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Ben Hunt-Davis MBE is a big believer in focusing on the metrics that matter. 

He was part of an underachieving British rowing team who came in last place at the 1996 Olympics. But his team went on to achieve a remarkable turnaround, winning Gold in Sydney four years later. 

How did they do it? By organising themselves around one simple question: ‘will it make the boat go faster?’ 

Hard work, determination and training were all still required, of course, but all those efforts were directed towards one clear purpose.

Ben’s story beautifully illustrates the power of being laser-focused. But with the charity sector in the midst of an unprecedented period of change, it can be tricky for fundraisers to identify such a simple route to success.

We know that ambitious fundraisers are exploring new recruitment channels and products, and new ways to deepen engagement and value from supporters.  

Making that shift can be risky however, without a clear view of the right metrics at the right time. And the reality for many charities is that it can take months to analyse their results and make recommendations for future activity.  

However the same basic principle applies to charities as much as it does an Olympic rowing team - decisions are made much easier when you have access to the right metrics to steer the ship.

When we talk about the ‘metrics that matter’ it’s not about saying some of your KPIs are unimportant. It’s about being clear which metrics are most important of all. And giving internal teams a way to easily communicate (and understand) how you’re tracking against them.

Getting the timing right is also crucial. I’ve heard too many stories of charity teams getting a shock when unexpected results are unveiled to them months down the line. Not only that, but the time it’s taken to produce the results means a lot of missed opportunities.

For example, one Head of Individual Giving recently told me that they almost fell off their chair when the charity’s data agency presented the ‘latest’ view of their Weekly Lottery retention performance (which was actually 6 months old).  

The expansion of recruitment channels had dramatically increased attrition, but their teams were operating for months without this knowledge and repeating costly mistakes over and over again. 

Putting a stronger performance culture in place

Thankfully, charities that cultivate a strong performance culture can avoid this situation.  By establishing a shared view of your charity’s most important metrics, all in one place, at a glance, fundraisers will benefit from:

Improved accountability across internal teams, with a common language and a genuine reason to collaborate

The ability to make better, quicker decisions, enabling meaningful progress against big strategic challenges.

The insight to turn off, or reshape failures as soon as they become apparent, and build on successes as soon as they show a significant uplift. 

All hands on deck - collaboration is critical

As my colleague Sam points out, well-designed visual dashboards can provide these benefits, but tools alone don’t guarantee success, especially if bought ‘off the shelf’ and left to gather dust.

The most important part of cultivating a performance culture is making sure all the key end users/stakeholders (IG, Data, Digital teams) are together from the start, to discuss, challenge and agree on the common insight view that will drive performance forward. 

This co-creation means that internal charity teams have the reassurance of a common, agreed-upon results view (via a tailored dashboard) that they can use to minimise risks. This facilitates leaner working practices, and continual testing and learning.  

This on-going lens into the latest results can be liberating. It strips dangerous delays and a reliance on outside agencies (and their reporting routines) out of the process. 

In a sector where every pound spent on fundraising is (rightly) scrutinised, placing bets should be as informed as possible. And with a little bit of effort upfront, it is possible for charities to track the most important metrics and therefore make better decisions.

Just as Ben Hunt-Davis’s ‘big question’ kept the whole British rowing team on track for Olympic success, charities that prioritise performance measurement in this way will be able to make quicker progress against big goals. It should also help fuel appetites amongst internal teams to work together for further positive change, and make the job of fundraising much less frustrating and more interesting for everyone involved.

How fundraisers can make faster progress by tracking the metrics that matter

A shared understanding of the latest key metrics is central for fundraising success

Charities can make better decisions when they have access to the right metrics, but what do we really mean when we talk about the ‘metrics that matter’. 

 How fundraisers can make faster progress by tracking the metrics that matter | Signal Blog 

On Wednesday 6th November, we welcomed a packed room of senior marketers and business leaders to our sold out ‘Agile Marketing for the Real World’ event at CodeClan Edinburgh.

Agile Marketing is a powerful idea. It promises a more fun, collaborative and effective way of working that helps marketers get better results, faster. But with so many different approaches and methodologies, it’s not easy to know where to start. Our hashtag for the event perhaps puts it best: #WTFisAgileMarketing?

To help shed some light on this, we invited three speakers to share their extensive and varied experience adopting Agile ways of working in the ‘real world’ of marketing.

