This page is designed to help you: 

• focus on the outcome (what you want people to do or think after they have read your post) 
• decide whether a blog post is the most appropriate way to support the outcome you’d like 
• decide whether the Co-op Digital blog is the most appropriate channel to communicate through 

What the Co-op Digital blog is for 

The blog exists to show the team’s progress and its thinking over time. Co-op is a member-owned organisation and sharing the value we bring (including metrics) helps us hold ourselves accountable to our members. Blogging is a good way to do this – it is one of the ways we work in the open.  

The blog tells our story in frequent, short chapters, and it acts as our institutional memory that lives on after colleagues leave their role. Blog posts don’t always have to celebrate our successes – they can explain our mistakes and what we learnt from them. The blog is not traditional PR. It is a way we can own our narrative – if we are proactive and open with our communication, we have better control over our reputation.  

 We use it to talk about 2 main topics: 

1. Our progress. (What we’ve done). 

2. The processes, techniques and methods behind the progress. (How we’ve done something). 

Readers should be able to infer things about the culture within the Co-op Digital Technology and Data function from our tone, the language we use, and the details we include. The Customer Products content team looks after the blog and will help edit in a way that highlights the behaviours we encourage: experimentation, humility and bravery. 

We blog so we can… 

• build morale within the team 
• ask for feedback (mostly from external people) 
• share advice and encourage conversation 
• attract the best people 
• share what we’ve learnt 
• help solve problems 
• have a single source of truth that we can point people towards 
• improve our institutional memory
• own our own narrative 

Who the Co-op Digital blog is for

The blog is for:

• Co-op colleagues 
• third parties we sometimes work with 
• colleagues whose expertise are in a discipline within the Digital Technology and Data teams (internal and external) 
• people interested in working for Co-op 

What belongs on the Co-op Digital blog 

Every post must be about our progress and/or our processes, and it should support the overall Co-op Digital Technology and Data teams’ strategy. This should be easy because nobody should be prioritising and working on things that pull in a different direction. 

Something is suitable for the blog if does this and it meets at least 1 of the following criteria. 

It shows how we’ve created measurable value 

This could be for customers, members, colleagues or communities. Teams must be open to sharing reasonable information on metrics to give the blog post credibility. Where there is discomfort around this idea, ask “what is the worst that could happen if we share X?” And weigh up the risk. 

It shows how we can scale 

For example, this could be around reorganising teams or business areas, or around platforms, components (‘Lego thinking’) or the Experience Library

It positions us as leaders  

This could be thought leaders or as expert practitioners in a certain discipline. These posts can reference others’ work but must be specific to our organisation. So, we wouldn’t publish a post on our opinion on the latest electric car unless we were making a connection between the innovation or software and Co-op.  

It showcases one or more of our encouraged behaviours 

Always in the context of our work, not just the team or organisational culture. For example: 

• Experimentation – how we learnt more, more quickly and were able to add more value when we give people permission to experiment.   

• Humility – talking openly about a particular mistake and what we learnt from it so that everybody feels comfortable to contribute in a blameless environment.   
• Bravery – how we worked with colleagues who have different expertise to us so that we can continue to support new and traditional business areas adopt practices that will help them thrive.   

It helps solve a problem  

Often, there is a lack of understanding around our areas of expertise in the wider business. For example, stakeholders may ask “what is service design?” A post that explains What we mean when we say service design at Co-op is something we can share as a single source of truth so there is no miscommunication. 

What doesn’t go on the Co-op Digital blog 

Something won’t go on the blog if it is: 

• not about our progress or our processes 
• better suited to a different channel. For example, if it is only aimed at Co-op colleagues, an internal channel is more appropriate. Or, if it is information for customers or members, other channels are better suited 
• more personal than professional 
• a preview of something like a conference or event. (This may be suited to another channel like Twitter or personal blog)  
• a write-up of a conference or event that does not focus on what the writer learnt and how their new knowledge relates to our work  
• unclear how the piece of work feeds into the overall strategy to improve the experience for the customer and colleague 
• more about what we’re going to do rather than what we’re doing (or what we’ve done), and what we’re learning (or what we’ve learnt) 
• copied or mostly reworded from somewhere else (even if this is an external site). For example, a blog post simply describing what the ‘team onion’ is should just link to Emily Webber’s team onion content 
• advertising 
• sensitive or private information that shouldn’t be available to the public 

What our collective voice sounds like 

• We don’t brag, we let the work speak for itself. 
• We write like we’d speak if we were presenting at a conference (formal, direct, but friendly). 
• We use “we” not “I”. 
• We know our readers are busy. We keep it concise. We remove anything that might provoke a “so what?” reaction. 
• We are inclusive and empathetic. We understand that what is relatable to one reader might not be for another. This means we avoid jargon, and we explain or link to anything that might reasonably need explanation.  

Content must be accessible and inclusive to anyone who visits the blog and it must follow our content design guidelines. Accessibility must be considered particularly carefully if the blog post includes a video, data visualisation or a deck. We will work with you to make it suitable and user-friendly. 

Blog post-writing process 

Before starting to write a post, talk to Hannah Horton about your idea. This will help speed up the process because the author and the editor will both be clear on the outcome we want, and both will be pushing the post in the same direction. It is much easier to start on the same page before anything is written than it is to overhaul a piece of writing without a clear outcome. 

1. Conversation about the outcome (what you want people to do or think as a result of reading your post). If a post is time sensitive, flag this.  

2. Try and pre-empt any sign-off niggles (often, these come from stakeholders). 

3. Together, work out a single line summary of the post. 

4. Together, tell the story in 5 subheads to pin down your structure and keep you on track. 

5. Agree how to work. You may want to write the post yourself, then we will edit. You could pair write over a call. Or, we can (sometimes) ghostwrite. 

6. A member of the content design team signs off from an editorial perspective. Subject matter experts within the wider business may need to sign off. Senior Leadership may need to give the go-ahead too.