Are you a policymaker who's interested in how visuals could help communicate the policies/issues you’re working on? Or are you a designer/creative who's good at using visuals to communicate issues and would like to know how you could work with public services and civil society to communicate policies & issues? Do you want to meet up over a few hours to see how you can work together to create visuals that communicate policy issues/scenarios in really compelling ways? Come and join us on 10th May between 5-9pm where you will be able to do all that and more! Sign up to attend the event above (see Register button) Tell us and vote which policy issues/scenarios you want people to create visuals for Tweet about it using the hashtag #visualcamp An event co-designed by participants of the DotGovLabs Innovation Hub and supported by HM Skunkworks, Urban Forum and CLG. What do you mean by visuals? Visuals are very powerful at capturing people's imagination and getting them to reflect on what particular issues mean to them. From infographics that make sense of data to animations that help learn new tools, from modelling that helps design business cases to illustrations that help map a new policy, from animations (even in 3D) that reflect on an issue to photos that help map community resources. See an example below kindly created by Lauren Currie (taken from here). What's the problem? These examples above could provide so many opportunities for public services and civil society to better communicate policies and issues to the people they serve. But often we rely on powerpoint or leaflets because that's all we know and we write in a way that people don't always understand! What's the opportunity? So what if we could give people who are very good at telling stories and communicating through visuals an understanding of how they could better work with public services & civil society and give policy makers new perspectives on how they present their policies and issues they cover and make them more engaging to the public. What's the story? On the DotGovLabs Innovation Hub community (see more here), a few of us - policy wonks, geeks, social entrepreneurs, civil society organisers - thought that a way of trying to achieve the above, we could start by getting both those groups of people together to test different ways of communicating policy and the issues these cover (i.e. digital exclusion, community rights). How will it work? In advance of the event, we want you to tell us and vote which policy issues/scenarios you want people to create visuals for. Go here where you can either vote on those we've put forward or suggest your own! The top four will be the challenges we work on the day itself. Examples of challenges that people might want to create visuals for could include “how community groups could help provide public services" to “how to tackle youth unemployment” to “what the government ICT strategy means”. On the day itself, you will able to get into small groups to brainstorm ideas and develop visuals on these challenges. There will also be live demos of how other people have used visuals to communicate issues and policies, watch this space! So that’s pretty much the agenda, but if you have any ideas on other activities or how this could work better, then tweet them using the #visualcamp or even better sign up at
https://dotgovlabs.direct.gov.uk and go to the VisualCamp page. What’s being provided? The people who run the DotGovLabs Innovation Hub have very kindly offered us the use of room at HM Treasury on the 10th May between 5-9pm. We've got the room at HM Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road, SW1A 2HQ, London.The Treasury is located in central London close to major rail and under ground stations. Westminster is the most convenient underground station and is served by the district, jubilee and circle lines. Please enter at the Press Entrance. Please feel free to bring your laptops, cameras or camcorders. Is this for you? Although we're particularly looking for people from public services and civil society organisations who are involved in developing policy and issues to people and people who are good at communicating issues using visuals (designers/creatives/etc), if you’re interested in how visuals can change the world, then we’d love you to come along and share your enthusiasm! How can you get to the event? If you come to the Press Entrance of HM Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road. See here for directions. When you get there, go to reception and say you’re here for Visual Camp. So remember to sign up, tell your friends and put forward your ideas, otherwise, see you there! About DotGovLabs We came up with this idea through DotGovLabs but what is it? DotGovLabs Innovation Hub is a growing online space run from within Cabinet Office with cross government backing that brings government policy and decision makers together with innovators, SMEs, entrepreneurs and people with good ideas. It’s a crowd-sourcing site exploring digital and that the members own. Its focus is digital and it asks this rich and diverse community how digital can be used to find solutions to a number of social challenges. It opened its doors to 20 or so supporters back in November and then asked them to invite anyone else they think should be there. It has now grown to be a community of over 1,400 people who are commenting, debating and contributing to more than 150 digital solutions. It is backed by Cabinet office sitting within the soon to be launched Skunkworks programme. So how to get involved? If you are curious then please come have a look at what the community are saying. Just mail
dgl.hub@directgov.gsi.gov.uk and we will send you a login. Once in there you can invite anyone else you think should be there through the ‘Invite a friend’ icon on the home page. You can also follow us on twitter @dotgovlabs and to find out more see our new skunky movie. Check this out at
www.direct.gov.uk/innovationhub 