Our keynote speaker for the evening was Neil Perkin (digital consultant and bestselling author of two books on Agile), with Kate Bordwell (Creative Lead at RBS Open Experience) and our very own consultant David Hammond (previously Accenture) adding their unique perspectives. Read bios for each of our speakers here. 

The evening kicked off with a bit of informal networking (accompanied by lots of wine and cheese).

Guests might also have noticed a bit of a visual theme (one or two Post-Its were involved.)

And before the talks kicked off, a few attendees shared with us what the concept of Agile meant to them on our Wall of Agile.

It was soon time for the main event, which our CEO John Rowley described in his intro as “something of a journey through the key principles of Agile, its development and deployment in the real world.” 

First up was our keynote speaker, Neil Perkin, on the topic of Agile Marketing and Transformation.

 “There’s nothing wrong with linear ways of thinking, but too many companies do 95% linear, and maybe 5% iterative and Agile. There really needs to be a bit of a rebalance here, because the context is that we are in environments which are complex and adaptive." Neil Perkin

John set the scene for Neil’s talk by introducing him as a “taller, better-looking Yoda”. And Neil did indeed have a ton of wisdom to share with us about Agile Marketing, based on his experience helping a wide range of organisations adopt Agile ways of working (outwith technology teams). This included a stint at Time Inc. when the magazine giant was transitioning from print to digital. 

Neil’s half hour presentation was densely packed with insights and information, focusing on the massive impact that digital innovation has had on the competitive landscape, and how Agile ways of working (and thinking) can provide a way through.

He quoted Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, whose phrase ‘Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast’ encapsulates the key concepts of Agile. And he highlighted why each element is so important:

“You think big, because you need that good sense of direction. Being Agile is not an excuse not to have a plan. So you have a good vision and sense of direction, but in order to get there, you start small so that you can learn fast and you can scale fast. That way, you’re able to take account of the rapidly changing context.”

He also outlined the three core principles of Agile that he considers critical for making it a success within marketing teams: 

Manageably-sized multidisciplinary teams (6-10 people)

Finally, he pointed out that data has to be refined: "data is the new oil, in that it's toxic unless you refine it". Firstly, it needs to be turned into information, which in turn can be converted into knowledge and ultimately wisdom that drives organisational change. And he suggested that marketers would benefit from being more open to adopting some of the methods used by product marketing and service design teams. 

Next up was Signal’s David Hammond to give us the lowdown on ‘Agile Marketing in Practice’.

David also cited The Lean Startup, which he discovered in a previous role at Accenture, as a key influence on his career. 

Like Neil, he has also worked as a consultant, advising a wide range of business and marketing teams (as well as technology and product teams) on how to apply Agile principles to get better results.

One example David shared to show how effective Agile can be, covered his experience working on a project with McDonald’s:

“Their VP of marketing in the UK wanted to trial out new coffee products in some of their stores. But she was told it was going to take over a year to test that through their normal processes. So I worked with her and her team to develop an Agile marketing approach and get a trial out in the space of 3 months.” 

He also outlined seven very practical steps of how to get started with Agile marketing:

Form an Agile Marketing team (with tips on what good teams have in common)

Rather than conforming rigidly to any one methodology, David advised that in a marketing context, an ‘a la carte approach’ usually works best. Echoing Neil’s 3 key principles, he recommended 3 things in particular that he finds work well for marketing teams; Kanban boards, daily stand-ups and regular retrospectives.

“If there’s only one Agile practice to implement within your marketing team, regular retrospectives is the one that I’d recommend. Because it’s the one that allows teams to evolve their own way of working with more Agile practices in general." David Hammond

For more details, you can read David’s recent article: Agile Marketing (What it means in practice) 

Our third talk was an entertaining finale from Kate Bordwell on Becoming Agile. 

“For me Agile isn’t about Scrum and Kanban and all that, it’s much more about the core principles and values, and that collaboration, that team. It's the fact that you can bring the right people together in the room from the beginning, plus the fact that you can involve customers at every stage of your process, that you can co-create with people. That’s what motivates me and that’s what I think gets really good results.”

Kate talked us through her journey from solo planner to working within a collaborative Agile team and how she went on to become a fully-fledged Agile Practitioner. 

"I don't call it a 'war-room' because I'm a pacifist. I call it a 'mind-palace' instead."

She shared the different methods she’s used in different roles, from ‘a crash course in design sprints’ at Nile, to navigating tribes and guilds with Skyscanner, to her current role at RBS, where innovation is defined as ‘new ideas that have meaningful impact on customers’.

