http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/ Recent content from the Records Sound the Same blog Hugo -- gohugo.io en-gb Sally Lait Sally Lait All content is copyright Records Sound the Same Ltd Wed, 23 May 2018 11:00:00 +0000 http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/05/23/blueprinting/ Wed, 23 May 2018 11:00:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/05/23/blueprinting/ May’s ‘12 months of digital transformation’ post is about a staple in the toolbox of change: blueprinting. This month we’re going to look at what it is, what it can help with, and how you can do it effectively. Blueprinting (or ‘service blueprinting’), like many valuable techniques that we use in modern day transformation has been around for a while now — Wikipedia lists it as being first described by G. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/05/16/finding-enhancements/ Wed, 16 May 2018 14:00:00 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/05/16/finding-enhancements/ In this post we’ll look at tailoring experiences to different situations and needs, using the concept of enhancements. Attend any front-end developer conference at the moment and you’ll undoubtedly hear the phrase “progressive enhancement” frequently mentioned. From the days where implementing “graceful degradation” showed that you cared a little bit more about people who weren’t using the latest shiny browser or device, the industry has now generally come to accept a different mantra as best practice: everyone should have a good experience regardless of their situation, and if they can handle shinier or fancier things let’s layer that on top as a bonus. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/05/02/research-call-for-help/ Wed, 02 May 2018 13:00:00 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/05/02/research-call-for-help/ I’m planning some research around the biggest challenges that businesses are facing with digital and the web, and am looking for some people who’d be happy to speak to me about this. You might be in a more day-to-day digitally-focused role, or a more strategic one where there’s less direct contact but digital is important to your roadmap. You may have in-house teams, or outsource. Your business may be a small start-up, a massive international company, or you may work agency-side. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/04/13/mapping-a-technology-ecosystem/ Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:30:00 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/04/13/mapping-a-technology-ecosystem/ In this post I’m going to be looking at capturing a view of the technology that we have in play, why this can be important, and how we can do it. Working on a recent project, I tweeted that I was “Kicking off the week with a workshop to map out a technology (+non-tech bits!) ecosystem, look at the processes and data flows, the people involved, and start to think about opportunities and changes. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/03/28/prioritising/ Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:50:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/03/28/prioritising/ Welcome back to the third post in the 12 months of digital transformation set! Today we’re going to be looking at something that happens every single day, sometimes formally and sometimes unconsciously: prioritisation. Without even realising it, you prioritise and re-prioritise constantly. By choosing to read this post, you’ve made a decision that it’s worthy of your time over that cup of tea you were going to make, or that email you’ve been putting off writing (thanks! http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/02/14/audits-as-a-strategic-tool/ Wed, 14 Feb 2018 15:04:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/02/14/audits-as-a-strategic-tool/ This is the second long-form post in the Records Sound the Same 12 months of digital transformation series. In this article we’re going to be talking about the idea of assessing where you are in order to set strategic direction, help identify opportunities, and spark change. Over the years, working with people in very different environments I’ve frequently heard the phrase “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” roll off tongues. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/01/17/choosing-new-technology/ Wed, 17 Jan 2018 13:30:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/01/17/choosing-new-technology/ As part of the 12 months of digital transformation series, we’re kicking off with an activity around how to choose new technology. In this article we’ll cover the following: A bit of background to choosing new technology Good practice and things to think about A process to follow Exercise: thinking about your situation The aim is to leave you with some resources and a process to follow the next time that you’re in a position where you need to make some choices. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/01/02/12-months-of-digital-transformation/ Tue, 02 Jan 2018 14:30:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2018/01/02/12-months-of-digital-transformation/ Welcome to the working start of 2018! This time of year tends to find many of us reflecting on what we did and didn’t achieve over the last twelve months, and planning what we’d like to do over the year ahead. This new year, I’d like to set out an additional challenge: each month I’ll be sharing a blog post about a particular facet of digital transformation, and I’d like you to join me on this journey by completing twelve tasks. