Upcoming plings events

As a project about places to go and things to do, it is great to announce some activities we are more closely associated with organising!  Granted, not all of thse are aimed specifically at young people (and so in plings!), but here goes:

Plings promotion events, on plings!

Plings promotion roadshows – 6th March, Hull & Knowsley

Tomorrow (6th March) will see the first of a series of roadshows in some of the pilot local authorities, as part of the local research we are undertaking.

Whilst these events will help to spread the message of the positive activities available locally, we will also be paying close attention to the impact this marketing push will have in terms of take up.  By this we mean both impact of take up of the information, but also of actual events.  More to follow… but we’ve used Plings to publish the details of these events!

Update – we’ve also created Facebook events for both Hull and Knowsley

All About Plings event, 20th April, Birmingham

We have had quite a bit of interest from local authorities that sit outside of the DCSF pilot areas in recent weeks.  So – on the 20th April we are organising an event to start to inform and present the project, and our learning, to these audiences.  We’ve used eventbrite to publish this event and collect bookings (it is free).  So -if you have an interest in positive activity information and would like to understand how your local authority could start to participate in plings, then this is the event for you…

Regional meetings – mid May

As part of our ongoing work with 20 local authorities via the DCSF Information & Signposting Project, we have now arranged a series of regional workshops to act as an opportunity to get together and share, learn and plan in smaller groups – in mid May 2010.  We’ve used Wufoo to publish a form for these events – if you work within one of our pilot areas, please complete our form!

Developer meeting – 18th June, Manchester

Finally, just time to announce a provisional date of the 18th June for this years Developer Meeting.  Last year we were in London (at Google!), so this year we’ve gone closer to home, here in Manchester.  This event is aimed at those witha technical interest or involvement in plings – from local authority web and IT teams, through to those building feeds, apps and all manner of things!  As mentioned, this date is still provisional – so we’ve used Twitter to annouce it, and gather feedback! Please retweet…

More events and details to follow, but please get invovled in our plings if you can!

One-Click Statistics…?

The DCSF want to know how local authorities are doing when it comes to providing positive activities to young people. In November Antony Hughes wrote to all Local Authority Directors of Children’s Services to announce a data collection exercise designed to “capture summary information on the pattern of provision of the youth offer over the week, including number of sessions provided on Friday and Saturday nights [and] including a breakdown of youth offer by activity and provider type”.

Of course, this is exactly the sort of information that exists within the Plings Platform, so for the 22 authorities currently involved in the Plings pilot, where the data is up-to-date we’ll be able to present the information needed to complete the DCSF monitoring spreadsheet with the touch of a button. Well, almost…

The categories being used by DCSF to describe activity types do not match 100% with those in Plings, but using the Tag-It tool we’re able to offer a quick interface for authorities to recategorise any activities as required – and then from an updated version of the Stats tool soon to be available, we’ll be able to present the information needed by DCSF.

With continued work to integrate the Parent Know How Directory and Plings (PKHD includes data on activity provision, but not ‘instances’ of activities for all local authorities) we hope that in the future we may even be able to generate these summary statistics for anywhere in the country.

Year Two…

Last week the DCSF and Substance signed the contract confirming that the second year of the Plings/Information and Signposting Project is now officially up and running.

Around this time last year, we had a basic API, and an idea of what Plings could be. Now, 12 month later, after working with 20 local authorities across England, and a wide team of fantastic developers, we’ve been able to build a solid platform for positive activity information, now holding details of over 800 activities a week, and we’ve been able to explore and pilot a whole host of youth information innovations.

For the 20 local authorities we’ve been working with, and who we’ll continue to work with over the coming year, Positive Activity information is now available in formats which make it easy to share online, in social network sites, in print, by e-mail, on digital TV, and by mobile.

But all this is just a foundation – and we’ve got many more plans for 2009/10 for how we build on this. Not only is work going on to make it easier to find the different ways Plings information can be used (right now, for example, you might need to dive into the developer mailing list to get tips on getting your LA data broadcast by Bluetooth, or using big screens to show what’s on next in your youth centre), but we’re also looking at how the information in Plings can support participation and decision making in the local offer.

Plingback & Participation
Our big focus for this next year is what we’re calling ‘Plingback’. That is, the ability not only to broadcast Plings information – but to use the Plings platform to:

• Get an overview and insights into what the local offer looks like in a local area;
• Gather feedback and views from young people about the activities they are taking part in;
• Support decision making about the local offer in local areas – providing data and methods for improving provision;

And lots more…
Of course, we won’t just be looking at Plingback – and we will be exploring a whole host of further aspects to Plings – not least how we can support national networks of youth clubs and activities with tools for gathering information from local groups; and how Plings may fit into the drive for Open Data from the government. And we’ll continue to be in conversation with you – getting your ideas about how Plings can develop – and inviting you to be part of the journey of making sure all young people have access to accurate, accessible and effective information about places to go and things to do.

Roll on Pling Year 2…

Marketing Month on the Plings Blog

Plus we’ll be inviting guest bloggers to share their ideas on promoting positive activities. If you want to share your thoughts on what makes for great positive activity promotion then get in touch.

