Weeknotes-June 28th-July 2nd

James Green
2 min readJul 2, 2021

It’s coming home? Perhaps. Just let me enjoy this moment of bliss before we inevitably get knocked out of the Euros on Saturday. Anyway, enough about that, what’s been kicking off at Essex?

Back of the net

Ok one last football reference, this project is finally over the line. Heatmaps set-up, keywords engaged. Now I need to keep an eye on how this is performing.

I’ve also sent it over to some really helpful elderly care users, who are super keen to help out. They will let me know their overall impressions and any confusion.

Oh wow (Owen Wilson voice)

I’m not directly working on our Ways of Working content, however some bits might be distributed around the team by the lead as it’s massive. Because of this I listened in on some meetings.

Where to put the content has been a hot topic this week, as we don’t have the new intranet yet — it’s currently on it’s way to Alpha. Our current one can’t be accessed by certain groups which poses some difficulties.

Accessibility is essential

We had a show and tell this week from our accessibility team. It was really inspiring, and they’ve worked really hard to find ways to train all staff in accessibility. There were some emotional moments as colleagues from the Disability Network spoke about their feelings of seeing a large group on a call learning about this. This felt really positive, well done accessibility team!

Sharing is caring

A couple of us had a call with a content designer from Greenwich Council. It was useful to speak to another local authority and learn about how they work. More of this in future!

Friday funday

Some of our colleagues ran an ideation workshop — it was good fun and useful for getting into the mindset of coming up with ideas when going into an Alpha.

Reading list

Finished up Lizzie Bruce’s ‘Task-based intranet content’, some useful ideas on how to audit and structure content.

Next up will be ‘There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness’ by M. Leona Godin, which came recommended from a cross-gov Slack channel on accessibility.

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James Green

I am a Content Designer at Essex County Council, with a background in the music industry.