She also gave us advice on how to ensure there’s space for marketing fundamentals such as developing insight and ideas in an Agile environment, plus a whistlestop tour of some of her favourite Agile tools and techniques.

“There’s often a myth that being Agile means you don’t need a strategy. In fact, being Agile means you need a robust strategy based on data insight.  And for marketers that means you’re still having to think about what your brand is, what your core purpose is, who your target audience is, how you’re positioned and what your core proposition is. And you can and must build this into the Agile process.” Kate Bordwell

To close out the evening, all 3 speakers took part in a lively Q&A session with some challenging questions and fascinating answers that took in tree metaphors, data ethics and research methods.  

And the lively conversation continued afterwards with more informal networking, plus more wine and cheese, of course.

 You can find all of the presentation slides on SlideShare or embedded below:

Agile Marketing For The Real World event - Signal - 6th Nov 2019

Photos by Louise Brown (and Milo McLaughlin)

The team at Signal who organised the event and helped out on the night (especially our Marketing Manager Lauren Cormack!) 

All the staff at CodeClan Edinburgh - who made us all feel very welcome (this was our second successful event of 2019 at the same venue, following our Accessibility event in May).

And everyone who came along and made it such a great event.

Agile Marketing for the Real World - a summary of our sold out event

WTF is Agile Marketing? We asked three experts to share their experience.

We welcomed a packed room of senior marketers and business leaders to our sold out ‘Agile Marketing for the Real World’ event at CodeClan Edinburgh to discuss all things Agile Marketing. 

Agile Marketing For The Real World - Event Summary | Signal Blog 

Personally I’ve grown to hate the word Agile. It’s become a ubiquitous buzzword, which has taken on a vast variety of connotations. 

For the uninitiated, dipping a toe into the swirling pool of Agile-related content and training that’s on offer can be a confusing and baffling experience. 

This is an especially pertinent challenge for marketing leaders who need to quickly identify which aspects of Agile will best work for them and their teams.

If this is you, take comfort in knowing you are not alone. A 2019 survey indicates that 50% of marketing leaders in traditional companies are looking to adopt more Agile ways of working, and 32% are already on the journey.

To clear up confusion around what Agile means for marketing, I often start consultancy engagements by asking the teams I’m working with to each write on a post it what Agile means to them. It’s a simple but interesting exercise, and very quickly enables me to flush out common misconceptions.

Try, it. Take 30 seconds and jot down what Agile means to you. 

I’ve found the same things come up time and time again:

Agile is going faster - An especially common misconception. Doing the same stuff as normal just, you know, faster! 

Agile is a specific practice - Sometimes people write Scrum, Kanban, Sprints or Stand-ups on the post it. Not necessarily wrong, but quite a narrow definition of what Agile involves.

Agile means no planning - It’s not that Agile doesn’t involve planning, just that their plans are designed to change.

So, if these are misconceptions, what is the right answer? What does Agile Marketing actually mean?

There has been a growing effort to clarify this. In 2012, a group of around 20 forward thinking marketers gathered in San Francisco and produced the Agile Marketing Manifesto which sets out 7 foundational values of Agile Marketing. One of the authors has since refined this to set out 6 values and 4 benefits for adopting Agile principles within marketing teams.

As interest in Agile Marketing has grown, consultancies have tried to apply these values to the work they do with clients, and even their internal marketing teams. McKinsey have set out an Agile Marketing approach that focused on cross-functional collaboration and iterative experimentation. And Deloitte have transformed their internal marketing team to work in a more Agile way.

With many alternative definitions, and conflicting perspectives, it feels like the exact definition of Agile Marketing is still very difficult to pin down, so here is my take on the 5 pillars that are that are key to actually doing Agile marketing.

Agile Marketers put the customer front and centre of everything they do. This may sound obvious, after all, what kind of marketing ignores customers? But often marketing teams are  guilty of operating one step removed, devoting their energy to managing the brand, or churning out campaigns to schedule, and it is easy to lose focus on who it’s all for.

The question Agile Marketers should aspire to answer, is how best to engage customers at every stage of their journey. This isn’t normally a question that marketing teams can answer on their own, so collaboration with other business functions is a cornerstone of any Agile Marketing approach.

