Digital Innovation in the Public Sector

Westminster Abbey

Last week I was invited to present at the latest Squiz Seminar session at Westminster Abbey. The session was titled "Digital Innovation in the Public Sector" and focused on ways of making projects easier for Public Sector bodies.

As we have recently run through a tendering process using the G-Cloud Framework I decided that would be an ideal topic to present on. Having given an overview of where the project stood at the point of my arrival I then ran through how the G-Cloud Framework facilitated a fast selection and purchase of a new CMS. Following on from the presentation there was a chance for the audience to question me about the process! A good deal of talk later and the final question came up "Are there any negatives to using the G-Cloud Framework?"

My answer?

"I can't say a single negative thing about it - it saved the project."

The day was well attended and highly informative and it's always a pleasure to speak about success stories. A highlight for me also was that my fellow presenter Matthew Hutton, gave a fantastic overview of the NOMS project to implement a new intranet... potentially an area for us to review post-launch of the external website!

You can see a copy of my presentation below.

Technical Workshops... done!

We're only a few weeks into the official Web Development Project and we have already completed the scheduled technical workshops. Over the last two weeks we have had two full day workshops spread over two weeks. The aim of these was to look at drawing out an understanding of the current infrastructure at UH (University of Hertfordshire) and what we would like to create as our hosting environment on the Squiz Cloud.

Changing hosts will always present a number of potential issues but the main one at UH is being able to replicate what is proving to be a very efficient set-up. This is mainly due to the fact that the current UH hosting solution is in-house, bespoke built and running off the JANET network. In order to offer a comparable level of service we will need to be looking at rolling out all of the bells & whistles possible!

On our side we have the team who created and maintain the current content delivery and during the course of the two workshops a number of ideas came to light. A follow up meeting to iron out the details and i'm sure we'll be running an amazing set-up to host our newly designed, responsive website!

We have kick off!

It's official, the Web Development Project (#UHDev) has kicked off! Having had the first meeting with the Squiz team last Friday we now have all dates for our analysis stage workshops.

Starting next Wednesday with 2 technical specific workshops to look at our current infrastructure and cloud hosting options.

Following on from those will be 9 content and feature related workshops that will help to tease out what we want our new site to be able to do as well as how we would like it to look. Reasonably intensive timeframes but then we do have a short project timeframe to work to!

Following on from the kick-off meeting we also held the Stakeholder Development Group meeting where Squiz came in to present current and completed projects and to answer any questions raised. It was a great session and it appears that everyone on the Group felt as though we will be very well supported!

Great presentation from the @squizuk team for the Stakeholder Group, appears everyone feels in very safe hands! #UHDev
— Kris Collins (@iamkriscollins) September 26, 2012

Content refresh is underway!

Probably the biggest and most difficult part of any website refresh is the cleaning of content. So, to try and address this prior to our migration to Squiz Matrix we have now started a nine month project to clean up the content we currently have in whichever system it is sitting in. In total we have over 10,000 pages to work our way through so although 9 months sounds like a long time it really isn't!

The best possible outcome would be for us to close around 15-20% of the current pages, fix all the broken links and spelling mistakes and make the migration of content as easy as possible. Realistically though this is probably not going to happen...

People become very attached to their content, the value the time they have put into creating it and don't really want that to be taken away. A fair position to take if you only look at the time spent putting the content together but not if you look at the wider picture. If no-one has viewed the content then can it be said that it adds value to the website or visitor experience? I'd argue that it does't and that the content should be removed. It's easy to highlight what should be closed with a simple analytics report, the clever part is in convincing people it's the right decision!

So, we are now 3 weeks into a nine month project and so far it's going reasonably well, pages are being closed, we're using Siteimprove to find and fix broken links and spelling mistakes and hopefully the quality of the site is improving on a daily basis. But, we're only just getting started so who knows what the next few months will hold for us!

PS. The image is of the Edit+ editing tool within Squiz Matrix, a far better editing environment than the ones we currently use... roll on next year!

G-Cloud Procurement process, an idiots guide

Prior to joining the University of Hertfordshire I had herd a few rumours that the HM Government were looking at a more streamlined procurement process. At the time it was mildly interesting but not that relevant to my day-to-day working.

However, having suddenly needed to make a purchase of a new CMS the G-Cloud immediately sprung to mind and I was rather relieved to find that it was now working! Having run through the internal procurement processes at the University we have now just completed the purchase of a new supplier via the G-Cloud Framework Agreement. I am happy to announce that the University of Hertfordshire will be implementing a new website within the Squiz Matrix CMS.

The procurement process has been very straight forward and the use of the G-Cloud Framework Agreement has been a real life saver. Prior to the project beginning I agreed to write a blog post on the experience and the process of making a purchase. This is now live on the HM Government G-Cloud website, the link to the posting is below if you would like a read...

They have also now provided a list of eligible organisations who can take advantage of this fantastic service so if you do have a large procurement coming up it's definitely worth considering!

• Kris Collins from University of Hertfordshire explains how easy getting a new CMS can be

Microsoft have a new logo... budget approach taken

Microsoft have revealed their new logo today, the first change in 25 years. Unfortunately, that's about as exciting as the news gets and it's fair to say that the resulting logo is a little bit of a disappointment...

Given the increased pressure of Windows 8 not going down too well, IE losing it's hold on browser dominance and the fact that Apple have now been recognised as the most valuable company ever you'd think they would have put in a little more effort.

Jeff Hansen, Microsoft's general manager of brand strategy was quoted as saying "The majority of the items that people see from the company - websites, marketing, communications - people will be seeing the new logo pretty quickly."

Even though it does look like something you would see on a budget line of food in the local supermarket, at least they're still here to have a new logo after 25 years, which can't be said of some other tech companies. But, it'll be interesting to see if they're still around to reveal the next one in 25 years time!

Content refresh is about to start

Last year, when I was in my previous post, I decided to blog on the progress of the Content Management System project. It was a great way of sharing progress, ideas and issues with the wider community and received some great feedback.

Now that I have a new role and a new project I think it's time to do the same thing!

So, starting today the new CMS project is kicking off at the University of Hertfordshire and we're tackling content first... always a tricky subject! There is a planned 9 month content refresh schedule in place where we will be looking to correct all broken links, spelling mistakes and dodgy content. The main aim being that we will deliver a faster, leaner site which is easier to navigate and maintain. Not hoping for too much really!

In the mix will be a number of useful resources including Siteimprove and Google Analytics. We'll also be unveiling our new Content Management System and Enterprise Search provider shortly.

First areas to get our attention will be the School of Law and the School of Humanities with the School of Education following on shortly. Interesting and busy times ahead!