Building a better digital future: three major changes that I helped make at the ICR
ICR logo in Lego by Keith Bradnam
After four and a half years as the Digital Strategy Manager at the The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), I am moving on to pastures new. My new role — at The Royal College of Psychiatrists — will probably feature in some future blog posts, but for now I wanted to reflect on my time at the ICR.
In particular I want to look back at three broad areas which have seen some notable changes while I have been at the helm of the ICR’s Digital Team. For some of these I also want to provide some explanation as to why things needed to change.
I’d like to extend my thanks to the amazing members of the Digital Team that I have worked with over the last few years, including several wonderful interns. They have all helped implement many of the changes that I talk about in this post.
1. Changes to editorial content
We have made lots of small changes to how our news items, blog posts, and feature articles have appeared. These mostly include adding more things to each article:
- Hero images at the top of all editorial content
- Crossheads in editorial content
- Promo blocks (in-article indented sections to promote other parts of the website)
- Hyperlinks to external sources (particularly for clinical trial information)
- Tags
This can clearly be illustrated by comparing a typical recent news post with one from 2015. The goal of these changes was to make the content richer, more useful, and more engaging.
The last item on the list above — consistently tagging content — has enabled the development of dynamically updated landing pages for specific cancer types or research themes, e.g. brain cancer and genomics. This means that the small act of tagging content as we go, means we can aggregate content in different ways at a later date.
Another important change for our editorial content is that we applied to have it treated as a source of news by Google. This resulted in ICR stories not only showing up prominently in Google News, but also they can sometimes be included in the main Google search results for relevant queries:
Google search results for ‘cancer drugs’ in May 2019…showing news story on ICR website as second item in ‘Top stories’ section
This change led to a significant increase in traffic to the website from Google and is probably one of the biggest changes from the last few years that has hopefully attracted new users to the website.
2. Collecting more analytics data
We now have comparative data points for almost 1,200 pieces of editorial content. This has been achieved by logging how many page views each news item, blog post, or feature article has received in the first seven days it has been up on the website. We also have categorised each piece of content in a systematic way (e.g. research news items vs institutional announcement news item vs cancer awareness month blog post etc.)
This has produced a rich resource which has been able to quantify how our content has improved over time (as well as tracking how our output has changed over time). The categorisation has also enabled us clearly compare the success/failure of content in a like-for-like manner (e.g. policy-related stories can be compared to other policy-related stories).
If you don’t have a way of quantifying whether your content is good or bad, then it is very hard to make meaningful changes without being able to measure the influence of those changes.
Internal and external social media metrics
For social media, I developed an internal metric to measure the monthly performance of our social media posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. This metric ends up being a very large number which mostly captures the reach of our posts but also factors in engagement on social media platforms.
This involves calculating the reach of all posts on each platform in any given month, and then increasing that number by the engagement rate of posts on that platform (there’s a few other things going on as well but this describes the essence of it).
The real utility of developing metrics like this is in being able to look at trends over long time periods.
This internal metric was complemented by registering the ICR to be tracked by EduRank, an independent social media benchmarking service for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).
It was pleasing to see that my internal metric related well to our monthly EduRank ranking. It has also been pleasing to see that as a smaller HEI — with very few students — we typically ranked in the top 25% of the more than 200 HEIs tracked by EduRank.
3. New ways of reaching audiences
We launched an Instagram channel in late 2016, which has now grown to have almost 2,500 followers. This platform was subsequently recognised in 2019 as being one of the top ten cancer centres on Instagram.
We also launched an Apple News channel, making the ICR one of of only two cancer research organisations to have a presence on this platform (or at least as far as I can tell…the other one is the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute).
Doing more with our existing platforms
On our existing social media platforms we have embraced the use of infographics and I have occasionally tried making short animations to try to succinctly explain some details of our big news stories. Here is one of my favourite ones about an artificial intelligence approach that tries to predict how cancers might evolve.
We flirted with using Storify for a time to collate together all of our social media — and the resulting media coverage — around our big news stories. Storify is no more but Twitter Moments has been a good substitute (a recent Moment looked at how ICR staff were coping with working at home).
We have also launched a series of email newsletters providing another route to share news and updates from the ICR.
