The Show Must Go On
Well, my role as Research Support Officer is coming to an end but the work that the Technology Transformation Team are carrying out on innovation I’m sure will continue to inspire many more individuals and teams within and outside of KCC, hopefully well into the future.
In this blog post I’m just going to share with you some of my highlights working with the team over the past year, so here they are!
1) Business Plan Research Project
I had the privilege of writing my own research report on the 2010/11 directorate and unit business plans for KCC. One hefty read it was but out of it emerged the main themes for 2010/11, along with planned innovative projects and concepts which in the end helped to shape the work that the team are doing today, a piece of work that I am extremely proud of.
2) Innovate To Save
Well I certainly got to test out my event organising skills here! This involved continuously encouraging (begging/pestering) KCC staff to attend some fabulous sessions with amazing speakers, stressing out about the contact list, running around Maidstone trying to find suitable Christmas decorations, making posters and musn’t forget gluing together folders to make cardboard boxes…to create a monstrosity of a display! An overall success was granted after months of hard work, thankfully!
3) Transformed By You
I never dreamed that in my role I would find myself having several ‘Blue Peter Days’ as people in the office liked to refer to them as, cutting, sticking, gluing and of course using the infamous sticky back plastic! Again, I found myself using these skills for our two Transformed By You Events, one with the lovely innovative folk at Medway and another with the University of Kent Digital Arts students. A fun and interesting day was had by all, with some fabulous prototypes emerging, from iphone apps to electronic fridge magnets that kept you updated with recycling information to qr codes in the community.
4) Working on the Virtual Presenter & Gaming Projects
It was really nice to get heavily involved in projects and watch them flourish over time. It was wonderful to see the finished product on the gaming project, but not so wonderful being given the task of helping to wrap up the final report! I hope the Virtual Presenter project is just as successful and I will wait in anticipation to see it up and running, and of course test out its ability to provide answers to small talk such as ‘Will you marry me?’!
5) iNews
How could I leave out iNews? As editor I have been very proud to locate, edit and publish articles, as well as writing my own on topics of interest. I hope I have produced some interesting reads for you all and I have really enjoyed watching the Google Analytics rise over time (and receiving cupcakes as a reward for this result!), I hope that this continues at a steady rate!
As well as these I will never forget getting stuck in the blizzard with Carol and it taking us 5 hours to get home, attending conferences with Noel, working on projects with Greenhouse, co-designing a workshop with Sidekick Studios, being involved on the CLG Bid and so on.
Well there you have it, my last blog post (maybe, maybe not!), so there is nothing left to see but thank you to the Technology Transformation for giving me a wonderful first step on the career ladder as well as providing me with some friends for life. Good luck to the team with your future work and to all our readers, watch this space for some more interesting articles! Over and out.
- Kirsty Russell
In this blog post I’m just going to share with you some of my highlights working with the team over the past year, so here they are!
1) Business Plan Research Project
I had the privilege of writing my own research report on the 2010/11 directorate and unit business plans for KCC. One hefty read it was but out of it emerged the main themes for 2010/11, along with planned innovative projects and concepts which in the end helped to shape the work that the team are doing today, a piece of work that I am extremely proud of.
2) Innovate To Save
Well I certainly got to test out my event organising skills here! This involved continuously encouraging (begging/pestering) KCC staff to attend some fabulous sessions with amazing speakers, stressing out about the contact list, running around Maidstone trying to find suitable Christmas decorations, making posters and musn’t forget gluing together folders to make cardboard boxes…to create a monstrosity of a display! An overall success was granted after months of hard work, thankfully!
3) Transformed By You
I never dreamed that in my role I would find myself having several ‘Blue Peter Days’ as people in the office liked to refer to them as, cutting, sticking, gluing and of course using the infamous sticky back plastic! Again, I found myself using these skills for our two Transformed By You Events, one with the lovely innovative folk at Medway and another with the University of Kent Digital Arts students. A fun and interesting day was had by all, with some fabulous prototypes emerging, from iphone apps to electronic fridge magnets that kept you updated with recycling information to qr codes in the community.
4) Working on the Virtual Presenter & Gaming Projects
It was really nice to get heavily involved in projects and watch them flourish over time. It was wonderful to see the finished product on the gaming project, but not so wonderful being given the task of helping to wrap up the final report! I hope the Virtual Presenter project is just as successful and I will wait in anticipation to see it up and running, and of course test out its ability to provide answers to small talk such as ‘Will you marry me?’!
5) iNews
How could I leave out iNews? As editor I have been very proud to locate, edit and publish articles, as well as writing my own on topics of interest. I hope I have produced some interesting reads for you all and I have really enjoyed watching the Google Analytics rise over time (and receiving cupcakes as a reward for this result!), I hope that this continues at a steady rate!
As well as these I will never forget getting stuck in the blizzard with Carol and it taking us 5 hours to get home, attending conferences with Noel, working on projects with Greenhouse, co-designing a workshop with Sidekick Studios, being involved on the CLG Bid and so on.
Well there you have it, my last blog post (maybe, maybe not!), so there is nothing left to see but thank you to the Technology Transformation for giving me a wonderful first step on the career ladder as well as providing me with some friends for life. Good luck to the team with your future work and to all our readers, watch this space for some more interesting articles! Over and out.
- Kirsty Russell
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Kirsty
Good luck - with whatever you are now going to do - I am sure you will make a success of it!