Be opinionated

To make things happen, it helps if you have opinions.

Apple are a great example of a company that has opinions. They express those opinions in their products, and like most opinions, some people don’t like them – but that’s fine.

For instance – lots of people moan about the lightning cable used to charge iPhones and iPads – why don’t Apple just use micro-USB like everyone else? The answer is because Apple is of the opinion that micro-USB isn’t good enough, hence the need to design their own.

Apple have made lots of similar decisions based on opinions – like whether the original iMac needed a floppy drive (nope) or if laptops need CD/DVD drives (nah).

GDS is equally opinionated. As an organisation, they have views on the way websites should work, and how they should be made. You might not agree with them, but there’s no doubting where they stand.

Opinions help in two ways. Firstly, they set you apart from the crowd (this can work in a good and a bad way, of course, depending on how appalling your opinions are). Secondly, they help you to move on.

Here’s a real world example. At the Department for Heath, I’m working on digital capability, as are lots of other people in lots of other organisations. Everyone has different views on what digital means, and what capability means.

Again, that’s fine. What we’ve done though is to have an opinion on what those things mean, and how they should be delivered. Quickly coming to this opinion has enabled us to move forward quickly, with the confidence that comes of having a good idea where we want to get to.

We’re not so opinionated, of course, that we can’t change direction if we need to. The joy of an agile approach is being able to respond to feedback and experience.

By taking a position though, and executing on it, we’ve been able to kick start our capability programme. Not everyone may agree, but then they probably never will.

So if you find yourself in a situation where a project is stalling, perhaps the thing to do is to have an opinion about it. After all, you have to start somewhere.

Need some help getting your digital approach right? Join me at my Achieving Digital Transformation workshop in December!

Achieving digital transformation workshop

This workshop will equip anyone involved in digital transformation and channel shift projects with the skills and tools they need to deliver fantastic results.

Book your place now!

The workshop will be led by the needs of those attending, focusing in on those areas of strategy, leadership, delivery and capability that have been identified as of key importance.

Things that will be covered include:

  • How to design and deliver an effective digital strategy for your organisation
  • How to design online services people actually want to use
  • How to manage technology projects in an agile fashion to reduce risk and increase user satisfaction
  • How to design capability programmes to provide people with the digital skills and confidence they need

Book your place now!

Who should attend this workshop?

  • People leading change programmes within their organisations
  • Folk who are working on digital capability programmes to improve their colleague’s confidence is using technology effectively
  • People delivering channel shift to encourage services users to switch to more efficient ways of delivery
  • Those wanting to understand better the role senior people can play in digital and transformation

Much of the background thinking that informs this workshop can be found in the 10 ‘Think Digital’ principles I developed, and which you can find out more about on my website.

Book your place now!

For a sneak peak, the video below is a recording of a webinar I gave in September 2014 discussing digital strategy, leadership and capability:

Book your place now!

What will a VirtualGovCamp session look like?

We’re probably due an update, not least because people keep asking me about VirtualGovCamp – and one of main topics people are querying is how on earth this thing is going to work.

To reiterate some of the things I have previously written about this, VirtualGovCamp will live and die by its asynchronicity. That is, nobody will have to be in the same place at the same time to take part. People can access the content and the discussion at any time they want.

That means that there will be very limited use of live interactive stuff like webinars, hangouts and so on. They aren’t banned, necessarily, but they are not the basic, core way people will interact.

In terms of platform, it has to be WordPress I think. So, every ‘session’ will be a WordPress page. The person who suggested the session, who will be called a facilitator, will add content to that page to help inform that discussion.

That content could be made up of videos, text, images, audio, presentations and so on. It could be content that the facilitator has produced themselves, or bits and pieces they’ve found elsewhere on the web, or indeed a mixture of both of those things.

Then, conversation and stuff takes place in the comments. Simple as that.

Now, if a facilitator really wants to do something live, then that’s fine, but the output would need to be embedded in the page so that others can still comment afterwards.

More on how this will all be organised next.

Have you signed up to show your interest in VirtualGovCamp yet? Do so with the form on the homepage!

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