As 2009 draws to an inevitable close, the Sunday papers have been full up with lists… the best books/films/theatre/art etc. This year it’s the ‘end of decade’ lists rather than annual round-ups. So I thought it was also a good time to look back over the last 10 years of the CCRAs online presence.   

archive.org maintains a database of websites, making frequent snapshots so I went to look for their earliest record of the departmental homepage… which dates from the end of 2002, the one with the alliterative ‘Bach to Beckham’ strapline. As CCRA (aka R&H) didn’t exist 10 years ago I have no homepage to show you from that time. The first Museums pages were 1998, Countryside 2001 and other services followed later.    

R&H homepage 2002

Our bit of Hantsweb was the first to ‘design’ webpages breaking away from the completely bland appearance of most of the corporate website. We got rid of the Hampshire Rose which was scattered all over the place, however the background colour was the dreadful yellow, nicknamed ‘corporate custard’, and the font Times New Roman, which was difficult to read on screen. The content was ‘liquid’ so expanded to fill whatever screen resolution you used… not too  much of a problem as 14 inch monitors were mostly being used.  

The layout included the banner montage across the top, anticipating and long predating the current Hantsweb design. There were links to existing web pages for Museums, Archives, Countryside, Arts, Sports and Libraries.   

R&H homepage 2003

In 2003, the navigation moved from the left to a horizontal bar, a ‘new’ box added to the right, and links to new content for Discover Hampshire, Outdoor Activities and Tourism content were added.   

R&H homepage 2004

In 2004, the banner was replaced by a central image, allowing us to move content higher up the page, the right navigation returned, and the more familiar three-column layout was used. Links to Cycling and Community content were added. And on to 2006…   

R&H homepage 2006

A new corporate header and we got rid of the yellow background and replaced it with white… and the design begins to look familiar. Again, I think the thumbnail layout of our design anticipated the corporate template.   

Then during 2007/8, we competed the process of migrating the 4,500 pages of the website into WPS, the corporate content management system.   

Current homepage

I know that some of you think the corporate design has limitations, and in many ways I agree, however as part of Hampshire County Council we have to acknowledge our corporate responsibilities… and if you see many other local authority websites you’d agree that we have far more opportunity to create attractive web pages.   

So where do we go from here?
Of course, we will continue to add new information about our services and activities, and equally importantly delete old content. The website isn’t an archive, and whilst some information may stay online for a long while, we don’t want to confuse users with out-of-date content, nor do we want to leave irrelevant content behind.   

It is likely we will be making much more use of social networking tools allowing us to speak directly to our users and for them to talk back to us, and undoubtedly it will be mobile device delivery that will become the main focus of new development.   

The last 10 years have been exciting for me, watching our web presence grow, finding ways of making our services and information accessible and interesting despite corporate limitations and watching the number of people who visit the website grow and grow.   

In the past year, since 1 January, we have received nearly 1.4 million visits and 14.6 million web pages were viewed.   

Visitors come because we have a good website, however without you providing the webteam with the words and pictures we wouldn’t have a website at all… so thank you from the webteam.   

This will be the last posting until next year, so we’d like to wish you all a very happy Christmas, and we look forward to hearing your ideas (helpful if you had a budget to fund them) for new web content for 2010.

Once in a while I produce websites, but not for Hampshire County Council. These are mostly pro bono, allowing me to offer support to people or organisations who would otherwise be unable to have an online presence.

For the last two years I have given the Autumn Pumpkin Festival at Royal Victoria Country Park a simple website, hosted on Hantsweb servers for free.

Whilst I was away on leave I got talking to Marcia who runs a small fish restaurant. Marcia cooks just the best fresh fish, Marlin being my favourite.

She wanted to be ‘on the net’ but really had no idea what that actually meant. I don’t even think Marcia had ever used the internet, but she knew it was the place to be. She also didn’t have the means to pay for an internet presence.

So I offered to create a single page website for her, using free hosting so costing her nothing… now ‘Marcia’s Place‘ is on the net and Marcia is one of the few small businesses in her town to be online.

To the point of this post

I am offering to do a small website (1-3 pages) for a non-profit organisation for free… if it’s in Hampshire it can be hosted on Hantsweb…. so I am asking you to nominate an organisation that needs a web presence. I will chose the most deserving and will do it for free.

Add your nomination to the comments box and I will pick the most deserving one!

I tend not to look too far ahead these days as things change so quickly, so it was reassuring to come across this poster that tells us that the world will end on 21 October 2011, although a precise time would have helpful.

I’ve led an interesting and fulfilling life so I don’t have too much problem with it, however if you’re young and planning a future you’re really screwed.

