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218 results for “kbradnam”
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For most of my life, voting in UK elections has mostly been restricted to voting on Thursdays of the election in a local voting booth. Postal voting was introduced in 2001, making it easier to take part in democracy.
I'm excited to be living in an area which is part of a new pilot for the upcoming local elections, which will allow people to vote in person on the *Saturday* or *Sunday* before the election.
It feels odd that it has taken so long to make it much easier for people to vote in person on a typical 'non-work day'.
Really hope that the pilot is successful and more people engage in the democratic process as a result.
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For most of my life, voting in UK elections has mostly been restricted to voting on Thursdays of the election in a local voting booth. Postal voting was introduced in 2001, making it easier to take part in democracy.
I'm excited to be living in an area which is part of a new pilot for the upcoming local elections, which will allow people to vote in person on the *Saturday* or *Sunday* before the election.
It feels odd that it has taken so long to make it much easier for people to vote in person on a typical 'non-work day'.
Really hope that the pilot is successful and more people engage in the democratic process as a result.
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For most of my life, voting in UK elections has mostly been restricted to voting on Thursdays of the election in a local voting booth. Postal voting was introduced in 2001, making it easier to take part in democracy.
I'm excited to be living in an area which is part of a new pilot for the upcoming local elections, which will allow people to vote in person on the *Saturday* or *Sunday* before the election.
It feels odd that it has taken so long to make it much easier for people to vote in person on a typical 'non-work day'.
Really hope that the pilot is successful and more people engage in the democratic process as a result.
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For most of my life, voting in UK elections has mostly been restricted to voting on Thursdays of the election in a local voting booth. Postal voting was introduced in 2001, making it easier to take part in democracy.
I'm excited to be living in an area which is part of a new pilot for the upcoming local elections, which will allow people to vote in person on the *Saturday* or *Sunday* before the election.
It feels odd that it has taken so long to make it much easier for people to vote in person on a typical 'non-work day'.
Really hope that the pilot is successful and more people engage in the democratic process as a result.
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For most of my life, voting in UK elections has mostly been restricted to voting on Thursdays of the election in a local voting booth. Postal voting was introduced in 2001, making it easier to take part in democracy.
I'm excited to be living in an area which is part of a new pilot for the upcoming local elections, which will allow people to vote in person on the *Saturday* or *Sunday* before the election.
It feels odd that it has taken so long to make it much easier for people to vote in person on a typical 'non-work day'.
Really hope that the pilot is successful and more people engage in the democratic process as a result.
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I don't really use #Instagram much these days. As someone working in #DigitalCommunications I feel I shouldn't shut myself off from some platforms like this but I rarely ever post on my own account.
Today I did and I noticed that the default profile grid of *square* photos has been changed to 3:4 portrait ratio pictures!!! Apparently this happened early last year.
I was an Instagram user back in the day when the app *only* allowed people to post square photos. Videos, reels, algorithmic timelines, shopping etc - none of these things existed and Instagram was a better place because of it.
I've stubbornly continued to only post square photos to Instagram and today I realised - with horror - that it is now automatically cropping
all of the previews to fit a 3:4 ratio which destroys my carefully composed photos.I feel this is the end of our relationship Instagram. I will use you if I need to for work-related purposes, but that's it.
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It was genuinely fun to help build a website like this as it is so different to most of my usual day-to-day website work.
Effectively, once I had the assets from her the first draft of the site (built with #Squarespace) took only two hours.
I then fiddled and tweaked for many more hours after that. Frustratingly, Squarespace won’t let you add custom code or CSS on the entry level plan but you can when you are building the unpublished site for free.
This meant that one of my changes became undone when the site went live and I had to find a workaround as I didn’t think it was worth a £60 pa upgrade for this.
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This week is **#ChildrensMentalHealthWeek** and there was an important update by **The Royal College of Psychiatrists** about children on waiting lists for treatment.
Currently, over half a million children and young people in England are on waiting lists for treatment. These are individuals who have been referred to mental health services.
53% of those have been waiting over a year and 30% have been waiting over two years which is not good enough.
The RCPsych news piece on this also comments on the risks of children — who are facing lengthy waits for treatment — seeking **#AI** chat tools for support.
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This week is **#ChildrensMentalHealthWeek** and there was an important update by **The Royal College of Psychiatrists** about children on waiting lists for treatment.
Currently, over half a million children and young people in England are on waiting lists for treatment. These are individuals who have been referred to mental health services.
