New Media Awards 2007 Atos Origin

Demos

http://www.demos.co.uk

Nominated in Information and openness award category.

Demos is the independent think-tank for everyday democracy committed to the idea that all people should have greater influence over factors that affect them and their communities.

Headshift’s redesign of the Demos website and integration of social media tools transformed this former one-way information hub into a transparent collaborative network between Demos’ employees and their target audience which has increased the charity’s profile and research capabilities.

Its primary audience includes policy makers, academics and members of the public with a keen interest in social change and democracy as well as Demos employees.

1 nomination from readers

  • The re-design of the site focused explicitly on facilitating collective intelligence, knowledge sharing and collaboration around democratic themes and included the following objectives;

    • Create a tool for project collaboration, ideas dissemination and relationship building which inspires and engages both the internal and external Demos audience;

    • Ensure that the user experience is a ‘Demos Experience’ reflecting values of ‘interaction and discussion’;

    • Open Demos’ research process to their external audience and in turn benefit from their collective intelligence;

    • Develop a platform to transform Demos’ work and collaboration processes.

    Headshift created placed social media, transparency and debate at the front and centre of its activities. The development included a personal social interface that provides lightweight, informal knowledge sharing tools to help groups organise their own view of Demos’ information, users to connect and collaborate with each other more effectively and to increase transparency around Demos’ research process.

    The strategy included;

    • Rigorous analysis of user profiles, cultures and behaviours leading to a user-centric interface and information architecture;

    • Customisation and integration of blogging and discussion forums;

    • Introduction of tagging and themes including tag clouds and mapping which allow users to follow themes via key offerings - projects, publications, events, research

    • Custom developed content management and publication system;

    • Ability to receive project updates via RSS, podcast and email

    The project has been a monumental success. In an average week there are over 170,000 page views of the site and a tenfold increase in the number of publication downloads. The site’s utilisation has increased significantly amongst Demos employees, which has in turn facilitated further collaboration and engagement with the external target audience including an unprecedented international audience. Demos research fellows report that they will now always receive external input on projects thanks to the development.

    Nominated by Kate Crawshaw, 31 May 2007