Si Jobling

Last week, the new GOV.UK website was unveiled to the public.

Released as an early beta product, it is still very early days but my initial reactions are impressive. Unless you’re aware, gov.uk is intended to centralise the vast number of UK government websites into a single solution, allowing the general public to quickly access important data without jumping through all the typical hoops.

As part of the project, I’ve been monitoring the development of the project by following certain individuals of the team on Twitter, including Paul Annett, Relly Annett-Baker, Frances Berriman and Gareth Rushgrove (to name a few). Each of these guys bring unique talents to the table where Paul is a brilliant UI designer, Relly a fantastic knack for writing web copy, Frances as an evangelist of semantic markup and Gareth’s impressive coding brain.

What has really caught my attention is the open nature of the entire project. They have been keen to embrace the open source culture of the Web, actively blogging the design process the team have gone through, creating discussion around design decisions as well as leveraging the power of popular online tools. They have published a vast amount of their development on Github to allow other governments to reuse all the code they have created, as well as manage feedback such as feature requests and bugs on Get Satisfaction.

It’s quite exciting to see the evolution of the online presence of the UK Government with pioneers of the Web community, especially with such an open approach. Whilst it’s only early stages, the results so far have been very promising. It’s a fantastic opportunity to have such a large platform for promoting open source culture.

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Yesterday, I was discussing the process of mobile registration forms with a colleague from Uganda. He was asking if I knew of a simple way to capture data quickly from mobile devices whilst minimising potential fraud and human error.

We know smart phones have become common place in the “first world” but technology is not as advanced in developing countries such as Uganda so relying on mobile apps and web forms are not always an option.

However, one common feature of all mobile phones are contacts – a digital representation of a person.

Nearly all mobile phones allow users to store basic contact details for an individual. They store common fields such as first name, last name, telephone number, address and date of birth. These devices also have cameras built in so there is potential to attach a photograph of the owner for security reasons.

Additional to this, most mobile phones also offer the facility to send contact cards via email or SMS so there is a method available for data submission.

If a provider required registration prior to activation, a user should be asked to create a new business card containing all their personal details and send it to a pre-defined point of contact (SMS or email). Not only is this allowing instant activation on a reliable data capture mechanism, it is also minimising chance of error as well as validating the origin (the mobile telephone number).

In a world where mobile apps are fast becoming the norm, it’s easy to forget other audiences where new technology is unavailable. However, this simple approach could revolutionise data capture in a developing world.

What do you think? Is there potential in this process or is it flawed in some way?

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As should become tradition every year, it’s time to reflect on the last 12 months, highlighting the good, bad and pivotal points.

The year started with the final stages of Free Tunes for Christmas – a seasonal music site offering a free dance track for the 12 days of Christmas. Amongst the targeted audience, this was a huge success proving the age old tradition that free giveaways are a desirable product. One element of the project I didn’t factor for was the amount of time and resources required to compile the content. Oliver Ker did a fantastic job on design and build of the site but the hardest part was confirming musical partners and scheduling releases in a timely manner. If I ever run the campaign again, this will definitely be an area I’ll allow more time.

Professionally, I’ve achieved a significant number of milestones at Premium Choice, unfortunately more prominent internally.

I’ve led development of a powerful CRM tool having introduced an Agile project lifecycle, adapting to the rapid growth and changes of business requirements. We have received much praise from the board and staff, even external partners for the business intelligence the application delivers so the project has been a massive success for the company and I have taken great pride from it too.

I’ve also managed the development of our Buy Online strategy, tailoring the user journey from price comparison sites to final purchase. This has been addressed in a phased approach to ensure we focus on fundamental processes in manageable chunks. All partners involved admire the work and effort gone into the first phase so it bodes well for the next.

We also introduced the first stage of our niche mini-site strategy by creating and delivering a tailored site for motor trade insurance. Whilst it’s still early days to thoroughly evaluate performance, first impressions are good and all partners feel confident the strategy will be an effective approach for the business.

Towards the end of the Summer, I teamed up with Daniel Newns and launched another spin-off sport calendar app for the Rugby World Cup in South Africa. With less commercial appeal than the football world cup, I wasn’t expecting record traffic but it scratched an itch, especially when I live in the home of rugby football, and certainly proved popular amongst the fans of the game.

