probably want people to leave your website right away – say when you have some sort of affinity deal with a corporate partner, or if you’re signposting to another charity who offers services you don’t, or serve an audience you don’t support.

So why would commercial and charity sectors differ (if they do)? Well perhaps people who go to commercial brands are generally looking to build their trust in the brand a little bit more than they might be on a charity site. Or maybe commercial sites are not designed to meet people’s goals quite so well / quickly.

I’d be really interested to hear other people’s thoughts and any additional bounce rate benchmarks anyone is willing to share.

One thing’s for sure – if you’re not monitoring your bounce rate, you should be!