communicate magazine - sholto lindsay-smith and kate edwin-scott

THE TRANSFORMATION OF BCSKate Edwin-Scott, Marketing Director, BCS

Sholto Lindsay-Smith, Managing Director, Uffindell

When the British Computer Society was formed in 1957, televisions were a luxury item. There were no PCs, no mobile phones, no silicone chips.

The world has come along way since then…

Today’s washing machines…

…have greater computing power than Apollo 11.

The top ten jobs in the world didn’t exist in 2004.

In the USA, 1 in 8 couples married in 2008 met online.

If My Space was a country it would be the 5th largest country in the world between Indonesia and Brazil.

There are 31 billion searches on Google every month.

In 2006 it was 2.7 billion.

The amount of new technological information doubles every 2 years.

For students starting a technological degree, half of what they learn in the first year will be outdated by their 3rd year of study.

By 2013, a super computer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of a human brain.

But…

The British Computer Society had not kept pace with the times.

The name was an anachronism.

THE BRITISH COMPUTER SOCIETY

A stakeholder audit showed BCS had lost its relevance.

‘FUSTY’‘ELITIST’

‘OLD SCHOOL’ ‘GEEKY’‘STUFFY’

‘OUT OF DATE’‘ACADEMIC’

‘CRUSTY’‘NERDY’

‘PAROCHIAL’

‘REMOTE’

So…what was the point of the British Computer Society?

Today there are an estimated1,000,000 peopleworking in the IT industry in the UK.

That’s about 1 in 20 people.

Many are employed in mission critical, multi-million pound projects in government, hospitals, banks, nuclear power stations, etc.

The IT industry is vital to innovation, competitiveness and the future prosperity of UK plc.

The UK software and IT services sector accounts for 5% of GDP.

The market was worth around £51.9 billion in 2008.

You wouldn’t use an uncertified accountant, doctor, architect, or civil engineer. So why an uncertified IT practitioner?

Yet the industry is unregulated.

It was clear that there was a role for an organisation to champion this vital industry.

We worked with the leadership team and consulted key stakeholders to explore future scenarios for BCS…

Trustees Members IT professionals

Employers

Government

Academics

Students Trainers

BCS

This lead to the definition of a new mission:

ENABLING THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

Supporting change and wider social and economic progress through the application of IT

The strategy focused the organisation on five areas of future activity:

Bridging the gap between IT education, practice and research

Championing the IT profession as provider

of solutions to economic, social and

environmental problems

Giving practitioners professional

development and career support

Informing public policy on how IT can

contribute to society

Ensuring everyone benefits from IT,

enabling citizens to become effective IT

Managers

Enabling the Information Society

leading to a new strategy and a two year organizational

transformation programme

The mission was a

CATALYST FOR CHANGE

The transformation plan covered every aspect of the organisation:1. Federation workstream –

development of a federation model bringing together IT organisations and associations

2. Learned society workstream –a forum for academics to share developments

3. International workstream –expanding our presence around the world

4. Qualifications workstream –alignment of user qualifications to the UK qualification structure and updating of professional qualifications

5. Professional workstream –development of new rigorous Chartered IT Professional accreditation

6. Web workstream –development of a leading edge site with video news, personalized content, collaboration tools

7. Brand and communications workstream – modernization of the BCS brand to signal change to the IT community

We started the transformation process by engaging employees.

They helped determine a culture that would bring about success.

A new set of values and behaviours were defined.

Hig

hly

mot

ivat

ing

Critical to organisational success

Not

mot

ivat

ing

Not critical to organisational success

Forward thinking, Leading, Focused, Fast moving, Agile, Proactive, Dynamic,Open, Listening, Empowering

The new values underpin the brand

A new brand identity was created to signal change.

The new descriptor ‘The Chartered Institute for IT’ was added to emphasize the institutes role as a professional body.

A new creative platform was developed which focuses on the Information Society rather than plugs and wires.

Over 800 items of literature were rationalized.

Paper based processes were streamlined and taken online.

A new website was developed (with the goal of becoming the go-to-site for the IT professional).

The website features live IT related news broadcasts…

…and new member networks to enable collaboration

A new ad campaign was created to launch the new BCS.

Launch day was kicked off with a photocall and PR story about information security

…and a debate hosted by John Humphreys which was streamed live over the website

Supporting PR initiatives have included the launch of the ‘Savvy Citizen’ campaign

The results• Online advertising generated more than 70,000 extra

visitors to the website

• Social media mentions increased from 254 to 888 mentions during the launch

• Page views increased by nearly half a million

• Visits to the membership pages have increased by 36%and to the qualifications pages by 29%

• Press coverage increased from 1.2 million impression in May to 6.9 million impressions at launch

• Brand advocacy amongst members increased by 10%post launch

The results• Online advertising generated more than 70,000 extra

visitors to the website

• Social media mentions increased from 254 to 888 mentions during the launch

• Page views increased by nearly half a million

• Visits to the membership pages have increased by 36%and to the qualifications pages by 29%

• Press coverage increased from 1.2 million impression in May to 6.9 million impressions at launch

• Brand advocacy amongst members increased by 10%post launch.

10 thoughts on transformation1. Create a burning platform

2. Think BIG!

3. Use the VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER to convince cynics

4. Lead it from the TOP

5. Involve the WHOLE organisation

6. Keep COMMUNICATING

7. Use the LAUNCH DATE to sustain momentum

8. Don’t launch until you are READY

9. Make sure change is SUBSTANTIVE

10. Secure some QUICK WINS

www.uffindellgroup.com

UFFINDELL LONDON24 St John Street London EC1M 4AYTel: +44 (0)20 7689 0000Fax: +44 (0)20 7689 3930

UFFINDELL NEW YORK330 Madison Avenue 6th FloorNew York NY 10017Tel: +1 646 495 5568Fax: +1 212 208 3073

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UFFINDELL SYDNEYLevel 351 Murray Street PyrmontNSW 2009 AustraliaTel: +612 9552 2100

communicate magazine - sholto lindsay-smith and kate edwin-scott

Technology