16th February 2015
London, UK
Lessons in configuring a service, running pilots and handling diversity in skills As we’ve developed our new consular appointment booking service we’ve encountered several challenges along the way, not least getting into the embassy in Madrid, and learnt many lessons which we can apply to future transformation work on legalisation and emergency travel documents. Parents […]
Read more on Consular appointments – the challenges and lessons learnt | Reply (1)
4th February 2015
London, UK
What we learnt about our appointments service during a visit to Madrid As the consular appointments alpha phase drew to a close, a visit to the Embassy in Madrid was a good opportunity for some face-to-face user testing, as well as a timely reminder of local conditions. First of all, the Google map pin for […]
Read more on Testing consular appointment booking in Madrid | Reply
30th January 2015
London, UK
How the appointments service was developed, the teams involved, and the first training iteration While developing our consular appointments service through alpha to beta, we’ve worked closely with our partner BookingBug to customise their Software-as-a-Service offering to our needs – both user needs and organisational needs. As the development was not in-house good communication was […]
Read more on Consular appointments – our approach to development and training | Reply
26th January 2015
London, UK
The pilot programme for our consular appointments booking service has been running as a public beta for a few weeks now, so it’s time to take stock of progress. Since my last post on the discovery phase for consular appointments, we have focused on building and iterating the product, training staff on how to manage […]
Read more on Consular appointments – from alpha to beta | Reply
12th January 2015
London, UK
In November, my colleague Kate Burnham blogged about our work to design a new digital training curriculum for the FCO. Since then, we’ve been busy running pilots – “beta” testing 11 modules, in 4 different formats, with over 140 people in over 25 countries (and demand was so high that we already have waiting lists […]
Read more on The digital curriculum: from vision to reality | Reply (3)
19th December 2014
London, UK
I’ve just been presenting to senior Foreign Office leaders on our digital work in 2014. It’s been a momentous year. The Digital Transformation Unit we envisaged in the Digital Strategy became fully operational this spring. The Unit brought new skills into the Foreign Office – expertise in the delivery of modern digital services, expertise in […]
Read more on Our digital diplomacy in 2014 | Reply (1)
19th December 2014
London, UK
In no particular order: 1. The FCO’s first foray into Buzzfeeding 2. This gif to outline the UK priorities for UNGA in September 3. Some brilliant visualisations of the conversation around the End Sexual Violence in Conflict Summit Mapping the online conversation around the Global Summit to End #SexualViolence in Conflict: http://t.co/uWF2tsf5Cb pic.twitter.com/3Q8Fw2AGfF — SexualViolenceInWar (@end_svc) August […]
Read more on List time! My favourite Foreign Office social media content of 2014 | Reply
28th November 2014
London, UK
This blog post looks at what we learnt from our recent review of how our embassies around the world are using digital. In our 2014 digital review we asked posts (embassies, high commissions, consulates etc) to assess how they were using digital tools and techniques in four areas: communications; strategic planning and leadership; policy making; […]
Read more on Reviewing the digital work of our embassies – part 2 | Reply
27th November 2014
London, UK
We recently conducted a review of how our embassies are using digital. This blog explains why and how we run that review. The next blog looks at the findings. With a network of more than 200 posts (embassies, high commissions, consulates etc) across the globe, all using digital in one way or another, it can […]
Read more on Reviewing the digital work of our embassies | Reply (1)
26th November 2014
London, UK
The FCO has an ambitious change agenda to bring the organisation fully into the digital age. Our Digital Transformation Unit was set up in February 2014, bringing in the specialist digital skills and expertise that we need in our core digital team, but we also need to ensure the FCO’s diverse network of staff increase […]
Read more on Piloting new digital training | Reply
