Before setting off

The all-important research and preparation

  • how to get the best out of research on the internet
  • why it’s worth sharing what you find out as you go along
  • what to focus on when researching a technology project
  • how to tell if what worked for someone else will work for you 

All good advice on planning new projects will say “first do your research”. What do people really need, what else is going on in the field, what’s worked in the past, what assets do you have, and so on. It’s a matter of looking ‘out there’ to the marketplace and ‘in here’ to your team and organisation.

Research will be daunting unless you have some focus, so keep asking yourself (or whoever gave you the research brief) why you’re developing this project, who it’s for, and how you’ll know if you’ve succeeded. But it’s a balance too: sometimes the best ideas sometimes come up by chance. Stay focussed, but keep an open mind.

Where to start?

We all learn in different ways, how you learn will depend on who you are. Some of us love to do lots of reading before anything else, others prefer to contact experienced people and have conversations, while the hands-on enthusiasts will want to try the technology out and learn by doing. Our advice is start with your enthusiasm, and don’t be afraid to dive in.

One of the good things about these new technologies is that many people involved like to be asked for help, because they can show what they do, make new connections, get new ideas. You can ride on the back of other people’s research by going to Delicious and searching through what others have bookmarked, or search more widely using Google and other search engines. Start following conversations on blogs, Twitter and other online spaces, then join in by asking questions in comments, replying to peoples’ posts and posting new discussion topics. You can even use sites like School of Everything and Meetup to find people near you and talk face to face.

Share your research as you go along to get the best out of the internet. Set up a simple blog about your project, and start writing about it. Then you have a base from which to ask questions, comment on other people’s posts and invite their comments back. There’s an old adage – if you want to master something, teach it. Blogging what you’ve learnt can be a softer version of this: research, reflect, write, share, reflect, comment and so on, enhancing your understanding as you go.

How to create a blog strategy

by Amy

Blogs can be a great way to get into conversations and experiment with technology at the same time. They’re free to set up (see the Companion for details on how to do that), and give you a great way to post your opinions and respond to what’s ‘out there’.

  1. Consider/identify the information from your website, programs, other communications/campaigns that you will want to highlight via the blog.
  2. Consider/identify content from other areas that you can repurpose on the blog.
  3. Consider/identify all of the possible contributors to the blog, and what types of content/topics they will contribute.
  4. Consider/identify the goals of using a blog (do you want a more casual way of disseminating information? Do you want to start a conversation with readers? Do you want to aggregate content and information you come across from other blogs/organisations/news sources?).
  5. Consider/identify how often you’d like to post.
  6. Start writing the blog posts, follow the schedule as it pertains to frequency, contributors and content, BUT do not publish any of the posts for a month or two. This will give you a chance to test whether the schedule is too frequent, if people interested in contributing aren’t comfortable with writing blog-style content, or if you don’t have enough information to write about, and so on.
  7. After you have 1. written for the blog for a month or two 2. have evaluated how the blogging schedule, contributors and content help reach the goals for the blog and 3. have adjusted your schedule. to better reflect the reality of your contributors, information/content, and audience, start publishing the posts.
  8. Announce your blog via all outlets, including: your newsletter (both traditional, hard-copy newsletters and e-newsletters), your website, your profiles on any other social media tools/platforms, emails (try putting a link to your blog in all staff email signatures), and so on.