What better way to start our look at promoting positive activities than taking a look at DCSF research, hot off the press, exploring how young people relate to positive activities – and attempts to promote them.

If you can get past the rather dry title, then “Positive Activities: Qualitative Research with Young People (PDF)” is well worth a read. Based on in depth interviews with over 140 young people, it explores a whole range of factors that promote or prevent uptake of positive activities amongst young people – and offers a range of useful frameworks for thinking about the different audiences of young people that positive activity promotion needs to reach.

Segments and subtleties
There are over 4.7 million 13 – 19 year olds in the UK right now – and they are all different. Having just one approach to reach all young people is clearly out. Of course, trying to bespoke communications individually for every young people is also likely to be precluded in most cases – but you can think carefully about the different segments of young people most likely to respond to different marketing strategies.

Showing change over school years of barriers and drivers for activity participation.

“Positive Activities: Qualitative Research with Young People” points out the importance of thinking about different stages in young people’s lives, highlighting how the shift to secondary school between years 6 and 7, the shift to GCSEs, and the move to further education are all times of opportunity for promoting positive activities. They are also times when young people’s participation in activities is likely to lapse – and the recognition that good marketing may be necessary not only to initially engage young people, but also to maintain that engagement, is an important one.

When it comes to thinking about the different attitudes young people might have towards positive activities – and the different marketing approaches that might be needed, Solutions Research, authors of the report, divide young people into:

“Not bothereds” lack motivation to get involved. They may be lacking in self-confidence, or have had bad experiences of activities when they were younger. They recognised that getting involved in positive activities might involve commitment – and they expressed unwillingness to get committed to activities.
“Authority-rejecters” were older, more confident teens – or sometimes younger, more rebellious young people. A rejection of organised activities and being told what to do was common amongst these young people – although they may be involved in organising their own activities, even organising informal activities for other young people.
“Shy and lacking confidence” young people often recognised their lack of confidence as a barrier to engaging in activities, and may have been able to overcome this with the support of peers. Sometimes young people’s lack of confidence was the result of past bullying, or down to a disability.
• “Friends first” young people were focussed first and foremost on spending time with their peers. Structured activities were avoided lest they led to missing out on time with friends. Committing to a regular activity that might conflict with an active social life with friends was likely to present a problem.
“Open and interested” young people ranged from those already involved in regular activities to “serial trialists” – trying out many activities, but rarely sticking with any. The “Open and interested” group also includes young people who may not yet be involved in activities – but could get engaged ‘if the right activity came along’.
“Passionate achievers” were regular participants in activities – often putting the activity first. Committed and motivated – this group were often motivated by competition. Friends and peers were still important – but “Passionate achievers” find time for their activities. This group may be willing to actively seek out information – and gained confidence through their participation in an activity – although they could have less confidence in trying new and different activities from those they were used to.

(Read the full typologies with quotes from young people in Section 6 of the report)

Messaging and mood
Knowing that there are many different groups of young people out there to communicate with can involve coming up with a range of different messages.

Finding the right message will involve thinking about what motivates different groups of young people to take part – and reflecting on the different potential barrier (from cost and transport, to issues around self-confidence and questions of commitment) that are faced by young people in different contexts.

Fortunately, the DCSF commissioned research has started to unpack some of the different approaches to messaging – and the different moods that positive activity promotion can tap into, by asking young people what they made of different statements and picture-boards.

How does it make you feel? Mood boards used in the research...

Having fun, being social, trying new things and feeling good were all seen as appealing aspects of positive activities in many cases (although not unequivocally – sometimes meeting new people can be off-putting and intimidating as opposed to an attractive element of activities). Talk of ‘clubs’, ‘competitiveness’ and taking part for the sake of your ‘CV’ gained traction with fewer young people.

Finding the right message-mix for your positive activities may involve local consultation and experimentation – but don’t ignore the head-start offered in Section 10 of the report.

Marketing as activity design
As anyone who has ever read anything by marketing guru Seth Godin will know, marketing is not just something that can be bolted onto products (or activities) once they have been designed and planned – but is something that should be built into the very design of activities.

The DCSF research talks about the way in which being able (and encouraged) to take a friend along to an activity when trying it for the first time can be a great boost to the likelihood of young people turning up, taking part, and attending an activity again in future. But translating this message from research into good marketing isn’t just about adding the phrase “Bring a friend” to your posters – it involves thinking carefully about the experience of attending your activity, how amenable it is to friends attending together, and what incentives there are for young people to sample the activity as part of a pair or a group.

The messages from “Positive Activities: Qualitative Research with Young People” are as much messages for commissioners of activities, and activity providers, as they are for staff involved in raising awareness of the local youth offer.

Online Information
Whilst the report demonstrates that online information provision (including through Social Networks like Facebook) is top of the list when young people are asked to suggest possible communication channels – it also recognises that many young people are not actively seeking out activity information.

Taking information, and importantly, inspiration, to where young people are online – whether through advertising on social networks or helping peers to share activity information with their friends is likely to be a key part of any local marketing strategy – and it’s certainly something Plings is geared up to support.

What insights did you find?

Have you read the report? Are you going to? Why not share your insights and reflections as a blog post of your own or a comment here – or even a guest post on the Plings blog.