Joanna Tidball Consulting

The King’s Fund: tailor-made homepage

joannatidball — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:29:41 +0000

If you’ve got a few moments then I recommend you take a look at the new website for The King’s Fund, launched last week. As well as reflecting the thinktank’s new brand identity, the relaunch has introduced a very interesting new homepage, with drag and drop content boxes that the user can add, delete and move about to create their own tailor-made page.

The content boxes on offer range from latest analysis and audio to information about events and venue hire. All of this can be done without signing in to the website, but if you do register and log in you can also set your preferences for health topics, current projects and subscriptions.

The new approach is an engaging and creative response to the challenge of how to provide a homepage that meets the needs of diverse audience groups - and it may well provide you with some food for thought for your own organisation’s homepage. I’ve worked closely with The King’s Fund web team in the past and it’s great to see the organisation’s website evolve in such an exciting and inspiring way. Well done!

The Age of Stupid: see the premiere

joannatidball — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:17:46 +0000

The Age of Stupid is a 90 minute film about climate change, set in the future, which will have its world premiere in London on March 15 2009 and then be released in UK cinemas on March 20th, followed by other countries.

If you think climate change is an important issue then please see the film. If you’re not yet convinced about climate change, then go see the film and see if it changes your mind.

The premiere is taking place at cinemas across the UK. Please support the film - find your nearest premiere and book tickets now!

The Age of Stupid: final trailer, Feb 2009 HD from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

I’m excited to be getting underway on a new project with The Age of Stupid team…more on that closer to the time of launch!

Riders Recommend

joannatidball — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 14:55:10 +0000

Over the Christmas break I spent a bit of time working on an idea for a little side project that I’ve had bubbling away for a while now. Riders Recommend is a place for horse riders and owners to share recommendations on everything equestrian.

Visitors to the site can browse recommendations and add their own via a very simple form. The project neatly brings my professional interests together with my personal interest in horse riding.

The flexibility of Wordpress meant that I was able to get the site up and running very quickly. The versatility of the Wordpress platform - and all of the plugins that are available to extend its functionality - never fails to amaze me.

Christmas message

joannatidball — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:07:58 +0000

I’d like to wish all visitors to this website a very happy Christmas and New Year! This year, instead of sending out Christmas cards from my company, I’m making a donation to Shelter’s Big Build Up to Christmas campaign.

If you’ve left sending your own Christmas cards to the very last minute, then there’s a nice selection of free Shelter e-cards on their site.

Twitter

joannatidball — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:36:49 +0000

A few weeks ago I signed up to Twitter and it’s been a whirlwind romance. You can see my most recent updates (or tweets, if you insist) in the side column of this site. You can also visit my Twitter page.

If you want to find out more about how Twitter works and what’s in it for you, the introduction to Twitter from the Guardian is a good place to start. Paul Carr has some good starter suggestions for who you could follow.

Global Entrepreneurship Week

joannatidball — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:40:22 +0000

Kicking off today is Global Entrepreneurship Week – a week of local, national and global activities designed to connect enterprising young people and help them to explore their potential as self-starters and innovators.

I’m playing my part in Global Entrepreneurship Week by getting involved in the Unleashing Ideas forum, a place for discussion of networking, business ideas, inspiring stories and all things entrepreneurship!

KnowHow NonProfit

joannatidball — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:21:27 +0000

If you work in the not-for-profit sector then check out KnowHow NonProfit, a new site that brings together information and resources to help charities, social enterprises and other organisations to learn, develop and succeed.

The site’s in live development and will launch fully in spring 2009. Over the next few months I’ll be working with the KnowHow NonProfit team to add to the content that is already on the site. The site already features information on fundraising, governance, strategy and the role of the leader.

Joining the KnowHow NonProfit community gives you a chance to shape the future of the site by sharing your feedback and contributing information, advice and case studies.

Big Green Challenge finalists announced

joannatidball — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:37:06 +0000

Back in January I wrote about NESTA’s Big Green Challenge - a £1 million prize fund designed to encourage people to work together to find new ways of reducing carbon emissions in their communities. I was a regular contributor to the Big Green Challenge blog from January to March, when initial applications for the Challenge were being invited.

More than 350 applications were submitted for the Big Green Challenge and over the last few months these have been whittled down to just 10 finalists.

The 10 finalists now have 12 months to put their ideas into practice and stake their claim for a share of the prize money! The projects are all inspiring examples of communities and groups of people working together to take action on climate change.

The Big Green Challenge website has details of the finalists’ plans and there’ll be updates on the progress of each finalist on the Big Green Challenge blog over the coming year.

Nominate your NHS Champion

joannatidball — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:23:25 +0000

Today is the launch of a website I’ve been working on for the NHS Champions Awards 2008. I project managed the development of the site, working with my associate Mats Lofgren on design and production.

The awards are being run by The King’s Fund in association with the Evening Standard and NHS London. They’re designed to recognise individuals who have gone the extra mile to provide exceptional care in the last two years.

So, if you live in London and know someone who works in the NHS who deserves special recognition for the work they do, then nominate them now!

Colour scheme ideas

joannatidball — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:29:11 +0000

Daily Color Scheme is a neat website that provides suggestions for website colour schemes, ready to download and import into your design software. My favourite is Veerle’s Topp.

The site says that it’s still in beta, but since no new schemes have been added since 2006, it looks like development has stalled! The site’s archive of colour schemes isn’t large, but it’s enough to give you some inspiration or help you make up your mind about the colours you like and dislike.

If you’re looking for more resources on colour for website designs, then check out this e-consultancy article on choosing colours for website designs, which is where I came across Daily Color Scheme.