Chapter and Verse Blog

This week the VerseOne staff have been discussing their favourite books when they were growing up. As children’s books disappear from the shelves of public libraries for being “inappropriate,” we wondered if any of our well-loved childhood stories would make the cut. Here is a brief bit of nostalgia and a list of what some of the VerseOne staff enjoyed during their youth.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl—James (Marketing Executive): “This story’s overall message is that dreams can come true. Charlie is one of the most important characters in children’s literature. He isn’t lucky, but deserving. The world would be a better place if we all had a bit more of Charlie’s courage, modesty, and innocence.”

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien—Karsten (Web Designer): “Because of the magic, adventure and dragons!”

The Twits by Roald Dahl—Hilda (Graphic Designer): “I always loved Quentin Blake's illustrations and with 3 older sisters, it gave me a few ideas for tricks to play on them.”

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh—Nora (Marketing Manager) loved Harriet’s antics “although reading about how she got caught has given me a lifelong fear of committing anything to writing.”

Through the Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll—Callum (Marketing Executive): “My choice isn’t a book, but a verse. Jabberwocky caught my imagination because it was such brilliant nonsense, and I was definitely a nonsense kind of child. The image of a boy facing off against this monstrous creature really stuck with me.”

The Power of Three by Diana Wynne Jones—Chris (Product Manager): “Diana Wynne Jones was a superb and amazingly prolific young persons' author who specialised mainly in sci-fi and fantasy. The book weaves in old legends around the Fair Folk, Lymen and ‘giants’—and the ancient powers of Sun, Moon and Earth that bind them together—into a fascinating, lively, and inventive tale.”

Horrible Histories by Terry Deary—Andrew (Digital Marketing Executive): “From the Groovy Greeks to the Vile Victorians, these books gave me a love of history that led me to study the subject all the way to university. They did this by keeping history entertaining, whilst also providing young inquiring minds with the perspective that life outside modern times—with its conveniences and amenities that are not to be taken for granted—was not quite so rosy. Also filled with practical tips—such as how to build a vicious Viking long boat—I can't help but fear that in a world of health and safety and political correctness gone mad, the banning of these charming books seems all the more plausible!”

This week has been a busy one for @VerseOneComms—with a very well attended Digital Strategy Seminar at Lord's Cricket Ground on Wednesday (write-up coming to the blog soon), as well as trips to visit customers across the UK—from Shropshire to Bristol. 

For our #FunFriday post this week we thought we'd kick-back over lunch and enjoy our five favourite YouTube videos we were told not to miss!

From the amusing to the spectacular, enjoy.

Web in the News

The Metro reported this week that Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the internet and author of Weaving the Web, has criticised government proposals to require internet service providers to allow officials to examine electronic communications in real time.

His criticisms are rooted in concerns about privacy and the protection of personal data, as well as the potential for web communications data to be misused:

"It means that there will be information around which could be stolen, which can be acquired through corrupt officials or corrupt operators, and [could be] used, for example, to blackmail people in the government or people in the military.

"We open ourselves out, if we store this information, to it being abused."

Sir Tim is not the only prominent figure to object to the proposals; civil liberties groups and MPs from within the governing party have both raised concerns about the safeguarding of data collected through these channels and questioned the necessity of the proposals. The government believes the measures are necessary to identify and prevent terrorism and other criminal activity.

The web is a curious place: on the one hand, people are remarkably free and open with their personal data, on sites such as Facebook, Foursquare, and LinkedIn: you can often find birthdays, addresses, occupations, and even the current geographical location of a person listed quite publicly—all of which information could be used by fraudsters and burglars. And on the other hand, people are very sensitive about how corporations and the government and security services access and store the exact same personal data—for instance, through the use of cookies online.

These, and others, are issues we in the web space need to help provide solutions for, so that the web remains a method of knowledge-sharing and empowerment without compromising safety.

What accounts for these differences in approach to personal information on the web? Do you think the web is an exceptional means of communication? Or, are there ways in which the government's proposals equate to, for example, requiring the Royal Mail to allow them to read your post—and would you find that more or less intrusive?

by Hilda Allen, VerseOne Graphic Designer

I recently came across two great ideas through TED. The first one that grabbed my attention was the “Unhackathon”.

The Unhackathon was born after Bryan Stevenson’s inspirational talk sparked something in the TED community. Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Stevenson spoke of the power of identity and the basic challenges of living in a complex world. He believes once ideas are fueled by conviction they can change society, that technology and design have to marry with humanity, justice and compassion to make the world a better place.