Exactly what collaboration looks like will vary depending on the circumstances. For marketing teams attempting to integrate Agile into their daily operations, collaboration may be as simple as inviting a non-departmental colleagues to meetings, or re-arranging where teams sit. 

For a marketing executive attempting to instigate a bigger change, collaboration may mean reaching out to form a trailblazing multidisciplinary project team - with a remit to tackle a tricky problem that would otherwise fall between organisational cracks.

Either way Agile Marketers must set out to be inclusive, and recognise that they can’t and shouldn’t want to try and do everything on their own. 

The collaborative nature of Agile teams is reinforced by setting objectives and goals at the level of the team rather than the individual. This type of goal-setting is supported by the notion of servant leadership, in which the leader of an Agile Marketing team won't prescribe what to do, but rather focuses on making sure the direction is clear and removing impediments to progress. 

This leads to a very flat hierarchy, with little micromanagement and empowered team members who are all working together to achieve the same things. 

What the goals are will vary depending on the context, but it’s important that an Agile Marketing team is measured on outcomes rather than output. It shouldn’t matter how much content is produced, or how busy the team seem to be, what matters is whether they are able to achieve the goals that have been agreed. 

It is of course an important prerequisite to make sure that goals are actually measurable. This means deciding in advance on the exact metrics that will be used, the benchmarks for success, and technically how data will be captured and managed. 

Once goals have been set, the overall strategic direction should be clear. Now the tactics used to get there are up to the Agile marketing team. Based on the agreed goals, the team is responsible for managing their own priorities and workload. This is usually done by creating a ‘backlog’ for the team, which is essentially a ‘to do’ list of everything that ought to be on the team’s radar.

Things in the backlog will be of different sizes, and it’s normal for a backlog to include big initiatives, processes, tiny tasks and experimental ideas. This variation is acceptable, since the backlog isn’t a static plan that’s produced once and referred back to like gospel. 

Instead, it is fluid and is constantly being updated by the team. New items can be added, half-baked ideas can be fleshed out, and things that are no longer relevant can be removed. 

Since the backlog is a constantly evolving artifact, it needs to ‘live’ somewhere. For some teams this will be a physical space, for example a Kanban board on a wall, but most will maintain a digital version using established Agile software like Jira or Trello. 

The backlog needs to be prioritised, and this is something the Agile marketing team will need to devote regular time to. There are no hard and fast rules for how to do this, and teams will adopt their  own frameworks for prioritisation. While clear goals provide a useful reference point, most teams will find they need to strike a balance between working on business-as-usual type tasks and devoting space to customer tests and ‘growth hacks’ that could open up new areas of opportunity. 

At first, figuring out what to prioritise in the backlog will involve some guesswork. This is because there may be initiatives in there that nobody is sure how to tackle, or experiments with totally unpredictable results. 

This is ok, and Agile marketing teams shouldn’t try to tackle everything at once. Instead, they will work iteratively. In practice, this means regularly pulling the top priority items from the backlog, working together to plan in detail the specific tasks to be done, estimating how long they will take, and deciding who will do them. This is a team-led process and requires constant communication, which is enabled by regular planning sessions, and daily stand-ups. 

This is where the concept of ‘sprints’ is potentially useful. Probably the most heavily adopted (and abused) piece of Agile lingo, a sprint is just a timebox in which the team agree that an amount of work will be delivered. At the end of the sprint the team should have something to show for it and be able to demonstrate that progress. 

There are two big reasons that working in sprints is effective. The first is Parkinson’s Law: work expands to fill the time available. Setting a clear deadline, as with a 2 week sprint, focuses minds on the priorities at hand. So long as the team is free to manage its own workload, this can lead to rapid, but consistent progress without the risk of burnout.

The second, and probably the most important reason, is that working iteratively leads to a shorter feedback cycle. At the end of each sprint, the team is able to produce something that they can learn from. They can evaluate what is working, and adjust priorities for the next sprint, shifting focus to make sure that they are continuously progressing towards achieving their objectives. 

Interestingly teams that work iteratively will soon find that there isn’t always much correlation between the complexity of items in the backlog, and the results they deliver. It is important then for Agile Marketers to allow statistics to trump opinions and conviction. Sometimes, an analysis of the data shows that the simplest things lead to the best results. Since the team are regularly evaluating results, it is easier to double down on what works, and de-prioritise less valuable activities. 

Making decisions with data requires a very high level of transparency. Everyone in an Agile marketing team should have access to the data that is being used to track progress and measure success. Results should also be readily shared beyond the team.

