Mapping my clients to serve them better

Last week my boss sent our team a TED talk video with the basic message to stop learning and start thinking.

I was inspired to think more about what I could do to serve my clients better. My job (in a nutshell) is to help build capacity within government to create online information and services that are easy to use. I had been asked to create “User-Centred Design Guidelines” as per our traditional policy lens, but I couldn’t figure out how to do so without re-writing the Internet. My goal was to create a useful resource for government employees to apply user-centred design principles and methods; so I turned to the methodology itself to discover how to best do so.

I mapped out my clients like this (image & description below) and saw that as my user research landscape.

The clients of my clients’ clients are all my clients.

My primary clients have a direct role in the Web publishing process and represent their organizations within a larger framework of committees and working groups. Their goal is to ensure that websites and applications are usable, accessible, interoperable and all the other outcomes of the policies to which they need to comply (e.g. equal quality in both official languages). Their clients work within their department to deliver on their program objectives and create online products – they are developers, communicators and program officers. By extension, these are my secondary clients.

We all have the same end-user client – the people for whom we want info and services to be “usable” – the public. The public is segmented into target groups, each of which can be further segmented into sub-groups (and even sub-sub-groups).

Once I mapped this all out, I realized I can serve my primary clients better if I create resources that they can use with their clients or that their clients can use directly.

To this end, I started two projects – one examining the needs and behaviours of my secondary clients. The other project is to curate research around the needs and behaviours of our collective clients – all of the target groups that the government serves. I found some old work that had been done as part of a metadata project that I re-purposed.

The goal of the first user research project is to understand how to create this user-centred design resource that I’ve been asked to produce. It will only be useful if I understand the language and perspective of government employees who work anywhere in the production of information and services for the public, not just those with whom I regularly interact.

The goal of the second user research project is to include in the user-centred design resource whatever facts and data I can find about how each of our target groups want to interact with government information and services. If you know of any good research or reports that you think would be useful, please post them below. (Or if you work within the government firewall, post them on GCPEDIA (internal link; sorry).)

As always, I look forward to hearing what you think!

Advice for policy analysts: the first draft is yours

Working as a policy analyst is fascinating. I never thought I’d say that but now I see why it comes so highly recommended for career public servants (another thing I never thought I’d admit to). This lesson comes thanks to a fellow policy analyst.

I have a colleague who is bright; a good writer. He had done his homework and synthesized the ideas for a position paper. He had narrowed the possible recommendations down to two insightful conclusions after investigating legal precedent and interpreting various policy mechanisms. Yet he still wanted to keep researching. What was the hold-up? Was he suffering from analysis paralysis?

After an hour and a half discussion, we came to the realization that he felt perhaps others had already decided what the recommendation should contain. He was concerned that he would be betraying the authority of those around him if he wrote anything but what everyone supposed would be the final outcome. I wasn’t convinced.

While I agreed the decision-makers would mostly likely choose option A, I still felt it was important to write down at least one other option and the thinking behind it. Skipping to the conclusion just didn’t seem right. I couldn’t help myself; I encouraged him to write down both options, regardless of which one he felt would be chosen. After all, wasn’t the value in the analysis?

In fact, that left me with questions to consider for the entire weekend: Was I being a contrarian? Speaking out of turn? Was I wrong?

I believe our role as policy analysts is to research and present options. By only writing down the one we think will be chosen, we erode the traceability of a decision, and in so doing, undermine the democratic process.  When we jump to an assumption of what others want or what they will decide, instead of presenting the various options, we’re giving our bosses poor information with which to make decisions.

Sometimes it takes a bit of courage to write down what nobody wants to hear. However, in the long run, this is what it means to be a policy analyst. Remember; the first draft is yours.

Your career; your lifestyle; your choice.

I was fascinated by a comment from a fellow guest at the Girl Geek Dinner networking lunch last week about one’s choice of career being primarily about the lifestyle one chooses. She’d done a master’s degree in an obscure field then figured out how to turn it into a consulting gig. Only 12% of her graduating class had found jobs in the two years since they’d graduated.

I saw this theme repeated throughout FITC and then noticed a wider theme throughout my week in Toronto as I talked to other colleagues and friends about their career / lifestyle choices.

We talked about where we lived; how much we worked or spent time on hobbies, with friends and family; whether we were satisfied, happy, challenged. I listened, questioned, reflected.

I met-up with a friend from high school, an artist working & living in Toronto with her husband and son. They’re not famous but they certainly seem happy, spending time with family, doing what they love, and taking time to travel.

On Wednesday, I stopped by MaRS to see Start-up Kids.

