The Digital Council: A short and practical visualisation of the council of the future

Insights

We’re delighted to present our digital council infographic, a representation of what a digitally transformed council looks like

Starting the digital transformation conversation at your council

The Symphony3 Digital Council Infographic is designed to be a visually engaging conversation starter for councils discussing digital transformation.

 

What does good practical digital transformation look like in a council?

We’re delighted to present our digital council infographic, a representation of what a digitally transformed council looks like. This infographic was inspired by a Social media in Council infographic we developed some years ago.

 

The Digital Council 2022 by Symphony3

 

A graphical conversation starter for councils discussing digital transformation

The Symphony3 Digital Council Infographic is designed to be a visually engaging conversation starter for councils discussing digital transformation. The top half of the infographic depicts a typical municipality with citizens going about their daily lives in normal cities or towns. This is annotated by headings loosely built on the services delivered by councils. For example, Local Laws, Waste Management, and Parks and Gardens. Under each heading are listed improvements and benefits that digital technology can deliver.

This is by no means an exhaustive list and we encourage you to send us your thoughts and comments.

As an aside, our amazing designer, Grace Mallinson has hidden our team throughout the infographic doing the things they love. Can you find them? We'll add anyone who gives us feedback to the infographic doing a favourite activity.

 

Enabling better lives for citizens with good digital plumbing

Council is central to the municipality as in our graphic but the work it does is often unacknowledged or hidden away from sight as many in the community don’t understand the work councils do to make their area a better place to live. 
Likewise, the best digital transformation at councils will often go unnoticed by the community. Citizens’ lives should be better but they won’t necessarily see what is enabling the improvements. With this in mind we have depicted our digital systems below the municipality, enabling better lives for our community; but mostly hidden away from view. 

 

The four main digital systems every council needs

We see four main digital systems that every council needs to deliver effective digital transformation. 

  1. Glue (integration technology) to connect up all systems.
  2. A portal that connects citizens to services 24/7.
  3. Dashboards that connect management to information.
  4. Core council systems that enable daily operations to be conducted.

 

The four (big) steps every council must take to deliver digital transformation. 

  1. Assess your current digital maturity and develop a plan – we call this a Roadmap. If you’d like to take our digital maturity assessment get in touch. We’ll look at your organisation across six dimensions, strategy and leadership, citizen service, internal stakeholders, technology, processes, and metrics and data and provide you with a high-level roadmap to get your organisation started. We’ll often recommend a period of prototyping to enable your organisation to understand what is involved in steps 2, 3 and 4. 
  2. Connect your systems using Glue (integration) – we believe APIs and integration technologies are the secret to true digital transformation. Understanding how to connect your systems is critical to success.
  3. Connect your citizens to services via Portals. Citizens expect to be able to login 24/7 on any device and access services relevant to them.
  4. Connect your management to information via Dashboards. With all your systems connected your management can access the information that they need when they need it to make better decisions for the business.

 

Want your own version of this digital council infographic?

We hope you find the infographic valuable and a good conversation starter for your team. If you would like a branded version to print and hang on your wall please get in touch and we’ll provide you with your own high resolution, branded version. All we ask in return is that you share the infographic on your social media channels and spread the word!

Start your digital transformation journey

We develop digital roadmaps that deliver sustainable performance improvements. We'll provide you with a plan that is incremental, cost-effective and achievable.