Category: Digital Inclusion
Can I Borrow A Cup Of Wi-Fi?
I’m on holiday. I’m flicking through Twitter and sipping a beer in a village bar. Outside, some Thai kids are playing a game on the smartphone they’ve borrowed from their Mum. Locals pop in every so often to sit down , catch up on gossip and read their emails. What’s wrong with this picture? Here ...
The Connected Homeless
“It’s amazing how nice their Smartphones are. Some would actually go without food rather than lose their Smartphone.” This quote is from a manager of a homelessness hostel. Someone who has observed up close that, for the Connected Generation , staying in touch with their networks isn’t a luxury- it’s a necessity. This isn’t something ...
Getting People Online (Lessons from my Mother)
On my recent holiday a surprising thing happened. Two emails from my Mom. From my Mom. Who , 9 months ago, had never been online. I’m proud. But it’s been a difficult journey. This post is not about having a laugh at the expense of older people online. It’s an attempt to capture some of my ...
Digital Myths
How confident are you using the internet? On a scale of 1 to 10. And how confident would you say the average user of social housing is? Last week , I posted about the myth of social housing residents and digital inclusion. How 99% of our new customers said they had the ability to access the ...
The Great Divide?
Residents of social housing are , pretty much , excluded from access to the internet. If you believe everything you read. Grant Shapps MP once said Social Housing tenants live in a “digital apartheid” Martha Lane Fox has said that “Almost half” of the UK’s adult population who do not use the internet live in social ...
Two things you can’t say on Twitter…..
There are two opinions that are definite no-go zones amongst the liberal left twitterati. Opinions that , if you were to express them openly , could see you banished to the most remote, uninhabited and hostile parts of the social media planet.(Linkedin…..or even worse, Google+) What are they? 1 – Saying you think the NHS ...
A Design For Life – The Customer Deal – New Blog
It’s not often you get the chance to go back to the start. To redesign your customer experience from the beginning of the relationship About a year ago we started talking to customers about their part in our service offer. We had worked with them to develop a new Bromford Offer – based on the experiences of thousands of customers. It had ...
Are we ready for the rise of the untethered customer? Blog update #ukhousing
“What is a smartphone anyway?” I was asked by a colleague this week. I broke into a cold sweat. Especially as it was during a meeting about digital inclusion. If this is the kind of question you hear asked often, you need to start worrying. Now. I love working in housing. Genuinely. But whilst we ...
Bridging The Digital Divide – Blog Update. #digitalbritain
Met with BT and Citizens Online yesterday as part of our project to get 100% of our communities online – and doing business with us online – by 2016. ( Blogs are brilliant – I just completely made that target up , but its my blog so who says it can’t be true?) What we want to enable for customers is ...
Project E-bromford…….Broadband Pilot
Some great news to start the week. We’ve just heard that we have been chosen along with Newport City Homes to be amongst the first UK trialists in a project to provide housing association customers with low cost internet access. The idea is that BT will provide equipment, installation, support and an internet package. Microsoft ...
