Do you ever watch those makeover programmes on TV where a plain, downtrodden housewife emerges by the end resembling a supermodel… it works and they come out looking better than when the programme began.. that’s what a makeover is supposed to do.
Quite recently the Hantsnet home screen underwent a makeover, but unfortunately I think it came out the worse for it. Did you notice that it had been changed and do you even care? Does the content of this page ever impinge on you?
One of the first things most of you do in the morning is turn on your computer. You log in hoping that 90 days isn’t up and you’re going to have to think of a new password.
Then up pops the Hantsnet home screen. You may give it a cursory glance before you head into Outlook to check emails.
The Hantsnet homepage should be the key communications screen for both corporate and departmental information along with other incidental stuff which might be of interest… do you remember it used to include staff special offers?
The quality of internal communications is frequently cited as a departmental issue… the Hantsnet home screen ought to be central to any communications strategy as most of us see it every workday.
However, in my view, the home screen we have now does not do the job it should be doing! For those of you with default screen settings, all you will usually see is the top three items as below. We know that people tend not to scroll down so CCRA links which come ‘below the fold’ may not be seen.
They key things someone wants us to know are “the 2010 Interfaith Wall Calendar, Smarter Travel Choices Mini Exhibition and the November Hog online now”. Did any of those interest you? Do you think there might be messages more important to you such as Proposals being considered to reduce mileage allowance payments, which you’d have to scroll down to find?
What do you think about the information that is being shoved at you?
Do the thumbnails make it more visible or make you want to follow any of these links.It’s meant for staff, so what would you like to see there?… what information would be helpful to you?
How would you redesign it to be a really useful working tool?
If you have any views, please use the comments box, as we can influence the design and content of this page.
The number of us shopping online continues to increase. One of the key reasons we buy online is that prices are lower… not always, but in most cases cheaper than the High Street. By ’shopping around’ using Google or other aggregators we can find who is offering the best value. See the Shopping link at the top-left of the Google homepage.
But you can save even more by searching for voucher or coupon codes from websites such as www.myvouchercodes.co.uk or www.promotionalcodes.org.uk and there are others..These list the various discount codes that have been issued by online retailers.
I have successfully got discounts of 20% or free delivery. Sometimes no discounts are available… but it is always worth trying and can get you additional savings!
We don’t take well to change at HCC, although having lived though numerous re-organisations and restructurings over the last few years we ought to take it in our stride.
Despite the changes to organisational structure, we have, more or less, continued to do what we’ve always done… only in the very recent period has the department begun to operate in a more joined-up way, where the formerly impregnable service silos have opened up little doorways to allow others in and out.
One of the biggest changes we still need to address is the move to digital media. Yesterday afternoon (Thursday), I listened to, and occasionally watched the online, streamed Government 2010 Live conference, which discussed how local government can move the Digital Britain agenda forward.
Whichever government is in control after the next election, we’ll have to continue to become ‘more efficient’. Moving more of our processes to ‘customer self-service’ is the best opportunity to cope with real reductions in budgets… it’s substantially cheaper if a process doesn’t involve so much human intervention!
While most of us are quite comfortable using e-documents and using the internet, when it comes to communicating with customers, it is still appears to be paper first and web after. We are slowly changing, but some of us are moving too slowly and not looking for innovative ways to streamline or change processes via the web.
Yesterday morning at about 9.20am I drove down to the Park’n'Ride at Bar End. I parked my car and began the pleasant walk, passing the delights of the Recycling Centre, and up the steps to get the bus to Mottisfont Court.
At the top I could see the green bus at the bus stop. I broke into a gentle trot to make sure I would catch it. I was reassured that a pensioner was also heading for the bus and was about 30 seconds in front of me. The old man got on just as I passed into the area covered by the Bus divers sideview mirror. As I got to the back of the bus, he closed the doors and drove off.
It is not the first time this has happened…. if it was earlier in the day, another bus would have appeared within 5 minutes… but this time it was going to be a 20 minute wait, more or less the same as the walk in. Of course the walk is the healthy option. I arrived at Mottisfont Court, somewhat hot and sweaty but just in time for my meeting.
There are some pleasant drivers on the Park’n'Ride buses who are helpful, courteous and drive carefully. Driving off when passengers are clearly in view is not acceptable and must be done on purpose. It must be mind numbingly boring to continuously circle Winchester, but that is no excuse. I will recognise the driver the next time I see him… you have been warned!
Going into the Winchester Discovery Centre last week, I noticed that all WDC staff were uniformed. It varied between white shirts and blue polos shirts, but all were embroidered with the striking sticks logo clearly identifying them as members of staff
We all wear uniforms in a way, as the clothes we select to wear to work reflect our personal view of ourselves but also offer an outward manifestation of how we want others to perceive us.
