I’m Mike Bracken, Chief Digital Officer for the Co-operative. This is a new blog, designed to start a conversation about our digital future. Our aim in digital is to be open, agile and have a relentless focus on members – existing ones and new ones.
We are here to make the Co-operative a world-leading digital player as we continue our rebuild phase. Our ambition is bold: to re-create the Co-operative for a digital era, and demonstrate a different way of doing business for an increasingly connected community.
To achieve this, we will need to build on our position of trust with our members, create teamwork around a commitment to digital excellence, and continue to develop and attract the best digital skills.
The internet was made for co-operation and that starts with how we communicate with our millions of existing members. That starts with small steps like communicating online and saving over £500,000 in sending letters out twice a year.
In my brief time in Manchester I have been hugely impressed by the teams in place and the work already underway: Helen Carroll and her team on brand and marketing, Dave Johnson who is leading the technology delivery for the Meaningful Membership scheme along with architects like Danielle Haugedal-Wilson, and Paul Morris and the digital and social teams.
I am yet to properly meet several teams – such as Membership and Data and Insight – but will do so over the next few weeks and then look at our organisational set-up in November. I have spent much of my time with teams in the businesses – Funeral care in Rochdale, Food in Liverpool and St Helens – and I’ve been hugely impressed by their relentless focus on our members and customers. We have to match that focus in our digital operations, both at Group and in the businesses.
Wherever I have gone I have always looked to help support and develop existing teams – and add new skills to the mix. To that end let me introduce some people:
Russell Davies is joining us today as Digital Strategy Director, Tom Loosemore is our new Digital Services Director and Ben Terrett has joined as Group Design Director, and Mat Wall is working with the team to review our digital and data architecture.
Mat Wall is a leading technology architect, with experience in Government, The Guardian, Sony and elsewhere. He has been working with web technology since the 1990s and has delivered a number of large scale web sites. He started before me, and is working with Dave, Michael and the membership team, and also across the Technology Organisation.
Russell will lead in defining digital strategy for the whole Group – integrating our approach to communications, vision, loyalty, brand and membership. Russell’s spent the last twenty years working out what should happen when brands and services meet the internet, delivering industry-leading projects for people like Honda, Microsoft, Nike and the London Olympics. He’s also a Contributing Editor for Wired Magazine.
Tom will be responsible creating a world-class digital services unit at the centre of the Co-operative Group. He brings twenty years’ experience of digital product management, strategy and transformation at the BBC, Channel 4 and OFCOM. He was a founder of civic tech charity mySociety.
Ben will build a first-rate design and brand capability inside the Co-operative Group. He is a recognised leader within the design industry delivering outstanding and innovative work for Nike, The Guardian and Wieden+Kennedy. Ben is also a governor at the University of the Arts London and sits on the London Design Festival Advisory Board.
Together, Ben, Tom, Russell, Mat and I founded the Government Digital Service. With our colleagues there, and across government, we delivered GOV.UK, saved billions for the taxpayer, won the Design of the Year Award and – most importantly – delivered substantially improved services for millions of people.
We’re used to working as a team so we hope it won’t take us long to get up and going.
This group brings extraordinary skills and experience to the Co-op, and I’m delighted that we’ve persuaded them to join us, but they won’t be the last brilliant digital people we’ll bring in. If you’re interested in creating fantastic digital services with co-operative values keep an eye on this blog. We’ll be looking for help.
Watch this space for more news. I’ll be blogging regularly about our digital progress. My personal blog is at www.mikebracken.com, and I’m @MTBracken on Twitter.
I will follow the progress of CDS with great interest, especially as you’ll all be working in a less constrained environment. Onwards.
It won’t be all that much less constrained ! All that practice in convincing doubtful stakeholders will not have been wasted!
Exciting times for the Co- operative.
I’m interested to learn more about your strategy for communicating to all members the various
Pt 2 … products and services and ensuring that the benefits of membership are really transparent ☺
Great work so far. I look forward to seeing our digital platform going forward and how we will reach our members on the ground.
I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO PROMOTING MY BALLYCASTLE CO-OPERATIVE LOCAL FORUM AND THIS IS ANOTHER WAY TO DO IT… LOOK AT MY FACE BOOK PAGE
I am co-op forum ballycastle branch
What a team. Look forward to seeing a global enterprise delivering a social vision powered by people and supported by sustainable relationships, environments and technology. Look forward to seeing your actions, road map and contributing to your success.
I work at the co-op and if we are going into the digital future does that mean we will have a overhaul of our current ICT systems hardware and software wise? If this is considered a private issue a pm is fine thankyou.
Excellent news!
What aspects of the coop digital presence are you responsible for? (I hope the answer to this question is “everything”)
I signed up for the coop energy (https://www.cooperativeenergy.coop/) wanting to avoid the big 6. Unfortunately the logged in members area is … not a great experience. Here’s hoping this is within your remit.
Short Answer. Its not. Long answer: Wrong Co-op, try Midcounties.coop
I am very interested in the work you will be doing and I am going to keep updated. I hope it will help break a barrier for young members too and get them more engaged with the cooperative.
I just hope you can pursuade the Group to ask the right question. So often businesses start with the question: ‘how can I get my pre-planned message to people?’; I hope you can pursuade the Group to start with ‘what are members seeking that we can provide?’ I’m sure you know more about this than I do, so I hope you can pursuade the Group to move from member management to meaningful engagement. As long as membership comms is seen as another avenue for PR the uptake will be limited. Good luck.
I just hope you can pursuade the Group to move from asking ‘how can we get our pre-planned messages to people?’ to ‘what are people looking for that we can provide?’. If you separate the Membership engagement from the PR communication channel and hand more control to members, then this could be very exciting indeed. I’m sure you’re also aware of how useful a multi – level approach could be, enabling hurried shoppers to provide feedback in seconds whilst nurturing potential volunteers through discussion fora. Good luck.
Hi would be nice to see more Lady Lorry drivers,been driving or Lea Green and really enjoyed my work .Been driving lorries 26 yrs.x
Met the new Co-op Digital Team, together with existing and new talent, never been as optimistic as now…. very exciting times ahead, great culture too.
Interesting information about digital talent,And the ways how we can achieve digital talent.Thanks for sharing the blog.