For some Agile marketing teams transparency may mean getting decorative, and covering the walls of their office space or project room with the results of their work. Digital tools such as dashboards and scorecards can also provide a flexible way to share results seamlessly across the team and wider organisation. 

A focus on data over instinct can mean that creative impulses need to take a back seat, or that the highest paid person in the room harrumphs with frustration at not getting their way, but in a world where marketing activity is increasingly measurable, faith in data tends to be borne out over time. 

For some marketing teams, internalising just one of the principles above will give them the sprinkling of Agile they are looking for to achieve a change. However, it’s important to understand that these are really interlocking pieces of a wider philosophy. The best results are achieved when a marketing team makes strides towards embracing an Agile mindset as part of a new way of working. 

Is embracing Agile Marketing something that you need to do? Increasingly it may be. It is now difficult to find a major company that isn’t using Agile within software development. Agile wasn’t a fad within technology, and while development methods continue to evolve the core principles behind Agile look like they are here to stay. 

In an increasingly fast paced, and digitally driven world, no marketing team has the luxury of operating in a silo, or simply sticking with the approaches that worked well in the past. As organisations increasingly experiment with the idea of adopting Agile practices beyond technology teams, it will be the marketers still gazing at their reflection in the pool, rather than diving in, who are left behind. 

Agile Marketing (what it means in practice)

What does Agile Marketing really mean in practice? David Hammond shares five principles for success.

The organisers of Accessibility Scotland describe it as “a friendly, affordable, and informative day focused on digital accessibility and inclusion.”  

The event has grown bigger every year, with both the 2018 and 2019 events taking place at the expansive Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC). 

Signal’s senior UX Designer Lauren Bowen and myself were fortunate to be able to attend this year’s (fourth annual) event, which was completely sold out, with around 250 people in attendance.

As well as the welcome sight of some familiar faces, it was pleasing to see that there was a real effort to make the entire experience as inclusive as possible. The venue and room layouts were fully accessible, and there were BSL (British Sign Language) interpreters and live captions for all of the main talks. 

There was even a simple code of conduct: 'be nice'.

It's a single-track event, so there was also no issue with catching all of the five main talks. These were loosely tied to the day’s theme of ‘Accessibility and Ethics’ but were wide-ranging in terms of subject matter, and all very interesting and thought-provoking. 

Below is a short summary of each, plus links to the slides.

1. Accessible public services – Are we there yet?

 Cat Macaulay, Chief Design Officer, The Scottish Government

This was a refreshingly honest account of the huge challenges (and opportunities) involved in designing inclusive public services, specifically Scotland’s newly devolved Social Security agency. 

Cat told us that she has multiple sclerosis, so is well aware of how difficult applying for benefits can be. “Applying for DLA & PIP is one of the worst experiences I’ve had in my life and I spent most of my 20s working in a war zone.”

She admitted that “we’re still pretty rubbish at designing public services and don’t get it right often enough”, in part because the public sector has traditionally tended to design services based on the internal structure of the organisation, which results in fragmented experiences for end users. 

However, her team's high level mission is to “ensure everyone in Scotland has the chance to be part of designing the public services they need and use.” 

The new agency gave them the opportunity to put this into practice when designing a completely new end-to-end service (of which digital is only one aspect) from scratch. It also helped that ‘treating people with dignity and respect’ was part of the ministerial remit for the service. As a result,a large scale user experience panel has been  at the heart of the process, made up of “thousands of people with lived experience of applying for benefits”. 

Cat also shared the Scottish Approach to Service Design Principles which sets out a framework to ensure users are included in public service design now and in the future. And she also said she has been impressed by the levels of genuine engagement with accessibility in the public service design community (many of whom were in the room).

This is just a snapshot of Cat’s talk, which was full of loads of fascinating insights about public service design. 

In the second session, Léonie Watson (founder of TetraLogical, W3C Web Platform WG co-chair and Inclusive Design Principles co-author, amongst many other things) took us on an entertaining whirlwind tour of the evolution of Artificial Intelligence. 

Using Isaac Asimov’s famous ‘Three Laws of Robotics’ as a framework, she highlighted how hard it is for machines to replicate the complex sensory intelligence of humans. 

Despite this, there have been some very impressive advancements since 1950 (when the work of Alan Turing got people seriously thinking about A.I.). This has led to innovative accessible technologies such as ‘text to speech’ and image, text and facial recognition.

