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The Very Hungry Juniors
Being a Junior Analyst is kind of like being a caterpillar- we are on the journey to becoming beautiful analytical butterflies! There’s a lot of knowledge and skills to learn (eat) along the way and here we’re going to share …
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My name's Emma, and I'm a reluctant homeworker
For Emma, working from home was something she tried to avoid. So, when that became the new normal, she dreaded it. She tells us how remote working has worked out quite well for her.
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Accessibility awareness: just because it's not broken, doesn't mean it's working
We asked our front-end developers, Jack and Martin, to decode accessibility and give us their top 5 accessibility fails and how to fix them.
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Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships
I’m partial to a board game, my prowess at Cluedo is well known among my nearest and dearest. I think analytics is a bit like a detective game - stitching together the clues, refining the key lines of questioning, ruling …
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Opposite ends of the UK, but still at the heart of the team
Matt Jukes and Jane Reid are legends of the public sector digital world. Despite being at opposite ends of the UK, they're getting stuck into their new roles with Essex.
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Confessions of a Data & Analytics Manager
Over the course of the lockdown, I have seen a lot of people posting on MySpace and Bebo (other social media platforms are available, but if it was good enough for 2006 it’s good enough for me) about how they …
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Jog on: taking lockdown in your stride
If lockdown's driving you around the bend, why not take a run around the block? Content designer, John, tells us how he's plodding through working from home.
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Shining a light on the potential of open data
Sharing insight and intelligence that helps our county to plan, prioritise and shape our understanding of community needs has always been important to us. As part of our collaborative data efforts we have launched a new Open Data COVID-19 risk …
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How much knowledge is too much knowledge?
Discovery is all about finding out what you don't know. So what happens when you're a subject matter expert? User researcher, Julie, finds out how collaboration can help you find the right questions, before you start looking for answers.
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Home comforts: keeping up morale when you're locked down
DIY desks, 'helpful' pets and living room yoga. Find out how the Service Transformation team are coping with working from home during lockdown.
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Telling Ella's story with impact
Back in, what feels like, the distant past when we could all go out to the pub and the news wasn’t exclusively about Coronavirus I entered an NHS data visualisation competition. Now obviously the NHS has a fair bit going …
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A new role, a new team and a very familiar office
How do you join a team that's not there? Rich explains how lockdown rocked his first month in the Service Transformation team.
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Realising the value of data to shield our most vulnerable
Never has data been more in need. Over the past three weeks we have been working tirelessly to identify the needs of our residents, react to the needs of our organisations and support partners as we all work together to …
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No more pyjamas
As a team, we're used to adapting to change, but what happens when everything changes? Caroline McCabe finds out.
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Agile from the outside in
Councillor Madden dropped by to see what stand up was all about. He stayed to chat to us about how impressed he was with the team's energy, how he did stand up before it was a thing and his belief in empathy in the workplace.
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International Open Data Day
Happy International Open Data Day (Saturday 7th March)!! To celebrate all things open data I’m going to bring you up to speed on what we’ve been doing here at Essex County Council. We have a great Open Data team at …
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The only way...or the Essex way?
We asked our team to give their top tips about living, working, commuting and playing in Essex.
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Agile for introverts
Agile is a team sport, but that doesn't mean that you can't take some time on your own. John tells us how the Service Design team supports different ways of working.
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Many minds, one heart: building a team culture
We agree we're a pretty good team, but why? We talk to Martin, Maria, Magda and Greg about Dungeons and Dragons, gender-balance and building a team culture.
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How do you do content design when it doesn’t exist yet?
Caroline McCabe wrote her way around the world, not realising that she was learning the skills that would make her a content designer. Read her story.
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My top tips to beat procrastination in 2020
Content designer, John, gives us his top tips to stop your to do list looking like a window into the abyss, with help from some Nobel laureates and Ron Swanson.
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Weeknotes 6-10 January
We've untacked the tinsel and tidied away the selection boxes ready for a lean, mean start to 2020. See what we've been up to this week.
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"Everything is awesome": a view from a Local Government Data & Analytics Intelligence Manager
If I had a pound every time someone said to me “Tom, working in the partnership space must be very exciting and fun and you must love it”, I wouldn’t be all that much richer. That’s why I’ve decided to …
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A service pattern toolkit for the real world
It's been a long journey, but we've managed to bring service patterns off the wall and into the real world. Service designer, Bhupinder, tells us how.
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Weeknotes 16-20 December
We've decked County Hall with boughs of holly for our final weeknotes of 2019. Find out what we've been up to.
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Putting service design theory into practice
‘Design can’t fully exist until it’s put into practice’, service designer and PhD student at Maria Marinovic, talks about how her research in sustainable design is helping her work at Essex County Council.
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Can anybody be a researcher?
“An interview is just having a chat with someone, right? Anyone can do that.”
As researchers, whether it’s an interview, focus group, or even a survey, we put a lot of work into developing the research objectives, crafting the questions, and planning something which sets the right tone...
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Weeknotes 9-13 December
Never mind the ballots, in Service Design we've been staying focused on delivering for the user. Find out what we've been up to this week.
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Service design, local government, sharing the load
Nic and Bhupinder gathered with other service designers at the Local #GovDesign Day in Birmingham. They fill us in on what they learned and how we succeed together when we share our stories.
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Weeknotes 2-6 December
As winter bites, we've been battling raw noses and sore throats to bring you a weekly update that's not to be sniffed at. Find out what we've been up to.
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The value of secondary research
“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers” is a quote often heard throughout society whether it be a piece of celebrity gossip or a hard-to-believe factual article. But is there any value in using information from newspapers, magazines or websites to help understand work or a topic you are about to start?
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Weeknotes 25-29 November
We've had a busy week in Service Design. Find out what we've been up to.
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User-centred design, accessibility and matcha tea
Life is complicated and we all have different needs. Our LearnFest session looked at why it's so vital to tackle complexity and create beautifully simple services for all of our users.
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Weeknotes 18-22 November
The Christmas lights are twinkling and there's freezing fog on the river. While Chelmsford's starting to feel festive, we've been jolly busy. See what we've been up to this week.
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Futures Academy 3: Time to think, space to create
Futures Academy returned with a new format and lots of new ideas. Julie talks us through the highs and lows of 10 weeks of inspiration, innovation and iteration.
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Great outdoors, great accessibility
The outdoors are for everyone and so is the Essex Outdoors website. Dan Newton tells us how he ventured into the unknown, creating an engaging, commercial website, with accessibility as its guiding light.
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Weeknotes 11-15 November
In the Service Design team, we think you learn by doing. This week we've been showcasing that at LearnFest as well as doing lots of other exciting stuff. Find out what we've been up to.
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Usability: designing for the future we want
To celebrate World Usability Day, Julie tells us how she's putting the user at the heart of designing for the future we want.
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Weeknotes 4-8 November
We’ve had a week to remember, with a few new guys joining us to make it go with a bang. Find out what we've been up to.
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One directive: how we're pulling together to meet our accessibility duties
2020 is the year when Essex's online services must become fully accessible. For us, the journey's already begun. Find out how this affects all our websites, apps, forms and documents.