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It’s all About the Journey
Sometimes it is difficult to see a way through. Sometimes, what we have always done no longer works. Sometimes the solution is so simple and obvious in hindsight. Of course, in our world of data, there is always a journey …
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Devolution - “We must have the vision to seize this opportunity…”
The Leader outlines the opportunities devolution could bring to Essex.
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Essex Residents' Survey Reports & Dashboard 2024 - Knowing Our Residents
With another resident survey coming to a conclusion, the door for creating a new blog post emerged. Now, let’s open up word before piling my sentences through copilot (AI might be a focus in here…) Here’s the cheeky plug to …
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Help us make a consent form that works with demand avoidance
Have you made any new year’s resolutions? I did. I made one. Go to the gym more? Nope, not that. Drink more water? Nope, should do, but not that either. Make consent forms better? That’s the one. I enlisted the …
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Paving the Way: Supporting planning for Healthy School Streets
Someone recently pointed out to me that it’s been 4,261 days since I first started at Essex County Council (pause for shocked gasps). So, it’s been a while since I’ve thought much about my days walking to school. Or at …
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Creating an inclusive Essex
Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care and Integration, Councillor John Spence talks about how the council and partners are working hard to create an inclusive county.
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How to become a Senior Analyst: 101
It’s not a secret that I fell into a career in data analytics. After a scarily close encounter with a medical degree and then a stint at a well-known beverage company, I left my in-house barista, unlimited snacks, and free …
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Using Data to Shore our Defences
This year there have been global news reports of water everywhere – and not a drop we'd like to see creeping into our homes (even if some of us may like a little beach activity)! Flooding is no joke - …
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Harnessing linked data to better manage frailty in North East Essex
Nerdy fact alert, but did you know that frailty is classified as a “syndrome” rather than a disease? Diseases typically have a known cause, a distinct course, and an established pathway of care. In contrast, syndromes like frailty generally don’t …
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Incoming! An Analyst Travels to the Top Floor
Essex County Council’s HQ is a big place. It needs to be, to be the base for around 8,000 staff. The office is organised by department, and us Data Analysts tend to hang around the first of five floors. Not …
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Winning is only half of it...
There’s so much to enjoy and celebrate right now, so many potential wins with the World Cup and Wimbledon, the Olympics is on the horizon, oh and I just earned my PhD AND completed a three-month internship with Essex County …
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Back to school
In May I had the opportunity to visit Notley High School to take part in Essex County Council’s career insight day. Being part of this day was very important to me as I remember being a Year 8 myself and knowing little to nothing about the possibilities of ever working in data or research.
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A Day at the Local Gov Drupal Unconference: Connecting, Learning, and Building Community
Find out how our product managers, Will, Jen, and Sucharitha, fared during their day of discovery, companionship, and unexpected turns at the Local Gov Drupal Unconference.
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Audience personas for Essex: our latest data-driven marketing tool
With a population of nearly two million people, Essex County Council has a huge potential audience. We know, across our residents, there are different levels of digital capability, they prefer different digital channels and they also get their news from …
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Help! What Would You Do?
It’s late on a stormy Friday afternoon, the office is quiet and you are idly checking the travel updates to plan your route home. The forecast for the weekend is not good and your mind has wandered to what films …
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Seeing into the Future: Tales from a Time Traveller
As the season(ality) changes and recommissioning resurfaces, our team often find ourselves being asked to time travel. As analysts, we’re hardly equipped to transcend time and space, but we can make predictions about what the future may look like. With …
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Validating user needs as part of our research process.
Adam Spencer details how the User Researchers within Essex County Council work with staff and residents to gather data that helps the council make important changes and improvements to its services by exploring and validating user needs.
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Should you have a button on your website that says ‘translate’?
The short answer is no. People who need them use their own translation tools. But, you can write the content in a way that those tools will translate well. Where we know we need one or two specific languages for …
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Interactive Insights: Essex Residents' Survey Dashboard 2023
Embarking on the creation of the Essex Residents' Survey Dashboard was not just a task; it was a collaborative journey for the Research and Citizen Insight and Data and Analytics teams, driven by a shared commitment to harnessing data for actionable insights and community impact.
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Bethany Musgrove: my year in Service Transformation
Bethany Musgrove, Content Advisor at the Communications and Marketing department (C&M), completed a one-year secondment as a Content Designer in Service Transformation (ST) in December 2023. After re-joining our team for a brief period before her maternity leave, she generously …
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Big Team Challenge 2024 – The Caribbean
Another day, another challenge! Kudos to everyone who participated in February’s challenge. Our fantastic Active Essex team periodically provides us with new physical activity challenges. This time, it was a walk/run to the “Islands of the Caribbean,” with approximately 1,390 km to be covered by up to 5 team members. The goal of these challenges is to encourage physical activity, which has numerous health benefits, and to make exercise fun. The first step in the challenge is to form a team and come up with a creative name.
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Unlocking the Power of Collaboration
In recent years, the landscape of governance and public service delivery has been reshaped by the transformative potential of data analytics. Data is a pivotal asset, offering profound opportunities for collaboration and innovation across public sector organisations. From driving efficiency …
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The end of third-party cookies: how digital marketers can adapt and thrive
Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar? Well, Safari, Firefox, and now Google… Google has announced plans to phase out third-party cookies by the end of this year. Safari and Firefox browsers have been blocking them by default. Other …
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Technology – not just for the techies…
Our lives are influenced by technology, sometimes without our awareness. We want to share what we are doing to transform the way we work and help our colleagues.
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There’s a place for everyone in the world of data and analytics.
Embracing the power of data in today's world is non-negotiable! From healthcare to transportation, education to urban planning, data and analytics are revolutionising how we shape public services. But here's the catch: it's not just for the data-savvy – to …
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A problem solved was a problem shared!
When Sir Robert Peel set up the first state funded police service in London in 1829, its safe to say that he would have expected his ‘peelers’ to use gut instinct and experience to tackle the large volume of pick …
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£12 million boost for Essex’s roads, pavements and potholes
Essex County Council Cabinet Member for Highways, Infrastructure and Sustainable Transport talks about the announcement of an additional £12 million in funding for Essex Highways as part of Essex County Council's 2024/25 budget.