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Hyperlocal in the UK

Retooled

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Yesterday I was working at the second of two, day-long workshops for Retooled.  Retooled is a project begun by a group of ex-Rover MG employees who were made redundant when the company went bust 5 years ago and aims to become a resource for those facing or going through redundancy:

We believe the best advice is contained within real people’s experiences, not in official support packs. We also realised that no matter what your job or industry, lots of us do go through similar emotions when we’re made redundant.

Our aim is to grow Retooled into a really useful resource for anyone around the world who is going through redundancy, or who is supporting a friend or relative in this situation.

To work with the team on building the Retooled website, Antonio Gould and Lizzie Ostrom (who are producing the project on behalf of Maverick) pulled together a group of digital mentors to help with web development, graphic design, photography, content and social media.  I was their ‘social media person’, which just meant I introduced the group to some simple ways in which they can use the web to organise and communicate, with quite a few hyperlocal websites serving as examples of how to use easy social media tools to tell a community’s stories.

During yesterday’s session Retooled team member and ex-Rover employee Bob Oakley told us a particularly interesting story, about a quick-witted secretary who collected the names and details of everyone within her department before the factory closed for good.  The information she gathered effectively kept the community that had built up around her department connected and proved to be enormously useful ‐ Bob himself said that he never would have found out he was entitled to an early pension (‘It was never announced’) unless someone he was in touch via the contact list had told him.

Community or ‘hyperlocal’ websites can be just as effective when based around communities of work as well as neighbourhoods, especially if the workplace that binds those people together is under threat.  Everyone on the Retooled team agreed that their network of contacts was invaluable to them when going through redundancy and looking for a new job.  A community website for the workplace could help keep that network intact after employment, and would be really useful in preventing isolation amongst workforces facing large-scale job losses.

nickygetgood

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  1. Wow, this sounds like a really powerful project. Were the ex-Rover employees receptive to the digital support? And will you post a link to the site when it goes live?

  2. Hi Tim

    The Retooled team were very receptive, they really got stuck into the work and ended both workshops buzzing with ideas!

    The website is now live at http://retooled.co.uk/ The team are keen to start gathering and sharing the stories of those who’ve been through redundancy, so if you can think of anyone who might like to contribute…

    Many thanks, Nicky.

  3. Hi Tim
    Really glad you liked the project. We had a real mix of people in terms of their prior involvement in digital media, from those who are only on email, to Martin, who is a web developer – what was interesting about Martin is that he hadn’t used wordpress before, and I think realised how powerful this tool could be in his work.

    But actually what the team really responded to was the creative process of the workshops. A couple of them told us it was mindblowing (their words!) to get things done this way, as they’re used to more process-driven environments. Like sitting down with a graphic designer, briefing them and working with them live to get the logo a couple of hours later. Or being able to instantly adapt the User Experience of the site when they wanted to change it. I don’t think we’d realised beforehand how powerful just this way of working would be for the team. We were very pleased they enjoyed it so much

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