53% of those have been waiting over a year and 30% have been waiting over two years which is not good enough.
The RCPsych news piece on this also comments on the risks of children — who are facing lengthy waits for treatment — seeking **#AI** chat tools for support.
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This week is **#ChildrensMentalHealthWeek** and there was an important update by **The Royal College of Psychiatrists** about children on waiting lists for treatment.
Currently, over half a million children and young people in England are on waiting lists for treatment. These are individuals who have been referred to mental health services.
53% of those have been waiting over a year and 30% have been waiting over two years which is not good enough.
The RCPsych news piece on this also comments on the risks of children — who are facing lengthy waits for treatment — seeking **#AI** chat tools for support.
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This week is **#ChildrensMentalHealthWeek** and there was an important update by **The Royal College of Psychiatrists** about children on waiting lists for treatment.
Currently, over half a million children and young people in England are on waiting lists for treatment. These are individuals who have been referred to mental health services.
53% of those have been waiting over a year and 30% have been waiting over two years which is not good enough.
The RCPsych news piece on this also comments on the risks of children — who are facing lengthy waits for treatment — seeking **#AI** chat tools for support.
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This week is **#ChildrensMentalHealthWeek** and there was an important update by **The Royal College of Psychiatrists** about children on waiting lists for treatment.
Currently, over half a million children and young people in England are on waiting lists for treatment. These are individuals who have been referred to mental health services.
53% of those have been waiting over a year and 30% have been waiting over two years which is not good enough.
The RCPsych news piece on this also comments on the risks of children — who are facing lengthy waits for treatment — seeking **#AI** chat tools for support.
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I set myself a goal this year of writing at least one blog post a month and I’ve managed to bookend January with a post on both the first and last day of the month.
My latest post focuses on deciphering website analytics and this is probably something that I’m going to write more about going forwards.
Yesterday’s post looks at why I find it increasingly challenging to make sense of website analytics data:
#analytics #GoogleAnalytics #WebsiteAnalytics #DarkSocial #AI
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You may all be aware of the thought experiment: ‘If a tree falls in a wood, and no-one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’
In the world of website analytics, I often think about the following (somewhat clumsy) analogy to this:
‘If a webpage gets published on a website, and no-one ever views it, does it still exist?’
The point being that large academic websites can contain thouands of pages, and there are often many requests to *publish* content…but not always the same clamour to *promote* content (either from other pages on the same website or through external channels such as email and social media).
Sometimes content is also created that is not properly annotated in a way that makes it discoverable by search engines (which can include your website’s own search tool).
Website analytics platforms will tell you when a page has had a ‘hit’. They do *not* tell tell you when a page has had zero hits. To find this out you have to a) make a list of all web pages and b) cross-reference that against data from your website analytics platform.
There are web pages out there which no-one knows about because no-one ever views them, and so they don’t get logged in the analytics. Maybe they are lurking there, flying low under the radar, waiting for the day where they will be rediscovered. Or maybe they have ceased to exist.
Love your website content.
Care for your website content.
It is waiting to be noticed. -
Final comment on this…
Even when projects are properly assessed at their conclusion – incuding looking at
both the overall level of engagement and a breakdown of what that engagement looks like – it feels very rare that projects assess (or even track) how much *time* is spent on the
#DigitalCommunications aspects of it.I.e. what is the ultimate cost for each click or page view.
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For bigger projects I feel that they should not only end with a report that looks at the success (or failure) of any digital comms, but that the success metrics should be established *before* the project commences.
In my own experience, this almost never happens.
I have helped deliver so many digital content projects that are judged a success mostly by virtue of the fact that a) content was produced and b) it received some level of traffic.
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It’s common to have other stakeholders ask me ‘How many hits?’ did something get but there is often no interest in knowing any nuance in the details.
E.g. if your UK-based campaign webpage gets 100,000 hits some people might be pleased to see a big number. But if those 100,000 hits are from 10,000 *visits* and if they are mostly from the USA, then this might be due to spurious traffic from some automated web service (this type of thing happens).
The devil is often in the details but people are sometimes too busy (or disinterested) to want to know that detail.
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I’ve been doing #DigitalCommunications as a full-time job for a decade and doing it as part of my previous career as a scientist for much longer.
There is a recurring challenge that I have noticed regarding the people who request ‘content’ to be put out on digital channels (websites, emails, videos, podcasts, social media etc).
Whether it is a single social media post to promote a webinar or a bigger coordinated campaign running for months across multiple channels, people often like to see that something has been published but are far less interested in how it performed.