The commonality amongst all the young entrepreneurs in the film was an unrelenting passion and focus on the one thing they were doing. There was some tension in the film about whether or not it was even possible to do anything other than THAT ONE THING. Most did not have any work-life balance at all; choosing instead to trade-off a few years of sleep, friends, relationships, and even their families to see if they be a huge success (some even seemed content with huge failure as it at least meant they were doing something huge). An admirable focus but could I do that?

One of the things I heard repeatedly from the speakers at FITC was to do what you love and sometimes money followed. Lots admitted to working all day for clients then working all night on their personal projects. Most had not amassed great wealth but they derived so much pleasure from creating something out of nothing! I was (and am) envious of their talent, creativity, and drive. But again, unsure of the balance in their lives.

Personally I get very cranky when I don’t sleep, eat or exercise. Unbalance is not for me. My joy comes from connecting with others, with nature, with myself. And for now, I have that. At least, I have the opportunitiy for that; it’s always a struggle to balance, to resist, to take time out, to slow down, to reflect, to not get caught up in doing, to just be. But that’s my goal and the path I’m on. That’s good enough. For now.

Cultivating change? Commit for 2 years.

Are you a change agent? Frustrated? If yes, I’d like to share this wee insight I’ve noticed – change takes time. A lot of time.

My average right now to cultivate change within an organization is two years (minimum).

The first year is spent building relationships:

• getting to know each other
• demonstrating that you are worthy of other people’s trust (if, in fact, you are)
• showing respect to others (even if you sometimes feel they may not “deserve” it)
• listening
• acknowledge that others have been heard by helping solve their problems
• helping remove barriers
  

  The first thing I see when I think about change is myself. I could always be better.

If all of that works out, then you can start to cultivate change in the processes and systems around you. If it’s something big, expect another year of focused hard work before results start to show themselves.

So with that in mind, and with small results starting to show, I am committing myself to another two years of cultivating change within the organizations with which I am involved. There, I said it. You can hold me to it!

Web Experience Toolkit gaining speed; get onboard!

After years of development and communication, the Web Experience Toolkit is gaining speed! Learn about what’s going on so you too can get involved.

Last week Paul and I each presented the Toolkit to different audiences. Both are available as videos online, and summaries as well, all linked below.

Paul Jackson presented for HowTo.Gov : Exploring Canada’s Web Experience Toolkit (WET). It’s a great demo with lots of details about what’s included in the Web Experience Toolkit!

Transcript of Paul’s talk

DigitalGov’s blog post: How Canada is Revolutionizing Digital Governance

Nick Schonning & I stopped by Toronto Accessibility and Inclusive Design Meet-up (A11yTO) for an informal discussion hosted by Devlin Digital and broadcast live by HTML5 Toronto.

(Transcript to come)

Storify of tweets from participants during the event

You can track WET’s progress by:

• following the Accolades page on GitHub,
• searching for the #WxT hashtag on Twitter,
• following the Web Experience Toolkit on Twitter, and/or
• watching (or submitting!) issues of interest.

I invite you to take a tour of the Working Examples and get involved! We need you!

Trends and cools stuff from FITC

Ok, surely you’re dying to know about all the cool stuff I saw at FITC which started with the opening video sequence.

Firstly, MUSE: the brainwave sensing headband.

Can’t you picture yourself at Starbucks wearing your own brainwave sensing headband?

Why would you want this? Why wouldn’t you?! I totally do!

According to the website, “Seeing your brainwave activity allows you to train, condition and enhance your mind.” It comes with a Software Development Kit (SDK) that allows you (well, if you’re a developer) to “create additional approved applications” for iOS, Android, OS X, Windows and Linux.  Yes, you can pre-order it for $200 from the Toronto-based company Interaxon.

I was most inspired by the multi-disciplinary artists who work with tech; hardware, software, open source, video, lights, sensors…you name it, people are building with it. Those are the folks who choose to live at the intersection of art and technology, sometimes for money, sometimes for clients, but most of whom said “do what you love and (sometimes) money follows”. I am envious of their talent and courage. Made me think a lot about whether or not I am doing the right thing with my own life. (Short answer: yes. Long answer: another post.)

Kyle McDonald‘s presentation called “How to Give Everything Away” was true to it’s title. My notes and tweets from this session were the most prolific of any I attended because this session resonated the most. I have been actively de-cluttering, downsizing and getting out of the way to make room for others this year. Kyle made me think actively about what else I could give away. I’m making a list. And a pile. I’m feeling lighter already while listening to The xx.

Qanta Shimizu‘s session was very fun! What do you expect from a Creative Director of a PR firm called PARTY who is also a brilliant developer? He hacked his router so that people waiting at the stop outside of his apartment would see the bus schedule as his wi-fi name. Main takeaway, other than the giggles, was the inspiration to provide more visual and creative deliverables to clients.