One final innovation that I will highlight here is the change to creating short videos with ICR scientists at conferences. Modern smart phones can produce completely acceptable video quality, especially for use on social media. If you add a cheap (as little as £10) lapel mic, you can record suitable quality audio too.
I have recorded several of these videos at conferences and have always been able to edit them (just using iMovie on my iPhone) and then publish them to social media on the same day they were filmed. E.g. here is the ICR’s Professor Ros Eeles captured at the NCRI 2019 conference last year.
On the topic of the NCRI conference, I’m insanely proud for spotting the opportunity to have some fun with the big #NCRI hashtag sign that was set up during the conference. Couldn't miss this opportunity for some ICR branding!
#NCRI becomes #ICR
The evolving digital landscape
It’s been an exciting time at the ICR and hopefully some of the changes that I have helped introduce will continue to have a positive influence for a while longer. However, the nature of digital platforms is that things are always in flux.
An approach that works well today may become irrelevant in a year’s time. There will be new social media platforms in future and existing ones will continue to evolve. Legal frameworks — such as those that relate to GDPR and accessibility — are also drivers of change across the digital landscape and organisations have to be responsive to changes in the law.
It feels hard to know exactly how we will all be using websites and other digital platforms in the near future. It is safe to say though, that things will be different and I very much look forward to finding out what lies ahead!
Interviewed for '46 Questions'
I was recently interviewed by 46 questions For Scientists who have a remit to "Make science inclusive by highlighting those that do it". Although I am no longer a scientist, they seemed keen to include people who represent 'science-adjacent' areas (such as science communication).
The questions were fun to answer. If you were wondering, they went with 46 questions as that is the number of human chromosomes (23 pairs).
Thoughts on sending emails outside of working hours
Photo by Webaroo.com.au on Unsplash
This blog post is repurposed from a very long Twitter thread (which became a bit unthreaded)…
Over the last week, I have seen several discussions on Twitter about the implications of sending emails outside of standard working hours, particularly on weekends. The simplest form of this debate boils down to ‘Don’t do this’. However, there are many counterarguments, many of which are valid.
Most notably, it is increasingly common to have teams where people work flexible hours and work outside of standard office hours as part of their contract (I’ll leave aside the even more obvious case of teams that are internationally distributed).
A second common argument for sending emails during evenings and weekends is that people are catching up after busy days/weeks and evenings/weekends are the only time they have to actually send emails that need to be sent.
I have some sympathy for this argument as I know only too well what it can feel like to have a day full of meetings, leaving no time to actually take forward action items agreed at any meeting.
What has been missed from the discussion?
There are a couple of important areas which I think have not really been covered in these Twitter debates.
Firstly, I’m assuming that some (but not many) businesses may have policies in place that clarify expectations about email use. This should really be considered a part of general workplace culture. If a policy is in place then the issue is whether people are adhering to it.
Sending emails late at night can create an expectation to others that they are also expected to work late…especially when emails are from people higher up the chain of management.
I bet most senders of such emails don’t ever *intend* to create such an expectation, but if this is not clearly stated then it feels like it does generate a sense of pressure.
However, I’m sure that it is hard to develop practical workplace policies that can address all of the myriad exceptions and complications that can arise around how email could and should be used in the workplace.
For instance, in my own line of work (communications), it is not unreasonable to expect to receive emails at all times of the week. We frequently issue press releases with midnight embargoes and work to promote such news on our website and social media channels.
More relevant to the field of communications is the fact that sometimes emergencies happen which necessitate important emails. Clearly, there are times when it is perfectly acceptable to send emails at any time of the day.
Are you sending email for the wrong reasons?
This leads me to my second point which hasn’t really been covered in a lot of the discussion I’ve seen. Why is the person sending an email late at night or at the weekends?
Are they emailing at that time because it is part of their working hours? Are they emailing about a critically time-sensitive issue or an emergency? Have they had a day full of meetings and are just trying to catch up?
If the answers to any of these questions are ‘yes’ then the email is probably justified. However, this leaves the occasions where people work regular 9-5 hours but frequently persist — out of necessity or enjoyment — in continuing to work.
