Looking back now, this post captures one of my first real introductions to civic technology platforms, digital services, and the wider public sector tech world. At the time it just felt like another training course. In hindsight, it became the beginning of a much larger journey into forms, workflows, automation, and digital transformation.
Training Felt Different After CodeClan
So this week I was in training for a couple of days. In the old days, this would have been a game of listening and trying to stay awake. However after 16 weeks of intensive teaching at CodeClan a couple of days was a breeze.
Discovering Firmstep and Digital Services
The training was in the customer experience platform CEP of a product by a company called FirmStep. It goes hand in hand with their Content Management System CMS. You can think of CMS as the website and CEP as the application for forms, processes, and workflows for customers visiting the website.
The guy training (Mathew) had travelled up from Edinburgh for a couple of days. The training was very hands-on and we were quickly creating processes, designing forms, making data, and integrations.
The guy training (Mathew) had travelled up from Edinburgh for a couple of days. The training was very hands-on and we were quickly creating processes, designing forms, making data, and integrations.
When Two Cohorts Collided
Mathew spotted my cohort 7 sticker proudly displayed on my laptop and queried what it was from. It's the class sticker for my cohort when I studied at CodeClan. It turns out that Mathew is also a CodeClan graduate from cohort 3. He graduated in April 2016 and joined FirmStep.
Looking back now, this post captures one of my first real introductions to civic technology platforms, digital services, and the wider public sector tech world.
At the time it just felt like another training course. In hindsight, it became the beginning of a much larger journey into forms, workflows, automation, and digital transformation.
The Small World of Tech
Small world, or is it a small tech industry? It was really good to chat about our time at CodeClan and how we found the whole experience. I had done a week of Ruby on Rails but Mathew had not. The course must have evolved between Cohort 3 and Cohort 7. It's cool to think that two completely different businesses or workplaces that have employees that came from the same coding school can help each other out.Later in the week, I had another short overview of the CMS platform via video call with a guy based in Canada. It all looks very straightforward and not unlike the Jimdo product I use to do my own websites and this blog. The CMS is very much fill in the blanks with your content and the product takes care of all the code and configuration. I guess this is a good thing in terms of speed and reliability. Probably not so good if you like to code.
Early Thoughts on Civic Technology
In other news, the CivTech challenges were published this week. Seven in total (I thought there was to be 8).
There is quite a range in there. Quite a few if not all could be solved by tech and software. I have been mulling them over this week thinking of possible solutions. I will need to see if Udny Solutions can come up with a viable entry. Who knows. It's worth a try. Watch this space...
Oh and news from cohort 7. There have been 2 more of us who have secured jobs (edited actually 3) this week. Both on the same day. That must be the majority of us are now gainfully employed in the tech industry. Well done guys! Hopefully, our paths may cross in the future.
There is quite a range in there. Quite a few if not all could be solved by tech and software. I have been mulling them over this week thinking of possible solutions. I will need to see if Udny Solutions can come up with a viable entry. Who knows. It's worth a try. Watch this space...
Oh and news from cohort 7. There have been 2 more of us who have secured jobs (edited actually 3) this week. Both on the same day. That must be the majority of us are now gainfully employed in the tech industry. Well done guys! Hopefully, our paths may cross in the future.
Looking Back at Where It Led
I have been asked by CodeClan to do a blog post for them on my journey over the past year. I will either post it here or provide a link. Depends on what exciting things happen next week.
It’s strange looking back at this now because so much of my later career ended up revolving around exactly these kinds of systems.
It’s strange looking back at this now because so much of my later career ended up revolving around exactly these kinds of systems.
Forms, workflows, automation, accessibility, digital services, integrations, and civic technology all gradually became a major part of the work I would go on to do.
At the time though, this just felt like another interesting week of learning something new.Oh and below is why I'm not a happy Windows user. My laptop did this yesterday, and this morning it took it upon itself to perform an update without asking me!!!
This all happened shortly after my decision to retrain and attend CodeClan and change career at 46.
Looking back, many of the same themes around workflows, automation, governance, and digital systems still appear in a lot of the technology reflections I write about today.
A lot of this also connects closely to my fascination with understanding and improving systems in posts like why I like fixing things.
Looking back, this was one of my first real steps into the world of digital services, workflows, and civic technology.
A lot of the same curiosity around systems, automation, accessibility, and user experience still shapes the technical work I enjoy today.
You can find out more here.