Public sector intranets

I've had some interesting email exchange with Ian Vaughan of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council today about intranets in the public sector.
They are currently planning an intranet redesign and so Ian is looking to find out more about what other councils are up to. This got me thinking about our own position (again) and where we want to go with our own intranet and internal comms tools.
We're not in a position to go forward with the major overhaul of our own intranet at the moment due to other project work needing to be completed. But we've had it on the cards for a while and I (and the rest of the team) are itching to get to the point where we can take a serious look at what we've got, what we could have and go out and chat with employees about what they think we should end up with.
Intranets, generally, fascinate me. Possibly because I am nosey and anything that appears secret (which an intranet, by nature, is) needs investigating. Possibly because I am as passionate about the internal audience and online communication as I am about the external counterpart.
When our time comes (soon, make it soon) I hope to be able to find others willing to allow me to peek over their (fire)wall at what they've got. In the meantime I hope you might be willing to share what you've got with Ian? DM me on Twitter and I'll pass on his email address - or leave a comment and I'll nudge him to contact you himself.
Ian has also just completed his thesis research and has some info on web 2.0/social media usage in local gov which I am sure he would be willing to exchange for your intranet knowledge / thoughts ;)

Election 2009: Part the second

So, the dust is beginning to settle and while it will undoubtedly take a while for the organisation adjust to being under the control of a different party for the first time in 28 years now seems a good a time as any to have a look at how we covered the election in which they took the seats.
In my first post about election 2009 I looked at how we had set up a new section and added extra functionality and revealed what we planned to do as results came in. Our plan, very nearly, came together.
Our real-time reporting of events worked well as did the system we had in place for getting the results from the count rooms around the county to us at county hall.
Using Twitter and Facebook to publish the results also worked well. At one point (around 8.30am) it looked like it might be all we had to get the results out as we tackled technical problems, eventually winning most of the battles.
The problems did mean we had to jettison some of our content to get off the ground though. Sadly the detailed text pages organised by division were a casualty, as were some of automated functions of the system. But temporarily letting them go allowed us to fix the other stuff on the fly and get something out there.

What did make it?

• The virtual chamber - the little people colour in according the the result, the pie chart shows the party share and then you can exactly how many votes each candidate for each division polled.
  
• The county map - we would have liked to have done more work on this. It was intended to have interactive functionality so you could hover off and get information but also drill down to detailed info by district and division.
• Our Twitter feed - I'd say this was successful. We gained around 130 new followers as the results started rolling in. Were able to respond to queries and gather feedback on how we were doing. The Twitter feed also fed the website and the latest results featured on our home page and on a dedicated page in the results section. Lessons? Well, we could have probably used hash tags more effectively.
  
• Our Facebook page - I'd also say this was successful. The group trebled in size during the results action and, most interestingly, they started talking to each other (and kept it polite). This also allowed us opportunity to see how we were doing, allowed citizens a platform to discuss what was happening and I hope some will take the time to email us about their experience so we can learn from it further.
• Our work on your TV screen - I think we made most of the networks. This was great as it meant they thought our graphics clearly displayed the situation and was also a great morale boost for the team. We had a lovely moment in amongst the constant action where we stood around the TV in our office and all clapped and grinned like idiots as our graphics played out on BBC lunchtime news.It wasn't the most important thing to us that day but it was special all the same.

What didn't make it:

There were a couple of things in the run up to polling day which didn't make it and a few bits of the results system which also remained dormant.

• Mapping data - we really wanted to map all the polling stations in the country and link it into our public transport journey planner. Sadly, this was not to be. This time.
  
• Blogs - we initially planned to carry blogs from our first time and new to county voters to be updated through the run up to the election. Again, this wasn't to be. Instead we went for a compromise option and did case studies.
• Photo galleries - we also had some ideas around photo galleries which would take user generated content too. Images have been a problem all round for us throughout this build & deployment. We've tried our best to build a bigger stock and I think, if nothing else, a general election will give us the chance to get out and take some more pics! We've started to set up a photo album on our Facebook page and hope to add one to the website next week.
• Our text content of results - when the results were entered into the XML file powering the map and chamber this was supposed to generate a text page which gave the detailed information for each division. In turn the URL to this division specific page was to be included in the tweets & Facebook status updates. It didn't happen, autopsy pending.
• (Added 7 June): Results available by SMS - originally planned for visitors to be able to register their number and division ahead of polling day in order to receive two text messages in return; one with result of the division and one with the overall result. For reasons beyond our control we couldn't go ahead with this.
  

Generally cool things that happened:

• Opportunity to work with the rest of Public Relations, in particular the press office. This was a real test of the teams working together and it seemed to go pretty seamlessly. We got the job done and left each other to deal with the specialisms and the overall effect to the outside world was quite cool.
• Working with colleagues in democratic services and IT.
  