In November, I teamed up with Sam Hardacre and Anthony Killeen to build Tweets for Balls – a digital fundraising campaign for testicular cancer. We piggybacked available tools such as Giv2.it, Just Giving and Twitter to raise awareness and money for cancer research, followed by endless multi-channel promotion throughout the month. On hindsight, it wasn’t a great idea to compete with the popular Movember campaign as we struggled to reach our goal of £1,000 but it was still a good opportunity to work with some people I’ve admired for years as well as create something charitable. I’m keen to try again next year but focus more on marketing and viral campaigns now the foundations are set.

Tweets for Balls was also an ideal opportunity to venture into public speaking. When I co-found Midlands creative network The Multipack way back in 2005, I’ve always been keen to leverage (sorry!) the platform by building my confidence and find my voice. When we held a Show & Tell in November at Birmingham Science Park, it felt like my calling to give it a try. It was by no means groundbreaking but I’m glad I tried and feedback wasn’t negative. Read what you will into that but I’m taking light in it.

Throughout the year, I’ve continued to produce, broadcast and syndicate my house music mix show Funky House Finesse. It’s built quite a loyal fan base over the past 6 years so the biggest highlight for me was reaching the milestone of 800 Facebook fans in October. That count is continually growing so maybe – just maybe – we’ll reach 1,000 in 2012.

Anyone who knows me should also know I’m an avid Twitter user. Several years ago, I registered the @derbycounty account to accompany my Super Rams fan site. It didn’t get much use but follower counts increased with the popularity of Twitter. Earlier this year, I asked fellow Ram Franca Hood if she wanted to live commentate from the matches which she jumped at. And, didn’t she do well. It wasn’t long before 3,000 more followed and this continues to grow. I really feel there is a tangible opportunity with this model, giving committed fans a platform to engage with real people with similar passions.

All in all, 2011 has been quite a successful year. I’ve accomplished a number of personal goals but equally seen some less successful moments. As always, I’ll take note from those errors to find ways to improve but I’ve got a good feeling about 2012. Here’s hoping.

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Today, The Noun Project announced they were opening up submissions for user contribution towards a single, unified language of iconic symbols to represent every noun in the dictionary.

This is a great project, something I’ve considered many times for establishing a common language when it comes to iconography.

Icons are such a powerful design tool when used correctly as it is language-agnostic, independent of translations and conflicting colour theory around the globe. It’s difficult to argue with the meaning of an illustration (unless it’s designed badly).

By creating a unified collection of icons, available to all in an open source/Creative Commons manner, this is allowing designers to establish a common language within design, whether it is in print, screen – wherever. The media is irrelevant. It is a visual language. Where it can be seen, it can be perceived.

It would be really amazing if The Noun Project continues to grow and gain widespread coverage. More designers should contribute towards this project. It’s quite an ambitious project which really could do with more leverage from the design industry but, if enough people can spread the word, there’s no reason why not.

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Adrian Short has posted an interesting and extensive post about the viral spread of Facebook and how it is invading personal privacy to an unacceptable level.

Amongst many points, he highlights how the Facebook Like widget not only tracks webpages you personally “like” but also unknowingly monitors all your website traffic regardless of you opting in to that approval, wherever the Facebook script is placed. This is only going to get worse with the recent Open Graph announcement at F8.

However, Google have been doing this as well, not only with their high profile Search and new Google+ service but also with Google Analytics. Why else would they offer such a valuable, free service to all those websites across the Web?

Yes, there are an alarming number of websites using the Facebook scripts to “engage” with their visitors (I’m as guilty as the next person for implementing the tools) but how many websites use Google Analytics as well? I’ll take a sweeping stab in the dark and guess a vast majority of web developers implement it on their websites, for both personal projects and clients.

It’s easy to slam Facebook for their ethics and how their using all this data (obviously for targeted advertising and marketing) but, if you really do want to play the moral card, remove all your own website tracking tools as well and see how easy it is to optimise your website based on no statistical evidence of visitor behaviour.

What about Facebook?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of Facebook and whether it holds any personal value to them.

Personally, I find it a great platform for promoting my podcast, interacting with fans of the show as well as promoting new websites or services I’ve been working on. That said, I am aware Facebook is mining all that data to promote targeted ads whilst I visit their website (which I, as an online addict, have learned to ignore quite easily).

I also find Facebook a great tool for keeping in touch with friends and family. Without it, it’s very unlikely I’ll know when birthdays are or when babies have been born. This sort of information is invaluable to me.

What I’m trying to get across here is not to jump on a bandwagon without making a personal, informed decision. Whilst some people “just don’t get” Facebook, others find it a valuable asset in their tools of online activity.

Personally, I’ll now be a lot more cautious of where and when I use Facebook but that doesn’t mean I’ll be deleting my account any time soon.

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