After a long process of researching and asking a lot of questions, I recently put the finishing touches to Northwards Housing’s digital strategy. Along the way I’ve learned a few things that could be useful if you’re currently working on one yourself.

1. Get on the Digital Housing Hub

You may well know about this already, but it’s too good not to mention. The Digital Housing Hub is a Ning network absolutely crammed full of hugely helpful information: example strategies, facts and figures, case studies, existing marketing campaigns, advice on training tenants and more. Not only that, but because it’s a social network, you can ask questions and tap into the knowledge of lots of other people all working on digital inclusion projects too. It made the research process an awful lot easier, I can tell you!

2. Social Telecoms have some very cool gear

There are a lot of different providers out there when it comes to offering more affordable broadband and computer solutions for tenants. Social Telecoms particularly stuck out for me as boasting some really nifty stuff. Most specifically, the “Little Rascal” – thus named due its diminutive size but substantial power – looks like a beauty. The size of a USB drive, the Rascal (or “Android Mini PC” if you want to be all boring and give it its official title) is essentially a PC on a stick. You just plug it into your TV, and hey presto, it transforms it into a massive Google Android Tablet. That means you get an internet browser, email, office applications, media player and full access to the Google Play app store all through your television. At £72 with a keyboard and mouse (or £59 for just the Rascal itself), the price makes it really affordable too, especially given that most recycled PCs tend to go for around £90.

3. Grow some carrots

Universal credit’s “digital by default” agenda is clearly a big ‘stick’ when it comes to forcing people to become more digitally engaged, but there’s an awful lot of ‘carrots’ out there too. If you’ve been around digital inclusion work for a while, you’ll be able to reel them off in your sleep: money saving deals, easy banking, free phone calls with Skype etc. Now’s as good a time as any to contribute to the list by coming up with some of your own! For instance, inspired by Wigan & Leigh Housing’s mutual exchange page on Facebook, we’re looking into possibly launching something similar ourselves to give tenants a convenient swap-shop on the social network.

4. …but don’t forget the carrots you’ve already got!

Our call centre carries out satisfaction surveys with a small sample of tenants each month, so I asked them to include a question asking tenants if they were aware that they could report repairs via our website and smartphone app. The first month this was asked, I was shocked to discover that around 50% said they didn’t know these services were available! This is despite a lot of publicity down the years. Lesson learned – keep reminding people of all digital ‘carrots’.

5. Know what’s going on locally

There’s no point wasting time and money duplicating resources – digital inclusion is such a hot topic at the moment, it’s quite possible that there’s going to be other services locally that you can tap into or work with to help your customers connect. For instance, in Manchester, the Go ON campaign is mobilising an impressive network of digital champions to help inspire and teach people. It’s great to know that there’s a whole host of knowledgeable volunteers ready to roll if you need them! It’s local knowledge like this that can help you focus on where best to put your efforts.