• Did I mention our graphics were on TV? lol
• Working with colleagues across the public sector who were kind enough to look at our stuff in advance and give us help, advice and support as we went live blind to what everyone else could see thanks to being shut out of the network. Special thanks to Dan at Redbridge, Al at Newcastle, Simon Wakeman at Medway and the districts in our county. There were lots of others who supported via Twitter on the day.
• Our visitor figures spiked somewhat. In 24 hours (Friday) we had more than 19,000 visits to our election section alone. And the site didn't fall over (too badly, as far as we know). This is our highest number of visits in one day ever!
  

Still to come:

• New councillor profiles
• Rebuilding areas of content around the new administration (meetings etc)
• Hopefully that photo gallery will make it
• European election results
• Results of the outstanding division in mid-July
• We're due a reskin of the website (when we finish the CMS) and a lot of the things we tried or learnt here will feed into that.

(Added 7 June) Looking ahead to the next elections I think we would look to do more work on the sort of systems we had this time, ensure that the complete picture of information could be presented and try to get the back office hook ups to work how we wanted them to. Beyond that I think the next step in development would be looking at online voting and widgets / other platforms (iPhone apps etc). I am sure there is lots we can do and we have four years to work it out!

And I think that's about all I can say about elections. I am still a little emotionally charged from the adrenalin of working at such pressure yesterday and giddy with the joy of how well our team worked together on the day and in the run up. Now we just need to decide what to tackle next!

Elections 2009: a post in two parts

Today is polling day in the county council and European Parliamentary elections. It's an important date in the calendar. Politically it could turn out to be a significant vote for this county. It's will also be of significance to this team and the work we do whatever the political outcome.
In a lot of ways it feels as if this day has been a long time coming as planning and work on how we will cover the election on our website and in the greater online space began at the tail end of last year. In smaller ways I would still like a bit more time to tweak and improve and do even more than we have. But time and voting waits for no web team and so here we are: polling day 2009.

What have we done so far?

• We've created a new section of the site expanding and improving on content which first served in 2005. We changed to a three column layout (rest of site is two column) and tweaked the design without moving radically away from the main look.
• We added social bookmarking to the election section. This is something we are waiting to implement across our main site and other sites we run from here so it seemed a good idea to give it a go and see what feedback we could gather and tweaks we needed before a bigger roll out.
• We tried to make it as easy as possible for visitors to find out all the information about what they can vote for, the different methods of voting, registration, key dates in the run up, candidate and division information, other things they can vote for at different times, why it is important to vote and how and when they would be able to access results information.
  This included us linking to and featured multimedia content from The Electoral Commission, the Every Vote Counts campaign, a press section with copies of the offline campaign and linking through to the district and borough councils own information.
  We also created two short case studies - first time student voter and new to county voter - with real-life people to help people understand what they should do. This also allowed us to make links with our youth brand.
  
• We have Twittered throughout the run up to elections - @Derbyshirecc
• We made our first venture onto Facebook with a page dedicated to the elections. This provided prompts to 'fans' about the key dates and links through to relevant information on our site. We have also been able to use this and the associated event listing to send an email reminder (within Facebook) to 'fans' to remind them to vote and where the results will be.

All of this has been going on for a number of months (not full time) and has been a learning curve and exciting project for this team to get into. For the first time we have had a significant presence internally in promoting and reporting on elections. It's provided an opportunity for us to raise awareness of our work internally and work with colleagues in other departments to enable everything to happen.
Our results system will hopefully be the jewel in the crown of what we've done so far. We won't know until the dust settles tomorrow and we have some feedback from Derbyshire voters, councillors, other officers and colleagues in the public sector who are kind enough to take the time to have a look.

What we can say about our results system:

• For the first time for this organisation we will be featuring near-to-real-time results displayed in more than one way.
  
• A virtual chamber which will fill up as seats are announced - also provides break down information for all seats as announced
  
• A pie chart showing the total seats held per party as the seats are announced
• A county map with divisions colouring in as seats are announced
• Text pages showing a break down of votes for each division
• Twitter of results as they are announced. This will be available through our Twitter profile but also on our website.
• Facebook page updated as seats are announced. A Facebook update will be sent to all 'fans' once all results are in.

These displays are also being used internally in our members' room. On two pretty impressive big screens they will watch the results as they are announced via the virtual chamber and the county map.

So, this is what we have done and what we have in store. All that remains now is for the team to find time to go out and vote themselves and then some serious finger-crossing and possibly some flying-by-seat-of-pants action in the morning.
But, like the swan, we aim for everything to appear seamless on the online surface even if we are all paddling like mad underneath!
Counting in Derbyshire begins at 10am so keep a weather eye on the horizon for http://elections.derbyshire.gov.uk to ramp up and send us a good luck vibe, if you have one spare, for our maiden voyage in these waters.