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/12/13/positive-change-in-2018/ Wed, 13 Dec 2017 09:10:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/12/13/positive-change-in-2018/ This year, it's been impossible to ignore that alongside technology’s constant march forwards, there has also been a growing unease about whether or not we’re creating the right things, or focusing energies in the right places. From reports of Russian interference in elections, to Twitter’s frequent double standards over what breaks its terms of service, or that [hand-drier] (https://twitter.com/nke_ise/status/897756900753891328?lang=en) that wouldn’t work if your skin tone didn’t match what it was expecting… the web was in the news a lot. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/10/27/prolifiko-cto-support-and-mentoring/ Fri, 27 Oct 2017 16:55:00 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/10/27/prolifiko-cto-support-and-mentoring/ Working on large projects for well-known brands is great – great for business, great challenges to to grips with, and a great sense of pride in being able to mention things that others may be aware of. It’s also just a small segment of the people and businesses who need help and advice, and by only working with big name organisations you can miss out on different types of challenges and some really exciting new ideas. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/08/07/net-magazine-essay-thinking-beyond-websites/ Mon, 07 Aug 2017 07:53:26 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/08/07/net-magazine-essay-thinking-beyond-websites/ This month’s net magazine (issue 297) features an essay that I wrote, called ‘Thinking beyond websites'. It talks about how websites and customers shouldn’t be the boundary of our focus, and how we can look more broadly - thinking about different considerations, and applying web technologies and practices to a wider range of areas in order to bring about real change. “Think back to your latest digital project. I imagine it probably happened because something old had problems, or someone identified an opportunity to do better. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/07/28/designing-for-10-years-time/ Fri, 28 Jul 2017 11:15:23 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/07/28/designing-for-10-years-time/ Every now and again someone in the web community will throw out a question on Twitter that sparks some great perspectives. The latest to catch my eye was Chris Coyier's question about how to approach a situation where a client has asked for something very specific: to design something that will last 10 years. Say you took a client and they said "design me a website that will look great with no changes in 10 years". http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/07/27/what-digital-transformation-means-for-us/ Thu, 27 Jul 2017 14:44:21 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/07/27/what-digital-transformation-means-for-us/ In this series of articles I’m going to be doing a deep dive into the subject of digital transformation, and what it means for us. The first article starts at the beginning - what is digital transformation? Digital transformation is everywhere at the moment. It can be found in dedicated company teams, in government, at conferences, and even on this site — as a digital transformation consultancy it’s what we do. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/07/10/trying-to-write-better-job-descriptions/ Mon, 10 Jul 2017 13:15:12 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/07/10/trying-to-write-better-job-descriptions/ As I've spoken about many times before, trying to make change happen in companies isn't just about technology and systems; moving from spreadsheets and paper to fancy databases and AI systems. Having the right people in the right roles and creating the best culture possible can play a huge part in any transformation, and this is an area that I work on with clients through my consultancy work. In my last regular check in with one such client I spent some time writing full job descriptions for some potential new roles. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/06/28/transformations-dont-need-to-be-about-technology/ Wed, 28 Jun 2017 13:29:33 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/06/28/transformations-dont-need-to-be-about-technology/ A recent project first started with a simple premise: what tools can we build to better support people? After undertaking several discovery activities, it turned out that the solution was much less complicated, and much more human-led. Many typical projects often involve an expert review of a website as part of the initial discovery process, but in this instance there were a few more in the mix - over 200! The collection of websites that this investigation centered around were all community websites created and controlled by entirely different volunteers, using hugely varying technologies and approaches, but each was aligned in terms of purpose and relationship to the others. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/06/22/rebranding-and-rebuilding/ Thu, 22 Jun 2017 16:11:00 +0100 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/06/22/rebranding-and-rebuilding/ Earlier this year I wrote about the thought process that had gone into the company rebrand, which came about with the help of the lovely Katherine Cory. After that followed the main slog — translating the direction into something suitable for the web, and getting it built. Any ground-up rewrite of a digital project can be a challenge, and whilst this iteration of the site is still a work in progress I wanted to document some of the key considerations from the journey so far. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/05/05/more-distributed-digital-teams/ Fri, 05 May 2017 11:57:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/05/05/more-distributed-digital-teams/ As the years go on and technology becomes ever more entrenched in our day-to-day lives, many (including myself) are looking to use it to remove the necessity of our in-person physical form in the working world, at least some of the time. Using technology to communicate and work remotely can remove the burden of commutes, better support home lives, and even facilitate people working together who otherwise wouldn’t be able to. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/04/24/capturing-the-message/ Mon, 24 Apr 2017 14:42:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/04/24/capturing-the-message/ Earlier this year, I started on the daunting task of redeveloping this site. I’d already begun the process of detaching myself personally and professionally by resurrecting sallyjenkinson.co.uk, because I wanted a place for my things, and a place for company things (projects aren’t always just me). This site currently doesn’t feel like it reflects what Records Sound the Same has become, either in terms of its content or branding. As such, I wanted to address both as a clean slate – engaging a professional (the lovely Katherine Cory) to work on the visual aspects, and starting from scratch to think about capturing who we work with, how, and why. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/02/03/switching-formats/ Fri, 03 Feb 2017 14:19:17 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/02/03/switching-formats/ You might notice that this post is in a slightly different format to usual. This is intentional, and what I’d like to do today is to talk you through something that I’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks in the hope that it might be useful for somebody else as well. I’m going through a process at the moment where I’m redoing all of the copy for this site (yes, it’s redesign time), which is not something that typically comes very easily to me. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/01/27/a-practical-guide-to-pwas/ Fri, 27 Jan 2017 15:13:28 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2017/01/27/a-practical-guide-to-pwas/ The realm of front-end web technologies (things like HTML, CSS and JavaScript) is an area that has been moving incredibly fast in recent years. With a number of my clients, I’ve been providing advice around a strategy for ‘keeping up’ with these changes, which is often prompted retrospectively by people feeling that they’ve already fallen behind. As part of this work, I often promote the concepts of progressive enhancement (starting with a base experience for everyone and layering capabilities on top), encouraging people to consider features that may not yet be fully rolled out across browsers (but which are already here in others), and try to get them excited about some capabilities that they may not have come across yet. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/12/30/monthly-round-up-december-2016/ Fri, 30 Dec 2016 17:47:50 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/12/30/monthly-round-up-december-2016/ After contemplating lumping this in with my upcoming end up year summary (a seemingly mandatory writing task for anyone working in the web industry), I decided that doing so wouldn’t quite give the month or the series the respect that it was due, and would be a lazy end to the year. In this post-Christmas haze of never-ending cheese, work from the start of the month feels rather a long time ago, but I shall do my best to time travel back… _* commence Robbie Coltrane Blackadder’s Christmas Carol hand waving gesture*_ http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/12/06/digital-transformation-for-the-masses/ Tue, 06 Dec 2016 14:06:11 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/12/06/digital-transformation-for-the-masses/ As I sat on the train this morning, I saw my first of what will surely progress into a flood of “Top 10 trends for 2017” articles as we approach the end of the year. This particular example was focused on digital transformation, which is something close to my heart, so I thought I’d give it a read. Unsurprisingly it was bursting at the seams with buzzwords. Reading that article (or seemingly any of these annual thinkpieces) may lead you to believe that by this time next year everyone will have ’transformed’ their business so that all staff are working remotely alongside AI in AR/VR-enhanced worlds, receiving cups of tea via drones, with IoT devices and APIs generating a firehose of data in the background. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/12/02/monthly-round-up-november-2016/ Fri, 02 Dec 2016 17:56:31 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/12/02/monthly-round-up-november-2016/ As the days get shorter and the year’s end gradually draws closer, yet again the run up to Christmas is proving to be an exceptionally busy time for work. I usually try to keep my projects quite distinct, because I find that’s the best way to flex around the inevitable change that always happens once you get started. If I need to add in a few more days or jump on a train unexpectedly, that’s fine. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/11/02/monthly-round-up-september-and-october-2016/ Wed, 02 Nov 2016 21:44:51 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/11/02/monthly-round-up-september-and-october-2016/ I know, I know… it’s my first ever double-month update, but despite what appearances may suggest this wasn’t due to being slack or forgetting. Quite the opposite in fact – I spent a lot of time on activities spanning both months, and it made sense to group them. Japan One of the main factors for this was spending a nice big chunk of time travelling around Japan during September and into October. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/09/05/monthly-round-up-august-2016/ Mon, 05 Sep 2016 09:51:03 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/09/05/monthly-round-up-august-2016/ Hello September! Your days are beginning to shorten, but there’s still a lot going on. In recent years this time has usually been a full-on mix of preparing conference talks and attending different events, but after a very busy conference season at the start of this year I wanted to focus my efforts elsewhere this time around. The result has been a mix of getting project work ticked off, plus some time for a lot of new business chats and working on things in the background. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/08/01/monthly-round-up-july-2016/ Mon, 01 Aug 2016 11:19:01 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/08/01/monthly-round-up-july-2016/ This has been a brilliant month, work-wise. I’ve really enjoyed my work, and I think that that’s down to the combination of the subject matter, the type of work itself (mostly investigation and problem solving), and the people. Part of why I want to keep this round-up going is to remind myself of the bits that I most enjoy so that I can do more of them in the future, and there has certainly been a lot to enjoy about July. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/07/18/before-discovery/ Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:34:57 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/07/18/before-discovery/ I’m a huge fan of collaborative Discovery phases being a vital first part of project processes in whatever form is most appropriate, but whilst many see this as the first step on the road ahead, very often there’s an important predecessor – feasibility sense-checking whatever will be on your radar. This year I was involved in something that I’d never quite done before – a ‘pre-disovery-discovery’, or ‘pre-discovery’ for short. The full discovery phases were to be extensive as the landscape was extremely complex and it was known that it would require some extremely thorough research and prototyping. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/07/05/monthly-round-up-june-2016/ Tue, 05 Jul 2016 11:33:06 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/07/05/monthly-round-up-june-2016/ Half the year gone already! I’ve started to really enjoy writing these round-up posts, not least because it makes me look back at the month just gone, and to consider different things than I may have done at the time. However, June has been a pretty straightforward month and this will be a rather shorter update than most. Right at the start I’d planned to take a few days off, to enjoy being back at home after spending May in Scottish, Polish, and American hotels. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/06/04/monthly-round-up-may-2016/ Sat, 04 Jun 2016 13:06:26 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/06/04/monthly-round-up-may-2016/ In what feels like no time at all since the belated last monthly update, may I present to you: May! Every week in May involved at least one flight (sorry, environment), and a lot of time away from home. Building on the time I’d spent away in the previous month, it all added up to a pretty draining period and I’m glad to be back at home for a while now, not least to spend some quality time with my Xbox… I mean boyfriend… http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/05/11/monthly-round-up-april-2016/ Wed, 11 May 2016 10:55:28 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/05/11/monthly-round-up-april-2016/ The fact that this post is being written flying thousands of feet above the UK and 10 days late probably goes some way towards conveying that it’s been a rather busy and travel-filled time recently! April began with a continuation of the Discovery work I’d been doing with Innovate UK and the Open Data Institute, around making grants data more accessible to a variety of audiences. Myself and one of the ODI team travelled to Swindon in order to wrap everything up by playing back our findings, and I was thrilled that everything was so well received by the team that we had been working with. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/04/18/patchwork-it/ Mon, 18 Apr 2016 09:03:28 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/04/18/patchwork-it/ Back in 2014 whilst I was looking for communities to participate in, I joined a mailing list of women in technology. Conversations on the list were varied, but quite early on in my membership one message asking for advice stood out – from Olivia from Patchwork (formerly Patchwork Present). Olivia briefly introduced her company and detailed how they’d been live for a year but were really keen to get some guidance and strategic advice on their tech development and how they could improve the user experience. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/04/02/monthly-round-up-march-2016/ Sat, 02 Apr 2016 18:39:32 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/04/02/monthly-round-up-march-2016/ March! Where have you gone? Are we already at that point of the year where we’re starting to mention how fast it’s going? This has been a month of adventure, illness, a return to hotel carpet documentation, and a lot of whiteboarding and post-iting. The first full week brought with it a chance to get properly stuck in to the project that has taken up the majority of my time this month – my project with Innovate UK and the Open Data Institute, looking at how to make Innovate UK’s data more accessible (and crucially more useful), both internally and externally. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/03/31/indirectly-listening-to-your-audiences/ Thu, 31 Mar 2016 21:03:00 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/03/31/indirectly-listening-to-your-audiences/ When new projects are started, as digital people we often speak to stakeholders in the organisation we’re dealing with to understand their needs, and hopefully we also speak to some of their audiences too. This could be through direct interaction – performing some lab-based testing, guerrilla testing, using surveys, interviews, or workshops. It could also be through indirect methods – digging through analytics to find pain points and drop-outs, or search queries people are using that may not return what’s needed. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/03/01/monthly-round-up-february-2016/ Tue, 01 Mar 2016 14:11:28 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/03/01/monthly-round-up-february-2016/ February has been a really good month, and as I’m terrible at recording achievements I’ve decided to try to start keeping much better track of what I’ve been up to. This has the added benefit that I can’t always write up a case study for my projects for quite some time, or I don’t cover everything I do, so certain things tend to get lost along the way. There were big changes this month, both in terms of project focus and life, so let’s have a look at the headlines. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/01/29/undertaking-website-reviews/ Fri, 29 Jan 2016 15:33:43 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2016/01/29/undertaking-website-reviews/ Very often at the start of digital projects where there is already a website or app in place, some kind of an expert usability audit is performed. This is usually done as part of UX work, intending to provide an objective, independent view of the current site – from the client’s perspective it’s really useful for them to gain an outside view on what works well and what could be better. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2015/01/25/choosing-the-right-cms/ Sun, 25 Jan 2015 12:44:21 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2015/01/25/choosing-the-right-cms/ This topic is one of the oldest items that I’ve had in my ever-changing list of ideas to write about, however recently Chris Coyier posted a tweet that sparked some interesting discussion, and the varied responses prompted me to finally put fingers to keyboard to air my views on the matter. How do you choose the right CMS? Is there a right CMS? As you have probably deduced from my liberal usage of quote marks in the title of this post, I’m of the opinion that things aren’t quite as clear-cut as we’d always like them to be. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2014/09/14/supermarket-processes/ Sun, 14 Sep 2014 18:26:20 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2014/09/14/supermarket-processes/ We’re lucky, here in Colchester, that we have access to so much great East Anglian produce. From Mersea Island oysters, to Cromer Crab, to samphire, pork and more, the ingredients available round here are exceptional. In addition to food, possibly due to the fact that we’re one of Britain’s driest regions we also have some great local vineyards and breweries. As CAMRA hold multiple beer festivals here a year, and we had some great food and drink festivals this summer, I’m slowly working my way through all of our ales. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2014/07/25/making-visitor-sign-in-simple/ Fri, 25 Jul 2014 09:49:17 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2014/07/25/making-visitor-sign-in-simple/ I’m working with the Open Data Institute on a project at the moment, and besides getting incredibly excited about the stuff we’re working on (it’s amazingly cool), I love some of the little touches around the ODI’s office. The first thing that I noticed back when I first came here a few months ago was the sign-in system at the front desk. With their permission, I couldn’t resist taking some photos and writing this post. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2013/03/31/responsive-web-dinosaurs/ Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:05:44 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2013/03/31/responsive-web-dinosaurs/ So, third party systems eh? We love them for saving us time, for meaning we don’t have to focus our allocated hours, budgets, and effort on things that we know someone has already successfully built. Hands up anyone who has ever used a third party payment processing gateway, booking/registration system, or retail solution? That’s most of you then, apart from you there. Yes, you. The one who wants to build everything from scratch every time because then it’s done your way and you get off on the control. http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2012/08/19/data-migration-strategy/ Sun, 19 Aug 2012 14:52:37 +0000 Sally Lait http://recordssoundthesame.com/blog/2012/08/19/data-migration-strategy/ A very important part of many website builds, and one which is often overlooked, is the migration of existing data or the population of new content. If all of your content is going to be created from scratch it’s best to establish upfront how best to standardise the collection of the required data. Spreadsheets following predefined formats can be imported through automation relatively easily, or perhaps, depending on timescales, content can be written straight into a content management system.