Staff at Mottisfont Court demonstrate a wide range of dress styles and work wear, often helping to define their roles by their clothing. Even though they’re unlikely to be on the sport’s field, the “Sport” office on the first floor is a tracksuit/trainer/shorts environment, and on the floor below “Arts” are naturally more artsy in style. Staff in “Countryside” often appear in green, khaki and brown even though their day will be spent indoors in the city.
I once paid a visit to the environmentally controlled, windowless Castle basement which housed all the servers which run all our IT systems. I met two of the IT techies who keep it all operating. I was amazed to see them both dressed smartly in shirt and tie, even though they spent their whole day with inanimate machinery.
For me, the biggest fashion disaster at work must be the corporate sweatshirt, worn when staff are representing Hampshire County Council at public events. They don’t look good on anyone but look particularly dreadful when you see a senior manager with the sweatshirt over shirt and tie, suit trousers and sensible lace-up shoes.
Do you think that more of CCRAs public facing staff wear uniforms? As always add your comments and views below.
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You shouldn’t have had any trouble reading the above but if so
According to an English university study the order of letters in a word doesnt matter the only thing thats important is that the first and last letter of every word is in the correct position The rest can be jumbled and one is still able to read the text without difficulty
OK, so it’s been a couple of weeks since the first Hantsweb challenge was issued, and either you couldn’t find any websites that were as good as ours or possibly you couldn’t be bothered to look. Whatever the reason, I’m going to assume we do have the best local government cultural heritage website in the UK!
In a fair world this would mean some sort of IPP special award for the webteam, however I expect that it will just be thought that we’re doing the job that we’re paid for.
So the next challenge is in two parts
- What’s missing from our website?
This could be some important information that just isn’t there, a new topic that supports the work that we do or anything else. - Identify transactions that we do in the workplace that could also/better be done online
Such as online booking, ordering, purchasing etc
It doesn’t have to be within your area of work so look right across the CCRA website. The best ideas will go onto the ‘to-do very soon list’… so over to you!
The CCRA Family History Fair which starts on today (5 October if you are reading this on Monday) got me thinking about the topic…not about my family who I can trace back to persecuted immigrants from mainland Europe… Poland two generations back and Latvia three great grandparents ago.
I was thinking about the sitter of the portrait hanging on the wall in my home-offfice. My mother left the painting to me in her will along with a sizeable fortune… ok, the fortune is not true, especially when any estate is split amonst three additional siblings, but the painting was something I always coveted.
My mother bought it in an antique shop somewhere in Devon in the 1970s. It’s an interesting, but fairly ordinary oil painting dating, I guess, from sometime early in the 19th century.
Early in my career as a museum curator, I persuaded an art restorer colleague to clean and restore the painting, so it’s almost as good as new!
But I have no idea when the picture was painted, nor do I know who the old man is…but he will be someone’s distant relative… and that’s it… his descendants are out there somewhere, but there’s no way that they will ever be able to get to meet their ancestor!
We seem to have escaped swine flu for the time being… indeed I don’t, personally, know of anyone who has contracted the virus. However the experts tell us that from the latter part of October there will be a surge in the number of cases.
As a local authority we have set contingency plans to allow us to continue to deliver sevices even if our staff succumb to the illness. It’s more difficult where we rely on external suppliers who will be equally affected by staff absences to ensure that supplies we may need to operate get delivered.
The webteam have set in place a system which will allow us to update changes to services across a wide range of web pages throughout the CCRA website from a single source… and we have fall-back editors able to take over if we end up sick ourselves.
The authorities also appear to be expecting a significant increase in the numbers of people who fall ill with swine flu but sadly don’t survive. It will be a busy time for Coroners who are less likely to have time to investigate, in detail, the increased number of deaths… so if you want to plan the perfect murder, pick your time and make it look like it was swine flu.
Those of you you who are regular followers of the always emboldened Culture-all will have come across Hampshire Heroes … and now there is a set of “ lesser known heroes“ from Culture-all (now moved to Hampshire Biographies) , a somewhat more obscure bunch than the previous lot.
Now I must admit to only having heard of two of the people on the new list, but maybe you are aware of more than I am?
However missing from the list is Reg Presley, a real “Hampshire Hero” and certainly someone who anyone who remembers the 1960s will know. For those of you who did not experience, at first hand, one of the finest decades to be alive in the 20th century, Reg Presley was the lead singer with the Troggs… and the Troggs came from Andover!
It was rare for pop groups not to be metropolitan, and coming from deepest Hampshire was unusual… I recall the DJ on Radio Caroline saying that they came from Andover which he described as a rural backwater rather than the thriving urban centre it is today.
Some of their best work, the singles ‘Wild Thing’, ‘With A Girl Like You’, ‘I Can’t Control Myself’ and ‘Any Way That You Want Me’ were perfect for the time and latterly the Wet Wet Wet release of ‘Love is All Around’ revived interest in Presley as a songwriter…. and anyone who rhymes waitin’ with hesitatin’ gets my vote as a hero, although his funding and interest of the study of crop circle may slightly diminish his heroic status.
So who else has been left off?