After seeing Stevenson’s talk, Christopher Ireland, Mary Anne Masterson and Nathan Shedroff contacted TED with the idea of an “Unhackathon”. The Unhackathon involved 80 designers, technologists and business strategists giving up their Easter weekend to collaborate with strangers. The Unhackathon is where teams work together to better understand the problems of low-income communities and design potential solutions. The main focuses of the Unhackathon was to solve the challenges of economic opportunity and civic identity. (VerseOne participated in something similar for GiveCamp UK.)

A panelist of speakers were set up to speak about the lives, loves and longings of the 57 million Americans living just above the poverty level. After the panel, people formed teams and began to brainstorm ways that technology can help.

24 hours later, 8 teams presented their ideas. The ideas will be posted on http://thecity2.org/splash.php over the next few weeks. TED is offering $10,000 funding grant to the winner to encourage progressive ideas.

After hearing about this TED, I came across a website called Code for America. It was founded by Jennifer Pahlka and she describes it as the “Peace Corps for geeks, only instead of sending people to the third world, we send them to the wilds of City Hall.” Pahlka believes, with the right people, they can show the government what is possible via technology. An example of what they do is the hydrant project. One of her volunteers built an app to let people commit to digging out fire hydrants when it snows in Boston. Only a small project, yet it became viral. Someone in Honolulu adapted to the app to care for tsunami sirens, and in Seattle they are using it to clear storm drains. Pahlka claims that what took Code for America 2.5 months could have cost the government $2 million and would have taken 2 years.

Pahlka's is definitely an interesting TED to watch (and only 12 minutes long).

‘...and give me excess’. Shakespeare said that. Music is universal. And here at VerseOne, it’s not rare to find someone working head down, their headphones in, and the occasional line sung aloud, usually to the individual’s embarrassment.

As part of #MusicforMondays we’ve put together a list of the top ten tracks that have been drifting across the VerseOne office this week, and we think it’s safe to say that it covers most genres. From old school rock, to futuristic house, the music listened to at VerseOne reflects just how varied the staff here are!

In no particular order:                 

1. Kris Kross — Jump

“A fantastically cheesy hip hop tune from the duo famed for wearing their clothes backward. One of those songs that I can’t help but dance around to whenever it comes on! I have also been known to sing along, so no one else can hear of course.”  Callum - Marketing Executive

2. Foo Fighters — The Pretender

“The song has a great feel to it and since I'm a big Foo Fighters fan the fact that it’s more true to their style makes it sound even better. It also helps that I'm trying to write up the chord and drum sheets for it for practice.” Euan – Support

3. The Black Keys — Lonely Boy

“I like it because it’s a foot stomper” From our girl of many words, Hilda – Graphic Designer

4. Bon Jovi — Living on a Prayer

“I chose this track, as it reminds me of riding my bad a** Harley across the US a year or so back for charity, a wonderful feeling...” Alan – CEO

5. Gronk and The Body Doubles — Saw It Coming 

“A shameless plug for this equally shameless power ballad written by my brother, starts as out with delicate guitar and keyboards; with lyrics telling of the loneliness of travelling alone, the song gradually builds up in layers before culminating in a stonking guitar solo and gospel-style choruses” Chris – Product Manager

6.     Fracture & Survival — Tracks Of Time

“Quite simply because I love the sax and drums and the sun is shining!” Getting in the summer mood, with Karsten – Web Designer

7.     Space Dimension Controller — The Love Quadrant

“I'm going for this track as it gets a lot of airtime while I'm working—it’s a futuristic tune that’s pretty relaxed and melodic, yet it’s funky and has also got a beat! Extra points are won by the producer for his ability to stay in galactic character at all times!” Andrew – Digital Marketing Executive

8.     Runrig — Alba

“This is a track that my husband has been playing for about nine days straight now, so I guess that counts as a track I can’t stop listening to!” At the musical mercy of her spouse Nora – Marketing Manager

9.     Adam and The Ants — Stand and Deliver

A huge slice of nostalgic cheese from Nicky – Business Development Manager

10.  Arctic Monkeys — R U Mine?

“I love this track as it is the best one the band has released for years. I can relate to the lyrics, but also appreciate a great indie track, in a time where all mainstream singles are so similar” James – Marketing Executive

Next week the VerseOne Events team will head back to London for the latest installment of VerseOne's Digital Strategy seminars. Taking place at The Home of Cricket (Lord's Cricket Ground), the subjects of online marketing and social media have both proved to be as topical as ever as the session has over 50 delegates set to take part. Amongst the audience—which will contain representatives from the Housing, NHS and Local Government arenas—there will also be some familiar faces present, as a significant portion of bookings have come from people that have attended events with us in the past.