If Armageddon is actually due in a couple of years I don’t need to worry about pensions and retirement or a dependant old age. I certainly won’t find myself in a care home where I will be encouraged to come out of senile oblivion and play a tambourine by some young performer.

We can certainly stop worrying about global warming. It also means that there’s plenty that we, as a department, don’t need to bother with. London 2012 clearly isn’t going to happen, and all those three-year service plans are going to be pretty pointless.

It also presents the perfect, no come-back, opportunity to tell your managers and colleagues what you really think of them.

October 2011 is not far off, so rather than leave it too late, why not start now and use the comments box and let rip… after all, what have you got to lose?

A quick, extra post before I go on leave.

You have to say the phrase “Ready for Christmas yet?” in a slightly nerdy sort of way to get the full effect. That’s one of the reasons I try and escape the UK in the run-up to the festive season… to avoid the hype and hypocracy associated with the season of goodwill. There is the asssumption that Christmas is somehow so much more difficult to organise than any other time of the year.

Thankfully there seem to be fewer Christmassy adverts on the TV, possibly helped by the demise of Woolworths, as Woolies was responsible for some of the worst Christmas sentimentality mixed commercial opportunism. Adverts showing Christmas with snow gently falling and large open fires seem at odds with the wet,windy and overcast reality.

Anyway to the point of this posting… recent statistics suggest that as a nation, we waste £2.3 billion every year on unwanted Christmas presents, and apparently around one third of them end up on ebay.

Why not have a look at World Vision Catalogue and buy someone a gift which benefits someone in need or instead of sending cards, send money to the charity of your choice.

This year, instead of sending cards, I’m going to donate £30 to The Smile Train, a charity which provides free surgery for children born with cleft palates.

Writing a blog is somewhat akin to a vicar having  to write a sermon each week. I try and produce something timely and relevent and hopefully readable, and I have managed to do this 99 times so far. This blog is a small but significant landmark, representing the 100th posting.

I thought I’d mark the occasion by having a quick look back over the previous 99 blogs to see which ones attracted your readership, which went largely unread and which elicited comments.

Before that, I’d really like to thank the regular contributors to the comments box… it’s always good to receive your input! There have been 202 published comments to date.

Now to look at the monthly viewing figures.

Overall there have been 24,559  views of the blog since May 2008, with July 2009 the busiest month. The busiest day was Wednesday 28 April  2009  with 456 views.

Tripadvisor for cultural heritage 777
Antisocial networking 475
If it’s too good to be true it’s a hoax 454
Social networking is a waste of time 451
Jacko dead… really? 422
Beam me up Yinnon 395
The Facebook Fifty 374
Dog turd on a stick 365
Google Streetview comes to Southampton 337
Apple a day 335

These are the most commented posts

Take the Hantsweb challenge and  Click here to annoy me with 9 comments
Belle de Jour 8
Sorry… otherwise engaged 7
Universal access to all human knowledge, Minority Report is only a step or two away and Park and walk 4
and many with one, two or three comments

I will keep writing if you’ll keep reading, however there will  now be a two week break in blog posting while I rest and recuperate with some well earned leave.

The revelation of the identity of the sex blogger of Belle de Jour in the Sunday Times has been a great relief to the webteam, as at least we’re now off the list of possible suspects.

The blog today will use you for a quick vox pop survey.

I drive on the motorway, M3 and M27, to go to Winchester three times each week, which means I exit a slip road six times each week. I’d be interested to hear your views as to when is the correct time to signal that you are leaving at the next exit.

There seem to be two variations… the first is to turn on the left indicator as you reach the exit point, and the other to signal at the /// three hundred yards sign. The latter is my favoured method.

The Highway code says “signal left in good time” but fails to say what is good time!

The stalk, either on the left or right of the steering wheel is called an indicator. A definition of indicate is “to direct attention to; point to or point out; show”. If you signal that you’re leaving the motorway when almost parallel to the junction, that is too late as it just shows what you are doing rather than what you intend to do.

Any other views?

Having complained about the Park’n'Ride bus drivers a few blogs ago, I am now actually going to heap a small amount of praise on one of the drivers… the rain was torrential, and as the bus got to the stop he asked whether I and the other passenger were heading to the staff car park. We both said yes, so he drove the bus further round the car park and stopped by the steps.

I’d like to contact the bus company to thank them for good customer service, but I suspect he’d be disciplined for some health and safetly infringement.

It would have been even better if he’d diverted to the staff car park but nonetheless my faith in the humanity of bus drivers is somewhat restored.

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 on the current home screen 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.