Day: May 1, 2007

Building a new corporate web presence

I mentioned before that one of my current priorities is leading the creation of a new website for my department, who effectively cease to exist next week to be replaced by a new organisation with a wider remit.

Needless to say, things are exceedingly busy at the moment trying to get the functionality and content as perfect as possible for launch. So far its all going to plan but its going to be a busy weekend.

It’s a credit to the team that they have managed to produce the site within such a tight timetable and without (mostly) losing their sense of humour. There is still a lot to do, and there will a whole load of new challenges after site launches, but they have proved that they are more than capable in their respective areas of expertise.

Having set the scene, I’ll try and post more about the pre-launch period as the week (and weekend) unfolds.

Playing the engagement game

I’ve been following David Wilcox‘s work for some time and was lucky enough to be invited along to workshop yesterday where we got to play with the engagement game that David has been developing with Drew Mackie.

The game is designed to help organisations design engagement projects by focusing on objectives / rationale and stakeholder groups and then matching the appropriate communication methods. The game has changed a lot over the last year from early versions I saw on David’s blog – there is now no board which requires a bit more thought from workshop participants and there is a real focus on developing the story of the issue and the proposed (hoped for?) progress of the engagement programme.

I can see how the game would have real application within government, as well as outside, in helping policy teams to understand the importance of designing engagement programmes strategically and considering all possible options before they go diving in.

In particular, the inclusion of many social media methods into the game was instructive – not least because it teaches participants that none of this is an add on and that all activity requires resource, commitment and time.