Lots of folks, like illustrator Sara Blake, showed time-laspe video or other visual documentation of their process during their talk. I really enjoyed that and plan to do that more often. It provides the author with a record and insights for others. They talked about their tools (lots of open source) and career or talent progression, like fellow Ottawan Eric Chan, which summed up is: try anything, collaborate and fail a lot along the way. Will do! Also, get awesome tattoos!

Memo Atken was a great person to close the conference. His was one of the most touching presentations; well-paced, scripted yet natural, funny and heart-felt. His work is technically brilliant and emotionally charged. Some of the presentations at FITC were very showboat-y, which I could have just stayed home and watched on vimeo, but his was one of the best at demystifying the process, tools and techniques behind his works, as you can see in this video and read about on his blog. I learned a lot about balancing the technical with the emotional by listening to him.

Other than getting inspired and learning about bleeding edge technology, I also attended talks that applied more directly to my job. I was not surprised to hear that any big organization is prone to the same issues as the one I work in; vertical silos, archaic tech, turf wars, clients who don’t listen to the advice they paid for and the like. Not surprising but validating all the same. There was a great panel discussion about media convergence where it was revealed that the private sector can’t figure out how to deliver cross-chanel experiences either. What a relief! (Now I really want to do it!)

So, what’s next? I’ve been thinking about learning to code (MB‘s been trying to convince me for years) but I was resisting. Partly because I needed to finish other things I’d started before making room for new things and partly because I wasn’t sure where to start…so many options, so little time! I finally figured out why I actually wanted to learn to code and what I would do with it if I did. HINT: It’s not work! More on this when I figure out how to articulate it.

Thanks again to FITC for the free pass and to Sacha Chua for the great sketchnotes!

A week away is a great time for reflection

Heading home on the train feeling quite reflective after a very busy week in Toronto. The weather is grey and rainy, casting a gloomy hue on the trees, fields and houses. I’ve passed by this way many times; the cinematic experience of being on the train often makes me nostalgic.

Thoughts are flying around inside my mind, not settling on any one thing. I saw so many inspiring projects on this trip. I made new friends and saw old ones. The timing is good for reflecting on the past and considering the future. I suspect I’m heading back to news of my next project. I’m feeling the need to be intentional.

I’m grateful for an abundance of generous, creative, intelligent people in this world and specifically those in my life. They give this cynic (me) hope.

Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity. These are a few of my favorite things.

The line-up at the Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity. conference looks inspiring! Which is exactly what I need right now; I survived the busy period at work but I’m totally spent. After a short time-out, I could benefit from new knowledge, provocative conversation and crazy parties! Can FITC deliver? At least can the organizers deliver me to the conference? If they do, I’ll do the rest!

So, it is with that hope that I submit this short video as my entry to win a pass to go to the conference. My first attempt at using Final Cut Pro…the first of many.

Web analytics policy coverage

Remember when I said I would update this old post about web analytics? Well, it’s totally out of date but I don’t really have anything more to say about it. It’s not that none of that stuff happened. A lot of it did. And guess what? Nothing more really.

Anyway, that’s about all I have to say about Web analytics.

Oh yah: that and…

There is a new Standard on Privacy and Web Analytics. So now we’ve got some policy coverage and some handy dandy Frequently Asked Questions.

Consider this topic closed.

Join me in Toronto for Customer Experience for Public Sector

I’m very pleased to let y’all know that I’ll be speaking at the Customer Experience for Public Sector Conference in Toronto in April 16-17. I would love it if you could join me. I even have this handy VIP code (VIP200 correction: SPK200) that’ll get you a discount off the price.

Luckily I’m up first…err, rather, right after my friend and mentor, Jess McMullin, founder of Centre for Citizen Experience. No pressure! I’m glad to be finished early though, so I can sit back and relax while listening to some of my personal public sector heros – Andrew Stott from the UK and my colleagues from BC, Regina and Peel.

I’m going to be talking about: PEOPLE! It’ll be based on my experiences working in the Web and policy space with a lot of talented hackercrats (a term credited to @nellleo), supported by loads of reading and research on human motivation, influence and managing change.

The video below is a summary of what we achieved, from my lightening talk at UXCampOttawa in 2011.

If you can’t make it to Toronto, there are lots of good sessions coming up in Ottawa – like Accessibility for UX Designers on April 9th and the Digital Strategy Conference June 3-5. There’s also a date for UXCampOttawa 4 but you’ll have to wait til November for that goodness.

Get these on your learning plan now!