I will admit to working out of hours for my own personal pleasure. I like solving technical problems and I love working with spreadsheets. So last weekend I spent time trying to better model website traffic in light of GDPR restrictions because I want to do this and I found it fun. However, I didn’t send any emails about it to anyone.
So I think excessive evening/weekend emails from people who have less of a justification for sending them is my real issue in this debate. Rightly or wrongly, such emails can create a sense of pressure to those receiving them.
It also sends signals about the wider organisational culture. Should it be accepted that people need to work a lot of additional hours to stay on top of their jobs?
Some suggestions on how to improve things
To end this post, I want to offer five suggestions for ways to improve this.
If you need to work outside of standard hours, and that work involves email, feel free to write your emails but don’t send them (save as draft). Wait until you are next in the office before sending.
Use technology to help (if possible). Some email clients allow (or have plug-ins that allow) emails to be scheduled. Some tools offer the ability to flag certain contacts as VIPs, and then notifications can be configured to only alert you when VIP contacts email you (admittedly this is not a huge help if a VIP contact sends you lots of emails outside normal hours).
Prefix emails with suitable disclaimers to set expectations accordingly, e.g. “Catching up on a backlog of work tonight, please do not look at this until you are next in the office”. Alternatively, include such information in your email signature (h/t Kat Arney via Ben Kolbington)
More broadly, set clear expectations for your team/department, e.g. when new people start, explain to them whether they will or will not be expected to sometimes check (or send) emails out of hours.
Lobby your organisation. If multiple people feel burdened by the pressure from receiving late night and weekend demands, investigate the possibility of establishing a workplace policy that might offer some clearer guidance on the expectations of employees.
Onwards and upwards — 50,000 social media followers at the Institute of Cancer Research
Image from Pixabay
It's a completely arbitrary milestone but The Institute of Cancer Research — where I work as the Digital Strategy Manager — has now reached a social media audience of over 50K followers/subscribers!
This milestone — which happened at some point in the last few days — is calculated by combining followers/subscribers across different platforms so while it clearly doesn't represent 50,000 unique individuals, I'm still very happy with reaching this point.
When I started at the ICR (Jan 2016) I estimate that we had 12–14K followers. Back them, I was less diligent at collecting this data; if you don't manually collect it there is no easy way to obtain such historical data. Now I routinely collect data each week (spreadsheets are your friend).
Here's how the top four platforms have changed over time. Facebook and LinkedIn have been battling it out for quite a while but LinkedIn has emerged as the clear victor!
The sudden jump in Twitter followers last year was from a single news story going viral (deservedly so)!
Our other platforms (YouTube, Pinterest, and Apple News) are all in the triple-digit range for followers. However, Apple News is our fastest growing platform (admittedly easier to start from a low base), growing 173% in 2019.
As far as I can tell, we are one of only a few academic science institutions that has created an Apple News channel, and only the second cancer research organisation to have a presence (just search Apple News for 'cancer research' and scroll down to the list of channels to find us!).
Next stop, 100K followers! Though I'll also be happy to see Instagram reach 10K (this is when you unlock the power of adding 'swipe up' links to story posts!).
A couple of recent blog posts I helped write for The Institute of Cancer Research
Sometimes I forget that I have this blog and I can use it to link to other blog posts that I’ve written! In the last month I’ve helped with a couple of Science Talk blog posts at the ICR.
At the start of December I co-wrote a blog post, with Sam Dick, to mark the end of the 100,000 Genomes Project:
And then today, with Rose Wu, I helped put together a new blog post that looks back at some of the exciting things that have happened — in and out of the lab — at the ICR this year:
It’s probably not every year that I’ll get to reference ‘Buckingham Palace’ in a blog post title!
Helping support the first ever LGBT+ STEM Day
Yesterday was LGBT+ STEM Day — the first ever day to celebrate and highlight the role of LGBT+ people working in the field of science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM).
In my role as Digital Strategy Manager at The Institute of Cancer Research, it was great to be able to focus all of our social media output on this topic. I'm proud that the ICR is really committed to equality in the workplace.
It was particularly fun to be able to rebrand our social media avatars and banners:
I really enjoyed the opportunity to make a 'videographics' which played around a little more with the ICR's logo. The five coloured bars in the ICR's logo are spaced according to the Fibonacci series. There are, of course, six colours in the Pride rainbow…