As a screen reader user herself, Leonie gave a first-hand account of the benefits of using such tools, for example, Alexa can be invaluable for blind and visually impaired people as they can use it to set timers and do other simple tasks. 

It was also moving to see the positive impact of Microsoft’s ‘Seeing AI’, which turns the visual world into an audio experience in a way that seems almost magical.

Seeing AI app – Overview

It was particularly fascinating to see how the emphasis and intonation of synthetic speech can be tailored using Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML). Léonie played audio examples of how Stephen King’s IT, Winnie the Pooh and The Princess Bride might sound with a bit of clever tweaking.

Léonie also highlighted the importance of addressing the limitations of these tools, including ethical issues such as privacy and gender bias. The ‘intelligence’ of A.I. is still very much restrained by the parameters provided the people who created them, so it’s another case of ‘with great power comes great responsibility’.

3. Design to build bridges: when to use disability simulation

Next up was Ashley Peacock, founder of Edinburgh-based inclusive design agency Passio. She talked us through three examples of technology solutions that they’ve created for people who are neurodiverse or who have accessibility needs - or as she put it, “see and experience the world differently from the norm”.

In each case Ashley made sure these were co-designed with users, which meant taking three very different approaches to fit the purpose of each tool and the specific circumstances and needs of the users.

For example, she co-designed an Autism Simulation Game with the aim of giving teachers, mental health professionals, public sector workers and carers a better understanding of what it’s like to have autism. 

When interviewing autistic people, she found that discussion prompts worked better than questions, and that an even better solution was to have autistic people write the questions themselves.

She also found that because everyone’s experience of autism is different, it was important to let autistic users change the settings to personalise the simulation. They could then share it with the people close to them to give them a better idea of how they personally experience life.

The below video shows the simulation game being played by a person with autism.

Autism Sensory Simulator

The other examples Ashley showed were a Public Transport Assistant for people with a wide range of disabilities and a reading tool to help people with Posterior Cortical Atrophy access a wider variety of sources. In both cases, she shared details of how she adjusted her approach so as to ensure the users needs were met.

Matt May, Director of Inclusive Design, Adobe

When the title of the fourth session appeared on the screen, we were steeling ourselves for a controversial diatribe. But we needn’t have worried, as Matt’s talk was a real treat.

He presented a very convincing arguments that empathy is a loaded, overused word - for example this year’s SXSW had 70 sessions with the word empathy in the title. 

He almost managed to convince us that Adam Smith, who championed the concept of ‘mutual sympathy’ during the Scottish Enlightenment, appeared to have a pet Dalek - if Smith's statue on Edinburgh's Royal Mile (pictured below) is anything to go by. 

Matt suggested that empathy is usually led by emotion, often materialises as pity (further cementing existing power imbalances) and can create a feeling of aversion and resistance to taking action. 

He also revealed that he himself is an ordained Buddhist minister, which added extra weight to his suggestion that compassion may be a more effective route to helping others as it involves less emotional investment. 

He also suggested a number of other ways to reach people that unlike empathy, don’t result in exhaustion and feelings of self-superiority - including professionalism, equity and authority (ensuring that there are appropriate policies in place).

Laura Kalbag, Co-Founder, Small Technology Foundation

Laura Kalbag is co-founder of the Small Technology Foundation, and author of Accessibility For Everyone, published by A Book Apart. She rounded off the day with a very powerful and densely packed session (consisting of almost 230 slides!) that directly addressed the ethical theme of this year’s event.

“Not everything should be accessible - some things shouldn’t exist at all.”

The above quote from Heydon Pickering set the scene for the rest of her talk, which raised ethical issues with our current online world, including:

Lack of accountability and responsibility

Whilst these issues affect us all, she pointed out that "when tech is a lifeline (as it is for people with disabilities), you are affected more by the unethical elements.”

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Laura shared - she also gave advice on how we can avoid using, or put protections in place against the unethical platforms that currently dominate online culture. Thankfully, she’s made all of her slides and a bunch of other handy resources available online here.

Hopefully this brief round-up gives you an idea of how inspiring, informative and entertaining the day was. And we haven’t even covered the Lightning Talks hosted by Girl Geek Scotland during lunch. You can also check out excellent write-up from volunteer and Lightning Talk participant Stephanie Krus and front-end developer Claire Brotherton, both of which go into even more detail on each of the talks.

