Finding the time for some digital learning

Most communications professionals want to sharpen their digital communication skills, but we all know it’s hard to find the time to learn new skills and practice them.

September was digital learning month for the Communication Directorate at the FCO. Our digital team offered up their creative skills and time to run training sessions and demos including a practical workshop on how to make a video on your smartphone (you might have already read about our successful pilot), to demos of an upcoming project in our digital transformation work which will allow online applications for emergency travel documents. We also asked digital experts from other Government departments to come and share their digital campaigns experience with us.

We had external talks and workshops by Facebook, and analytics tools like Ripjar and Hootsuite which gave us food for thought. We were reminded that most people consume digital content on their phones; video is an increasingly popular way of communicating on social media channels; and of course if you want to grab people’s attention then it’s all about images! On evaluation it was useful for staff to really drill down into the importance of objective setting ahead of any analysis of impact.

The challenge in organising a programme like this is ensuring there are even activities for those who can only spare 5 minutes. We circulated a digital top tip each week to the directorate and pulled together a list of learning activities which could be done quickly without having to leave your desk.

Digital innovations and trends move quickly and so the appetite for training never ceases. Having a flexible training offer which combines practical workshops and demos teaching digital skills as well as hearing from external experts worked. Spreading activity across a number of weeks so more people can attend, alongside offering one to one digital help where required, goes a long way in providing something for everyone.