It's been a while, so I should probably start by explaining what Show and Tell is.
What it is
Show and Tell is a regular event, hosted by the Digital teams, where anyone can share updates about digital work they've been doing (either work-in-progress or completed).
Show and Tell presentations can be about (but aren't limited to):
- website development
- UX design
- content creation
- social media and email campaigns
- interesting analytics
- website benchmarking and discovery work
- any digital best practice
How it works
We usually have three to five people (or pairs or groups) showing and telling each time. Usually, most of the speakers are from the Digital teams (Content and Development), but we'll also have one or two guest speakers (it could be you!) for each event.
Each speaker has five minutes to present followed by five minutes to answer questions.
Overall, each event lasts about one hour and you can choose to attend in person or online.
Why we wanted to bring it back
It's been a few years since we regularly held Show and Tell events. Maybe it was lockdown, maybe it was something else, but we stopped doing them at some point, and we missed them.
We missed showing you our work and how Typecase and website users benefit from it. We also also missed finding out what other teams were up to and wanted to build a more open community around the digital work we all do.
How we brought it back
Bringing Show and Tell back was a pretty simple matter, but we made a couple of changes to how we run them.
Whereas before one person used to be responsible for organising and hosting every Show and Tell event, we decided to share the joy by rotating the responsibility through pairs of Digital teammates - one from Content and one from Development. I can't remember if we volunteered or were nominated, but Sam (User Experience Designer) and I ended up doing the first one.
The other change was to set up a Show and Tell Teams group for University staff so we could inform people about events and ask for volunteers to speak. We then emailed people we thought would be interested in attending and presenting at a Show and Tell, inviting them to join the Teams group.
To help our team arrange future events, we scheduled dates throughout the year and booked rooms for the first two events. We also wrote some guidance on our Wiki, based on everything we'd done, so members of the Digital teams would know what to do for future events.
When everything was set up, we sent an email invitation to the first event to everyone who had joined the Teams group (currently 52 staff members from other teams).
How it went
The first Show and Tell in the new series went well.
We had three speakers:
- Amy Lippai, Marketing Officer from the School of Management, talking about their case study planning process
- Rebecca Stewart, Front-end Developer from Digital Development, talking about digital accessibility testing
- Sam Street, UX Designer from Digital Development, talking about the user research we've done in the last 12 months
We also had about 20 people turn up to see the talks, either online or in person, and we were happy to hear that people enjoyed and valued the event. Rebecca's talk also led to a useful follow-up discussion about accessible communication and we were able to direct people to a workshop run by the Assistive Technology team.
What's next
The next Show and Tell is this Thursday, 11 July 2024, at 10.30am in 1 West 2.01. Feel free to come along if you're interested.
It's being organised and hosted by Faith (Content Designer) and Dan (Developer) and there'll be talks from:
- Sarah James, Deputy Residence Experience Manager from Residence Life, talking about their new blog platform
- Rayner Simpson, Digital Content Manager from the School of Management, talking about using numbers accessibly on websites
- me, Senior Content Designer from Digital Content, talking about our new accessibility guidelines
Beyond that, we're planning to have four Show and Tell events each year. The last two events in 2024 are on:
- Thursday 17 October
- Thursday 5 December
Find out more
If you're not already a devoted attendee or you'd like to present at an upcoming Show and Tell, join our staff Teams group. We invite everyone in the Teams group by email, so it's the best way to find out about upcoming events and volunteer to speak about digital work you've been doing.
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