If you’re interested in attending next year’s event or finding out when the videos of this year’s talks are live, head over to the Accessibility Scotland website or follow them on Twitter.

All slides: https://accessibility.scot/slides/

What we learnt at Accessibility Scotland 2019

A summary of the fourth annual Accessibility Scotland conference in 2019.

A summary of all the main talks from the fourth annual Accessibility Scotland conference in 2019.

Signal has today announced the appointment of David Hammond as Consultant to further bolster its expanding consultancy offer.

David started his career at Accenture, later working as a freelance strategist advising brands including Tesco, Nokia and McDonalds on marketing and digital strategy. He brings these skills and experience to help Signal’s clients identify and progress their business and marketing priorities.

He joins Signal’s Consultancy team headed up by Ed Knight, former Head of Marketing Transformation for Lloyds Banking Group, and Sam Poole, who leads the agency’s Data & Insight Practice. In its first full year of operation, the team has brought together the agency’s expertise across data, digital and marketing operations, enabling clients to improve their in-house capability at a faster pace.

Commenting on the appointment, Knight said:

“This is a world where clients want to feel enabled and inspired. It’s less about arm’s length agency services and more about supporting in-house teams with the technical depth and experience to make faster progress. Consultancy has historically stepped too far away from the challenges of BAU delivery. Our proposition is all about getting the day-to-day working better, faster.”

Barney Hosey, Managing Director, said: 

“The addition of David to our Consultancy team strengthens our focus on innovative client collaboration, and reinforces our recruitment strategy of hiring people with both consulting and client-side experience. Our ability to advise in-house teams, with the credibility of saying 'we've done this before', makes us more empowering to work with.”

David added: “I’m excited to be joining Signal. The agency combines a strategic approach, with the practical ability to get things done and deliver real improvements for clients.”

Part of the Cello Group, Signal has offices in Edinburgh, Cheltenham and London, where it helps clients such as The Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, Nando’s and the British Heart Foundation empower their in-house teams to do better marketing from the inside, out.

David will be speaking at Signal’s sold out ‘Agile Marketing in the Real World’ event in Edinburgh this November, alongside best selling author Neil Perkin and creative strategist Kate Bordwell.

Signal bolsters new consultancy proposition with third senior hire

Signal has today announced the appointment of David Hammond as Consultant to further bolster its expanding consultancy offer.

Signal has announced the appointment of David Hammond as a consultant to further bolster its expanding consultancy offer. David started his career at Accenture, later advising brands including Tesco, Nokia & McDonalds. 

Signal bolsters new consultancy proposition with third senior hire | Signal Blog 

A recent ruling against Domino’s Pizza in the US means that brands may face legal action if they do not make their websites and apps accessible.

This decision may not currently have the same legal ramifications for UK brands, however the guidelines are being enforced more strictly here too. New regulations for public sector bodies came into force on 23rd September 2018. This introduced stricter rules for councils, charities and schools. 

And while commercial brands in the UK may not face the same legal/regulatory pressure as public bodies yet, it is possibly only a matter of time.

The Purple Pound: accessibility = profitability

 There is also the matter of lost profits for brands who don’t cater for all their potential customers. According to the UK Government, "at least 1 in 5 people in the UK have a long-term illness, impairment or disability." So not meeting the guidelines could be having a significant financial impact for your company right now. 

Accessible websites open your business to new demographics with massive buying power. In the UK, it is thought that some seven million people of working age have a disability. This spending worth is known as the ‘Purple Pound’ and is estimated to be worth £249 billion per year to UK businesses.

Signal accessibility checklist.pdf

It’s important to be familiar with both accessibility regulations and guidelines for best practice. Our downloadable accessibility checklist (pictured below) covers both US and UK best practice, and we’ve also gone into more detail about the different considerations for brands in the sections that follow (please note however that the information provided is not legal advice).

Download checklist for accessible websites (PDF)

Requirements for commercial brands operating in the US

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, so why are we only hearing so much about it now? 

The digital world has moved on tremendously since 1990, with the world of online shopping and booking websites. Yet the ADA legislation has not. As a result, it has left many American businesses struggling to understand their legal web accessibility obligations.

 For websites to be considered ADA-compliant, they must be accessible to users with a range of disabilities. In today’s digital world, many social activities now take place online. Legally, all physical stores must have a disabled access in the form of wheelchair-accessible ramps, accessible water fountains, raised and Braille characters on signage, and more. 

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