On Friday 28 February, we’ll be holding our first GOV.UK content clinic, at the Department for Transport in London. Find out what to expect and how to sign up.
Content clinics: what they are
Content clinics are open to any departmental or agency editor writing, editing and publishing content on GOV.UK.
It’s an open forum where you can ask (and answer) any questions about content, style and publishing. GDS content designers will be there to help out and give updates on new functionality that’s planned for the site.
The event will be a great opportunity to meet editors from other departments and agencies and learn from their experiences.
When, where and book a place
The first content clinic will take place on Friday 28 February:
- at the Department for Transport, 33 Horseferry Rd, London SW1P 4DR
- from 3 pm to 4 pm
To book a place using Eventbrite, you’ll need the password: GOV.UKcontent.
The session will feature a guest appearance from Lorena Sutherland (content lead for Office of the Public Guardian). She’s had loads of experience convincing colleagues to open government content up to everyone.
We’ll be organising future content clinics every month.
9 comments
Comment by David Potts posted on
Couldn't this have been announced a little sooner than it has been? For those not based in London, getting approval to incur T&S to attend, and then make the necessary travel arrangements, can take more than a day or two. As an editor relatively new to GDS publishing I'd like to attend this type of event, but with only two days notice, it's just not possible.
Can you confirm that 'future content clinics every month' will not be London-centric and that you will arrange some for those of us beyond the confines of the M25?
'User needs' apply to us too. 😉
David
Comment by Simon Kaplan posted on
Hi David
Thanks for the comment - we're glad there's interest across departments and agencies. We have had requests and discussed doing events like this around the UK. We know that there are hundreds of editors outside London who shouldn't be excluded from attending.
We did mail out notification about this event to departments and agencies who are live on GOV.UK a week ago. We'll make sure we give more notice next time.
Comment by Alan posted on
I got the news this morning (28th) from the daily update email on the 27th. Not really enough time by a long way.
Comment by Simon Kaplan posted on
Hi Alan,
I hear your frustration - we did send notification of this out to all departments (including Home Office) on 20 February. Next time we'll blog about it when we send it to department and agency single point of contacts.
Comment by Alex Schillemore posted on
Unfortunately I can't come to this as it coincides with a cross govt community managers group meeting at the same time. Looking forward to future events though!
Comment by Simon Kaplan posted on
Hi Alex,
We'll try to get a venue and date sorted for next month's content clinic as soon as possible.
Comment by Ricky posted on
Yes more notice please - never mind not being in London, some of us are not in the UK but would still be interested in attending given enough time to arrange it.
Ricky
Malaga.
Comment by Matt posted on
Could I suggest holding the next one at Ricky's office. 😉
Could I also suggest that you give people the option to enter their Twitter handles with their comments, rather than insisting on a URL.
Comment by Julian Rodriguez Orihuela posted on
Hey, do you happen to have this on video or some of the topics you touched, and how you handled them.
We're interested in doing this in Buenos Aires City Govt and would love to know about your experience.
Greetings from BA!