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In another #walking update, yesterday saw me reach 1,000 miles walking on my #walkingpad since I bought it last October. That's about 70 miles per month.
This has been transformational in making it easier for me to get my steps in during the day.
I no longer have a chair in my office as when I'm not walking at my desk I just stand.
Typical walking speeds while walking are 3.0 - 3.5 kmph.
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I've just discovered that in the official Fantasy Premier League (a fantasy football competition based on the English football Premier League) there is seemingly an anti-competition to see who can finish last.
This is an intriguing challenge. You can lose points for making excessive transfers but also players can can lose points for conceding goals, being awarded red cards etc.
Out of the over 12 million managers who play this, there are currently just nine managers who are all tied on -608 points (that's negative points) 😀
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Today is **#WorldOctopusDay**. Aside from being amazing (and very clever) creatures, they are also one of the 12 invertebrates that feature in the 'Molluskan Zodiac'...a lesser-known zodiac based on the lives of mollusks.
The Molluskan Zodiac has this to say about Octopuses (for people born between October 1st and 29th):
"The wisest of all mollusks. Famed for their abilities to deceive and for their skills in map-reading. Always treat an octopus with a mixture of respect, fear, indifference, and loathing."
Read a horoscope for what Octopuses have to look forward to this week at the world's only zodiac that's based on mollusks. Find out what sign of the Molluskan Zodiac you are and what the horoscopes have predicted for you*:
https://zodiac.keithbradnam.com
* Terms and conditions may apply. Horoscopes may be more or less accurate than other published horoscopes based on traditional or Chinese astrology. Your home is (probably) not at risk based on the weekly proclamations created by this zodiac. In accordance with European law, these horoscopes must be classed as a 'choking hazard' and may not be sold to minors.
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Was just making my annual donation to @relay for their #ChildhoodCancer campaign.
It struck me that dark mode on an iPhone makes it really hard to scan the donation page.
The main button I want to click is not very prominent and I thought that clicking on ‘$10’ would let me edit the amount but it doesn’t. That comes on the next page.
Challenges of dark mode design.
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Was just making my annual donation to @relay for their #ChildhoodCancer campaign.
It struck me that dark mode on an iPhone makes it really hard to scan the donation page.
The main button I want to click is not very prominent and I thought that clicking on ‘$10’ would let me edit the amount but it doesn’t. That comes on the next page.
Challenges of dark mode design.
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Was just making my annual donation to @relay for their #ChildhoodCancer campaign.
It struck me that dark mode on an iPhone makes it really hard to scan the donation page.
The main button I want to click is not very prominent and I thought that clicking on ‘$10’ would let me edit the amount but it doesn’t. That comes on the next page.
Challenges of dark mode design.
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Was just making my annual donation to @relay for their #ChildhoodCancer campaign.
It struck me that dark mode on an iPhone makes it really hard to scan the donation page.
The main button I want to click is not very prominent and I thought that clicking on ‘$10’ would let me edit the amount but it doesn’t. That comes on the next page.
Challenges of dark mode design.
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Was just making my annual donation to @relay for their #ChildhoodCancer campaign.
It struck me that dark mode on an iPhone makes it really hard to scan the donation page.
The main button I want to click is not very prominent and I thought that clicking on ‘$10’ would let me edit the amount but it doesn’t. That comes on the next page.
Challenges of dark mode design.
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My 7-year old collected 32 conkers while we out for a walk this morning (still not quite sure they all fitted into his pockets).
Nerdy dad saw the opportunity to introduce him to basic descriptive statistics. He weighed each conker and I set him up with Numbers on his iPad so he could create his first ever spreadsheet.
He seemed quite comfortable learning about basic functions to work out things like sum, average, min and max.
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I then tried submitting feedback to #Squarespace about their tiny accordion editing window. Ironically, their feedback tool gives you a single line with about 5-6 visible words in which to provide feedback.
Only after submitting my feedback did I see that I had exceeded the 128 character limit...but unhelpfully, it didn't tell me how many characters I had used.
I then realised that you have to click the chevron icon next to each field in the feedback form to turn it into a tick sign before it will submit the feedback.
Room for improvement in their feedback process I would say.
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The charity that I volunteer at uses #Squarespace as their CMS. If you want to edit an accordion item in the CMS, they give you a tiny pop-up window which appears next to your accordion. This window shows 8 lines of text with about 3-4 words per line.
It's driving me crazy as it makes it so hard to edit long accordion items.