We interviewed Melissa Whittle, Engagement Co-ordinator at GeoPlace LLP, about the trusted community they have built for local authority members to share best practice advice on addressing and street data.
Connecting and sharing knowledge and experiences The GeoPlace Authority Contacts group is specifically for our Data Co-operation Agreement (DCA) 3000 role holders and nominated colleagues. About 700 of our 3000 members are signed up to the group.
To help our members get to know each other, I regularly encourage them to update their profiles and include profile photos because this helps to build a sense of personality and humanises our online platform, which is very important. I have seen members approach one another at conferences because they recognise each other from their KHub profile photo which is great to see. Members regularly use the forum to ask questions, get advice from peers and GeoPlace, and share information. A lot of members are comfortable using the forum for Q&A and often post a new discussion to say “I’ve got a question about X…” Sometimes a response is made within minutes and almost always on the same day.
Improved communications and access to information Our group has changed the way we work, mainly in terms of communicating with our members and greatly reduced the use of email. For me the best thing that happens in our group is when someone asks a question, they receive a really creative solution, say thank you, and go and implement it right away. Having someone else across the country, who they would not have had access to normally and has been able to help, is great.
Without our KHub group, we wouldn’t have instant two-way communication for all of our community to see. I would not have such a good connection with our community as I do now. Now and then a question comes up that has already been answered ages ago. Someone else will go to the group and signpost a link which is fantastic because it means that the group is starting to become a little more self-sufficient.