Given this, @VerseOneComms thought we'd put together a post that captures what its like to attend our events first-hand. As our events program has been running for a few years now—rather than turning to the M1/M6 battle-weary veterans—we thought we'd seek the perspectives of the public-speaker (and finger-buffet) loving newbies within the VerseOne Events team.

Below, Callum and James from the Events Team share their respective experiences of their maiden outings to the Housing Hot Topics and NHS Hot Topics sessions that took place at the end of March.

Callum on proceedings at #HousingHT

I arrived at the National Housing Federation's Lion Court Conference Centre not really knowing what to expect from the day. I knew the agenda, who would be speaking and what they would be covering, but not a lot else. Guests starting arriving from about 0950. We directed them into a side room to grab a cup of coffee, a name badge, and a chance for a quick chat with colleagues from the sector, before leading them into the main room ready for Andrew Harris, from Cross Keys Homes to kick things off with a talk on Digital Inclusion, and how it affects those in the Housing Sector.

Andrew presented some very surprising figures, such as 8.2 million people have never been online, of which 4 million are in social housing, and 72% of employers wouldn’t consider interviewing someone without basic IT skills. This was a real eye opener for me – as someone who works with computers every day, I tend to take even the ability to perform a Google search for granted. 

Andrew’s talk really opened my eyes to the challenges that Housing Associations are coming up against when building a digital inclusion strategy. The session also contained some great tips and useful resources for any Housing Associations that are looking to advance the digital inclusion agenda. Andrew also gave some great insights into how Cross Keys Homes have pursued digital inclusion themselves.

If you’d like to access the slides, follow the link at the bottom of the article or let us know in the comments

Following a quick coffee break, and some enthusiastic discussion on digital inclusion, the dynamic Ben Locker was next to present. True to form, Ben set out his talk with a more interactive, workshop feel: armed with a handful of trusty handouts, and some witty one liners, Ben broke down copy writing for the web into its most basic elements, guiding the guests through the pitfalls and common misconceptions around writing copy for a website.

During Ben’s talk he actually came across one of our guest’s tweets via the #HousingHT tag. @BristolJames had recently written a blogpost that highlighted some of the key points that Ben was keen to get across to everyone in the audience. The post in question makes the case why public sector and non-profit organisations need a blog, what content should be covered, and also how to structure and start a blog. It was certainly great to see the audience getting involved in such a topical fashion. Given the highly interactive element, Ben’s talk ended in what seemed like no time at all—although the facts begged to differ, as my head was crammed with fresh information on web copywriting strategy!

After an amazing lunch, we came back into the room for the final part of the day—discussions on Online Media Strategy with Andrew @VerseOneComms and a case study from Anna Lambert, from Halton Housing Trust (HHT) social media being put to good use within a Housing Association. Before I joined VerseOne, Anna had in fact featured at a Digital Strategy seminar in November in Liverpool. It was great for our audience to hear that since then that the @HaltonHousing's twitter account has grown from 1,047 to 1,553 followers under Anna's stewardship. Accordingly, her advice on using social media channels, that also covered the use of Facebook in promoting local community projects, such as the recent launch of 'street snooker'.

With a quick show of hands, during his session Andrew gauged how many guests were on Twitter, and I manned TweetDeck to monitor and respond to the tweets coming in from the discussion, again using the #HousingHT tag. Even Ben Locker joined in, from a train on the way back to Essex! Splitting the guests into groups, things such as which social media to use, and the best way to target an audience were discussed, with some good points being made, and, I think, all parties feeling a little more accepting towards the idea of utilising Social Media at the end.

James' view of #NHSHT

On 23^rd March VerseOne held a Hot Topics event looking at online communications in the NHS. It took place at the fantastic Weetwood Hall in Leeds, who provided excellent service and fine catering to help keep the delegates comfortable throughout the day. 

The event was a great success with delegates benefitting from engaging presentations as well as an interactive session, focusing on social media, in the afternoon. VerseOne created a hash tag on Twitter, #NHSHT, to be used to follow live tweets, so delegates could give live feedback to their organisations about the session.

