A Successful Blogathon Q2 for Register Dynamics!
Following our first Blogathon (see Reflections from our first Blogathon), we decided that we wanted to hold them regularly throughout the year. This May, we held our second Blogathon at the National Archives, Kew.
What is a Blogathon?
For us, a Blogathon is an opportunity for the team to come together to collaborate on content. It’s about being together, sharing ideas, giving ourselves the time and space to develop our thinking and to share that through our blog writing. It’s also an opportunity for us to help and support each other through the process and to grow as a team.
Why is it important?
Register Dynamics is an independent data, digital and technology company. We are a small team of technical, business and data specialists all working remotely. Finding time and creating opportunities for us to come together to connect, collaborate, learn and share is really valuable.
Our Blogathons have been one way that we have been able to bring the team together for this purpose.
We also believe in openly sharing knowledge across our organisation and with our clients and the wider community. Our experiences, learnings and insights are something we are keen to offer anyone who may benefit from it. We aim to do this regularly through the ‘Insights’ section on our website.
Before the day
On this occasion, we set out with a clear goal for each of us to complete a blog post by the end of the day. We wanted to see if it was possible and agreed on the topics that we were going to write about before coming together.
Some team members found it useful to prepare notes and outlines for the articles prior to the Blogathon day itself. We then came together mid-May to start collaborating together.
At the Blogathon Q2
All team members who could make it in person attended, and those abroad were dialled-in so that they could also take part, be seen, heard and involved in the day.
We all came prepared with a wide range of topics including:
The challenges in harnessing cancer data
How data is used in video games
Data in fantasy world building
How open source communities are like
The double diamond approach to data analysis
Keeping data secure
Mental health at work
Problems with virtual meetings
It was great to see the variety of ideas and how ready we all were to get stuck in! Our schedule for the day allowed for some focused writing time, after which we uploaded the drafts into a shared folder. This helped us to concentrate on the task at hand and to help each other to achieve our goals.
We were also keen to create time boxes for our writing and creative time in order to encourage us to get as much done (and written on a page) as possible, whilst also giving us time and space to relax, reflect and just be together.
We gave ourselves the opportunity to explore the nearby exhibition - learning about MI5: Official Secrets! We also enjoyed a beautiful riverside walk on our way to a lovely lunch in Kew.
What’s next
In the afternoon, we reflected on how the day had gone. We reviewed each other’s blogs and supported each other in finalising as many of the topics as we could. We hope that over the next few weeks we will be able to share our latest creations with you.