Making the Deloitte Digital Connect programme workspace on Notion
This little blog is about how we’ve used the platform Notion to create a project website for the DDC programme.
What Notion is
Its a tool for communicating information.
You can add information to it. The usual — words, pictures, lists etc.
Or you can make it show information pulled in by magic from other places e.g. content from spreadsheets and documents and videos. Basically if your information sits on the web somewhere and has a url then Notion can probably display it. Think anything from a Google map to a Miro board to a Youtube video.
You can also embed things in it, like PDFs.
Why it’s good
Erm, for all the reasons above.
And because you can mention people on it and they get a notification. Or you can comment on it (if you’ve been given permission to) aswell.
It’s also good for some of the reasons below….
Is it a workspace or a website?
It’s both really. Just Notion is simpler to build and add content to which makes it really useful as a workspace for your team or project.
What you can’t do is visually customise it in the same way you can with Wordpress or other website platforms.
How we’ve used Notion on the DDC programme
We’ve used Notion to make a project website/workspace to help everyone see what is happening and who is involved. We’ve only shared the link with people on the programme (that’s why its not here) and the site is not findable on the web.
1. People can collaborate on one Notion site
It’s been a shared effort. Because multiple people can edit one Notion site. Admins can allocate permissions for users to be able to edit and add content — woop!
You can have many Notion sites.
2. Every Notion page can do multiple things, all on one page
It uses content blocks — so on one page you could have writing, images, embedded tweets, a Google map, data from a database. And a to do list. If you wanted all of that together.
Or you could just write words.
Either way it’s been good for us because it is so flexible.
3. We’ve made the site display useful information from a database
We’ve embedded some content from the DDC programme Airtable. Airtable is like a super flexible online CRM/spreadsheet tool. Even better we could choose precisely what content from the Airtable to show, so some was visible and some was kept private. Awesome usefulness.
4. We’ve been changing the site’s content and navigation
We’ve been iterating the site’s content. It’s really really fast and easy to do this. So as we’ve learnt about your needs we’ve added and reorganised content. Basically Notion can be changed to suit your needs as the change.
5. Its fast to edit
You don’t have to hit save. What you write or add is published instantly.
Yes there is an undo button 😉
What else can Notion do?
I don’t know everything about Notion. I’m a beginner to it.
I know some people use it as a productivity tool, like their personal workspace.
Is it free?
There is a free version. And paid versions. It depends what you want. Start with the free version and see how you get on.
Inspiring Notion sites
Examples to be inspired by… but only from those we know. The world is probably full of many more different ways to use Notion.
- Erica Neve’s project management site from when they were helping The Groundwork Trust develop their online learning service
- We Are Open’s site for helping nine charities on a 10 week user research and prototyping programme
What you could use Notion for
- A staff handbook
- A place to store and make organisation policies easy to access
- A project management site
- An intranet
These are just some ideas. There will probably be many more…
What to do next
Try doing something simple with Notion, like writing one page.
Or have a look at Notion’s guide. Its written using, erm, Notion.
