23rd June 2015 London, UK
Last month FCO Posts in Europe created over ten thousand pieces of digital content, including tweets, Facebook posts, blogs, photos, infographics, videos and audio clips. But how do you evaluate the effectiveness of all this output? Part of a Digital Hub’s role is to help Posts in the region figure this out so that lessons […]
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12th January 2015 London, UK
In November, my colleague Kate Burnham blogged about our work to design a new digital training curriculum for the FCO. Since then, we’ve been busy running pilots – “beta” testing 11 modules, in 4 different formats, with over 140 people in over 25 countries (and demand was so high that we already have waiting lists […]
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19th December 2014 London, UK
I’ve just been presenting to senior Foreign Office leaders on our digital work in 2014. It’s been a momentous year. The Digital Transformation Unit we envisaged in the Digital Strategy became fully operational this spring. The Unit brought new skills into the Foreign Office – expertise in the delivery of modern digital services, expertise in […]
28th November 2014 London, UK
This blog post looks at what we learnt from our recent review of how our embassies around the world are using digital. In our 2014 digital review we asked posts (embassies, high commissions, consulates etc) to assess how they were using digital tools and techniques in four areas: communications; strategic planning and leadership; policy making; […]
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27th November 2014 London, UK
We recently conducted a review of how our embassies are using digital. This blog explains why and how we run that review. The next blog looks at the findings. With a network of more than 200 posts (embassies, high commissions, consulates etc) across the globe, all using digital in one way or another, it can […]
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26th November 2014 London, UK
The FCO has an ambitious change agenda to bring the organisation fully into the digital age. Our Digital Transformation Unit was set up in February 2014, bringing in the specialist digital skills and expertise that we need in our core digital team, but we also need to ensure the FCO’s diverse network of staff increase […]
11th November 2014 London, UK
Some beautiful photos from the latest round of Chevening user testing, and what we learned from the latest cohort of scholars On Saturday 25 October, the latest cohort of Chevening scholars were invited to an orientation event: a day’s activities welcoming them to the UK and helping them settle in. At the end of the […]
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2nd October 2014 London, UK
Last week, the FCO held its first ever Digital Week: a concentrated effort to show our staff how digital tools and technologies can transform our policy-making, service delivery and communications. We organised a busy programme of talks, masterclasses, digital clinics and competitions, delivered both in our London HQ and around our global network. So what […]
2nd September 2014 London, UK
Dr Richard Smith reveals an exciting new Twitter project by the FCO Historians In 1914 Sir Francis Bertie held the plum posting in the British Diplomatic Service—the ambassadorship to Paris. Not only did it carry a yearly salary of £11,500 (the Foreign Secretary was paid just £5,000) but the Ambassador also got to live at […]
1st September 2014 London, UK
Hello there, I’m Phil Buckley, a Digital Transformation Manager at the Foreign Office, and I wanted to tell you about the unusual and fun challenges faced when testing the new application form for the Chevening Scholarship programme. How did we test? Before we started the design of the new system, we were lucky enough to […]
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