Presentations in the morning came from Henry Cook of the Care Quality Commission and Fraser Woodward, the Chair of AHCM.  Henry discussed the importance of the CQC’s website and their strategy to increase their brand awareness online. The organisation implemented a new digital strategy in 2010 in order to rectify this. He also made clear what the CQC is trying to achieve as an organisation—focusing on the outcomes of patient care and how it is delivered—and explained their objective that the website become the source for discovering this sort of information.

Meanwhile Fraser’s presentation helped define how NHS organisations should review their online and digital presence. He examined how the sector can improve its websites, offering tips on how to keep content engaging and well written.  He also stressed that it is vital to have your digital strategy more integrated into the whole organisation’s communications and marking strategy.

Karsten Rowe, a VerseOne web designer, presented on the importance of design and branding before lunch. His humorous presentation was well received, with many quips about what makes good and bad web design. Many delegates were receptive to his idea that simplicity is key. Karsten made it clear that when building a new website or intranet, an organisation needs to trust a designer to make their vision happen. Any sort of ‘design by committee’ should be well avoided.

The rest of the day focused on digital marketing and social media in the NHS with an interactive session run by Andrew from @VerseOneComms. This in particular made use of the Twitter hash tag #NHSHT. He asked the delegates to discuss in groups how they are looking to utilise social media, focusing on their target audiences, objectives and which mediums they prefer to use. A couple of groups understood that Facebook is a great way to engage with young people, whilst Twitter is helpful on a more senior and professional level.

There was also a case study on NHS Bradford & Airedale from Rachel Rutherford about how her organisation uses social media. She told us about how @NHSBradford have used Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to run various campaigns. For example, their NHSVDay campaign attracted a huge following as they provided sexual health advice via humorous poetry in the run up to Valentine’s Day. Rachel emphasised that using social media in the NHS is an ever-changing venture, and trusts must be ready to provide resources to manage it properly. She is always looking to progress and be innovative with. 

If you'd like to find out more about the hot topics events or to receive the slides get in touch with us here

Last week @VerseOneComms attended the Social Media World Forum (#SMWF) at London’s Olympia Conference Centre. The agenda was packed with superstar speakers such as Twitter’s UK Sales Director Bruce Daisley, LinkedIn’s Global Marketing Director EMEA Joshua Graff, and David Bailey Communications Manager at Staffordshire Police.

David’s session was particularly fascinating: he discussed how their use of social media had a positive impact in preventing last summer’s riots from proliferating in the area. Follow @Staffspolice if you are looking for a good example of a public sector organisation using Twitter as something more than a one-way broadcast channel for their website.

Of the many memorable soundbites from the day, there’s one that was referenced a few times that we particularly like—and we’ve managed to locate it via the wonders of Google:

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends” Jeff Bezos, CEO at Amazon.com.

This quote echoes the sentiments of public sector social media advocates such as Anna Lambert @HaltonHousing and Rachel Rutherford @NHSBradford, both of whom have featured as guest speakers at VerseOne’s Digital Strategy events.

They believe that conversations on social media will be taking place about your organisation already, whether you like it or not — and that being part of the conversation, gives your organisation the chance to do something about it.

If you are thinking of starting on social media but would like some help, or you'd like to make your existing social media presence more conversational and engaging, click here to find out more about our public sector social media workshops.

by Penny Everett, VerseOne Accessibility Specialist

Following on from last week's blog, I am now looking at the next Success Criteria listed in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

1.2.1: Audio-only and video-only (Pre-recorded)
The rule of thumb is that Content Authors/Editors need to ensure they are offering an equivalent experience for deaf/blind users to that of other users.

So how can you do that?

Well, the simple answer is to start with a verbatim transcript for the audio on the same web page or a link to it on another page. This will enable a deaf person to read it.

That’s all well and good for the audio only, but what about video only, i.e. video with no sound?

This is much more complex and totally depends on the topic of the video. So you will have to make a judgement—is it reasonable to expect you to explain in writing to a blind person what the video is showing?

For instance, imagine a video with no sound showing how to make a cake...obviously everyone would benefit from written instructions. But what about a video which shows you a cuckoo disposing of its adopted siblings? In order to give a blind person an equivalent experience, the explanation could be quite lengthy. Perhaps it would be easier in this case to consider adding a voice-over. Here again, everyone would benefit and you could transcribe the voice-over.

This is all very time-consuming, but bear in mind the word "reasonable". Has your organisation got the resources for this, or do you feel justified in stating "If you are having any difficulty with viewing the video, please contact our..."? Just remember that barrister—the one you could meet in a Court of Law.