UK Gov Camp: a great boost to start 2018 with!

The 20th of January 2018 was my first time at UK Gov Camp and I was amazed by how rich an experience it was.

First of all I need to say a massive thank you to the organising group, the campmakers and sponsors. These guys did a power of work over months leading up to the event and on the day itself. They absolutely nailed it by putting on a brilliant unconference in a great event space at the Ministry of Justice in London.

This was just my second unconference. The first was One Team Gov Scotland in November 2017 for which I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the organising team. An unconference is all about participation and the people attending set the agenda themselves on the day by ‘pitching’ topics as explained by Defra Permanent Secretary Clare Moriarty in her blog post.

Being a UK Gov Camp newbie and an introvert I felt a bit apprehensive beforehand but I needn’t have been. Throughout the day there was a huge feeling of warmth, respect, maturity, inclusivity and much laughter. Joshua from Scottish Government summed it up well in a tweet.

Janet Hughes got the event going with incredible energy. Even before things kicked off you could feel the excitement from the ‘campers’ who were already very much up for it. They responded further to Janet’s opening session by taking it up another energy level as the pitching of amazing sessions for this unconference got underway.

The sessions — too much great choice!

Gov Camp was such a rich experience. For me it was an absolute feast of new ideas as well as a great source of news and getting different angles on topics I’m currently working on.

I attended a great mix of sessions including some on people skills like the session Clare Moriarty led “Action vs atmospherics: What makes change happen?” which stimulated good discussion and feedback. Other sessions on mental heath, data, application development, working collaboratively across organisations and devolution all gave me plenty of opportunities to contribute and reflect.

With 55 of the sessions pitched by attendees then running through the day there were some really hard choices on which ones to attend! I could physically only get to a fraction of them so I’ll be sure to dip into the online notes from the sessions that I couldn’t get to.

The open publishing of the sessions grid, notes and hash tags for each session is just another example of the great job the event organisers do and the open culture they create.

Loads of good stuff to follow up

It will take months to follow up with many of the lovely people I met and the topics we shared discussions on. A handful of these that I’ll definitely be pursuing include:

• Environment Agency folks on user research and testing for some of their applications developments as well as .
• Cabinet Office folk on developing guidance for appropriate use of digital productivity / collaboration tools in the public sector.
• Defra colleagues on their push to smarter digital working practices, data collaboration across organisations, leadership and team development.
• Cabinet Office folk working with the new Geospatial Commission including its work with the devolved administrations and on opening up Ordnance Survey data.
• Looking at developing #OpenTrees with Terrance from Government Digital Service to compliment his #OpenBenches project!

It’s all about people

The event content had a heavy emphasis on working with digital within the public sector. What really came across however, in a really powerful way, was the emphasis and appreciation from everybody of the importance of the people aspect in working digitally.

Another fantastic aspect of Gov Camp was seeing my Twitter feed in 3D! Many of the folk I’ve shared useful online exchanges with were there. It was great to be able to connect face-to-face and further feel a part of an inclusive and supportive community trying to change things for the better.

Making connections and learning

It was a privilege to be lucky enough to get a ticket in the ballot for Gov Camp. The event planning and format (including pre & post event drinks!) did so much to create a great opportunity for making many new connections. From this I was able to learn lots from others people and their organisation’s experiences both good and bad.

The connections I made have already started to help me solve problems, stimulate thinking about my work, my development and that of the team I lead.

A real boost to start 2018

I came away from UK Gov Camp completely inspired with a greatly extended family of friendly and supportive folk to bounce ideas off and discuss future work with. That is such a great boost to get. Thanks fellow Gov Campers!