This week #1: Week beginning Monday 8 July

I’m going to try and start writing more. It’s a good way to get one’s head straight; reflect on things you’ve done or things you’ve read or things you might want to try.

I’ve also got into this truly awful habit of emailing myself really interesting looking things to read and then *never actually reading them* — which is very poor form.

Maybe committing to writing a short to medium length summary of reactions, thoughts and musings on stuff will force me to break that habit? Let’s see.

So this is just for me, mostly. I’ll put it out there just in case it’s of interest to anyone else, but it feels like a positive step in the ever-demanding space of striving to continually learn. Things probably won’t be in any sort of chronological order, and let’s hope I can make the time to do this each week…

Let’s do it.

Recruitment in 2019

Seb Baird did a tweet asking for advice on inclusive and effective recruitment, and there’s some excellent replies that are worryingly overlooked by many when recruiting.

I was particularly struck by something Seb himself said — that he is toying with sending candidates the STAR guidance ahead of the interview in order to help candidates out. Imagine — actually wanting candidates to do well and helping them learn and improve, even if they aren’t successful with their application. I think this is especially great for recruitment at more junior roles where candidates might not necessarily have that much interview experience. Impressive.

Culture and strategy

The Digital and Transformation team at the Department of Education have a blog and their Chief Digital Officer, Emma Stace, has written about striking the crucial balance between culture and delivery. Just read it.

It really struck a chord with me when reflecting on my time at Breast Cancer Now, and how much the team delivered versus the ability to really work on the culture, personal development side of things. I have thoughts on all of this that I will share at some point, specifically around tech vs leadership skills and how you balance this.

Emma also has what might be my favourite ever Twitter bio: “Digital is not a thing. Transformation is not a thing… Leadership IS a thing”.

A digital platform for regular giving

I came across this good write up about the work the NSPCC are doing with WPNC around an “innovative digital platform for regular giving”. It sounds brilliant, and I do love a case study on work being done to improve donation platforms.

This one sounds particularly interesting and it’ll be exciting to see how it evolves. Recurring monthly PayPal and card payments (much like how people pay for Netflix or Spotify) is a no-brainer, so great to see it here. One to watch. Probably above-average likes on my tweet about this too, so I’d wager that a lot of people see this as an important piece of work (and rightly so).

TV and social content

The ever-impressive Dr Richard Berks watched some TV this week and got to wondering how charities responded to a programme he saw. He did a thread on Twitter which is ace, and there are some excellent spin-off conversations that include tubas and Hollyoaks.

But really — charities should absolutely be better at live tweeting TV programmes containing cause-relevant content. Think about how you can surface these programmes and put a plan in place.

You can re-use old content to great effect, or come up with something new if you have the time. If you’re lucky, you might be contacted for expert input or guidance by a programme’s writer, producer or researcher — but how else can you prepare for this? We know people generally tweet about TV they watch, so why not tap into that ready-made, interested and relevant audience?

And just quickly…

Matt just keeps talking sense. Listen to him.

Photopea is a free in-browser Photoshop tool and it’s pretty great. Came across it via Reddit the other day and thought was worth sharing.

I went to CRUK’s Unconference on Tuesday 9 July and it was brilliant. I don’t have time to write up thoughts as of yet, but will aim to do so. In the meantime, check out #crukDigitalUnconference. A really valuable event.

I got drunk and did a tweet. Turns out it was my most popular tweet ever and Americans have opinions about British food. Yes, there is a typo in the tweet and yes, I am very annoyed about it. There’s more to say about what happened with this — how it played out, why it was successful — that I should also write up. Also, it’s just shy of 1,000 likes — which would be a nice round number… Small insight as to how it performed in the screenshot below.

Let’s see if I can keep this up for at least another week…