Tag: Digital Competence

Time for a Digital Competence Day?

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Well, well, I cannot help but try to imagine a third Digital Competence Day at European Commission. The last edition took place almost a year ago. It was a very particular event, a real bottom-up initiative which started with a call for interest in our internal social platform. I humbly believe it could be really nice to discuss here the content of a new edition. So, these are my initial ideas:

  • 50 contributors from all services in average. A minimum to reflect a real situation and put forward best internal initiatives which highlight a sense for entrepreneurship. “Digital competence” is not about an ideal world, but about things that can be improved now, using technologies at disposal – Digital Transformation is the next step.
  • An online space to manage collaboration and to make sure that contributors adhere to the project, at every step of the way. The idea is to share a new way of achieving great results.
  • A motto “We can be smarter in the way we work together”. We can respect data privacy, security and procedures while being more open and collaborative. A digital organisation would engage its staff in a common future. But not only. This year I would take the concept further and would suggest to engage both staff and stakeholders.
  • Same receipe for success “one room, one purpose”. People wander between three rooms, the first one dedicated to technologies, the second one to use cases and the third one to debates. They create their individualized learning path related to their topics of interest or to nourish their curiosity. Free navigation without constraints among 30 or so outstanding learning activities.
  • A “digital competence library”. A fourth, brand new room, where colleagues would experiment with technologies alone or with mentors.
  • A unique debate between social media vendors. Even more internal successes. And, social collaboration use cases presented by some of the Institution’s external partners.
  • On top of this, insights from experts on how to entertain communities, crowdsource ideas, protect privacy and any other relevant area of interest, as well as insider stories from Digital Transformation players.
  • Even more gamification. In the second edition, colleagues were invited to vote for the digital competence awards. This is always a great way to engage an audience prior to an event and create some emulation.
  • As part of the promotional material, a new video teaser and for the first time, an insightful blog, gathering a collection of testimonials from stakeholders and key achievements after two editions of the digital competence day. A sort of interactive “Digital Times”*, more result-oriented.

#Ecdigiday was run during two years in a row. Have a look at the storify of the first edition. What will be your ideas for a digital competence day?

*”Digital Times” was an old-fashioned print newspaper distributed during the first two editions, whose focus was on mindset shift and new media adoption. The aim was to show the power that comes from combining new and old media.

Are we even aware?

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In a previous post « Ear’s the plan », I explained why creating awareness about the weaknesses of some current working methods was a prerequisite. Both individuals and teams need to be convinced that the way they work is affecting their overall life balance – too many emails, meetings without agenda, too many versions of documents, all this in a rather isolated way.

An awareness campaign about a recurrent behaviour, which I like to call « micro-working » – certainly abusively, but this illustrates well my point, could represent a good option.

A micro-worker has the following characteristics:

Right after coming to work in the morning, his first action is to open his inbox to read all his incoming emails. Then, he gets to his next action which is to invite colleagues to different meetings via an eCalendar, a very painful task as most of their days are already full. Finally, feeling quite relieved, the micro-worker starts reviewing a document, that he will send by email, copying all interested parties. Mail entitled « strategy_v12 ». And so on so forth.

Do not take me wrong, the micro-worker is a very hard worker. For instance, you will often see him in his office at lunchtime, devouring a sandwich, while reading reports on his computer. Besides, he will be one of the last ones leaving the office at night.

The micro-worker could be a she of course, which reminds me of a discussion with one female friend. “People need to understand that it is possible to come home earlier, there are ways to be more efficient” I told her. There was a long pause and then, she replied “This is a message for women, men want to come home late. It won’t work with men”. One discussion I will never forget!

You might want to watch this video, starting after 7 minutes, which aimed at raising awareness about the possible inefficiency of current work practices.