Here in the UK we've got over 170 public agencies using our 'Objective Online' digital platform to collaborate on policy-making and engage with local communities and other stakeholders.
In total there are a little shy of 6,000 registered users of our 'uCreate' and 'uEngage' software, and we are constantly striving to help these professionals connect with us and each other. We do this through a range of channels including a 'community library' resource of content, online forums, webinars, and by hosting physical meetings where we invite our customers to join us for half a day to look at our latest software developments, good practice case studies and to share stories of what has worked, or hasn't worked, for them.
For the latest round of these 'roadshows' we listened to previous feedback and held smaller and more interactive sessions in venues across the UK - Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, London and Maidenhead. We also focused on practical demonstrations of some of our most recent software features in real customer contexts. And we encouraged people to capture at least one of those 'lightbulb' moments as 'Something that I will do differently when I get back to the office as a result of coming here today...'
Each one of those somethings has been lovingly transported back to Objective HQ in a velvet-lined box (ok, not really, but we did take special care of them) and has been allocated to one of our team to follow up on. We've personally committed to working with those people as individuals to help them realise their special 'something'...engagement doesn't get much closer than that!
And listening to previous feedback worked. 100% of attendees said that the content of their session met or exceeded their expectations. 92% said that they would definitely recommend attendance to a colleague, with the remaining 8% saying 'maybe'. We can't wait to run the next round of events in 2014.
If you're reading this as an Objective Online user who made one of those pledges - we will already have been in touch to get the ball rolling on your 'something' and very much hope you'll join us to share your success stories next time;
If you're reading this as an Objective Online user who didn't make it to one of the latest roadshow events then why not pre-register here for the next round which we'll be running in May 2014; and
If you're not yet using Objective software for your policy-making and engagement work but are interested in finding out how you could join our community then please drop me a line at ian.morris@objective.com or connect via LinkedIN http://www.linkedin.com/in/ianraymondmorris
Oh. and I produced my first ever infogram to illustrate the story that's coming from the feedback survey results...really easy to do actually and definitely something that I'll be including more of in future bloggs.
