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Read+Comment: The fixed-price platform for hassle-free public commenting on your documents

Autumn 2010

Steph Gray, Helpful Technology

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

Getting public feedback on policyRead+Comment

1. Collaborative drafting and detailed commenting on a document

2. Crowdsourcing, reviewing and prioritising ideas

3. Ongoing engagement around a strategy

• There are various ways to enable public comment online on your documents:

• Wikis and detailed inline commenting e.g. via Digress.It, Write To Reply

• Hosted document services e.g. Scribd, Google Docs• potentially enabling comments on your own site, if technically possible

• In general, recent UK public sector initiatives have been in three main groups:

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

2009: Commentariat 1.0Read+Comment

18 months ago, we pioneered an approach - ‘Commentariat’ - using low-cost tools to enable comments on sections of a document:

• A different site for each document

• Focussed on the document structure, rather than wider engagement

• Flexible and accessible, but took some fiddling with for each new project

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

The brief for Read+CommentRead+Comment

A revamp of Commentariat, offering a WordPress-based service to provide flexible ‘hubs’ to support online engagement around policies and strategies

1. Social & CMS functionality: blog, document download, comments, links, feeds, email alerts, tweets, embedded content…

2. with a look-and-feel that can be tweaked and repurposed for many different projects…

3. by a non-technical team, without editing CSS, modifying databases or theme files, or installing WordPress each time.

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

2010: Commentariat 2.0Read+Comment

• Designed to be able to deploy quickly, for lots of documents

• Layers: comment quickly or in detail, publicly or privately

• Position the document alongside other channels for engagement (blog, email Twitter etc)

• Keep it accessible and flexible, but make it possible to change the look and feel without coding skills

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

One bunch of code, lots of different-looking documents

Read+Comment

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

So what’s Read+Comment?Read+Comment

• Ready-made software, hosting and support for online engagement around commentable documents

WordPress 3.0 + Commentariat 2.0

Plugins, Hosting + Configuration

As much support as you need

+

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Your own subdomain address, and the basic site setup done for you

UK cloud-based, scalable Ubuntu Linux hosting. Software tested, maintained and ready.

Fixed price or flexible

12 months, fixed price, standard T&Cs, no ongoing subscriptions or lock-in

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

Out of the box, a new Read+Comment siteRead+Comment

Soon after you’ve signed up, you’ll get emailed with the login details for your new site:

• Comes set up with some demo content showing how you can organise the pages

• Is password-protected, for you to share internally, until you’re ready to launch

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

A new Read+Comment siteRead+Comment

• Drag-and-drop to layout the homepage

• Edit content using regular WordPress WYSIWYG editor

• Moderate (spam-filtered) comments before they appear -- or not, you choose

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

A new Read+Comment siteRead+Comment

• Customise the look and feel to upload new backgrounds, choose colours etc

• Change layout to suit the project - two columns or three, fixed or ‘floating’ comment box

• Add your own CSS rules and analytics code if you want

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

A new Read+Comment siteRead+Comment

• Drag-and-drop ‘table of contents’ to build an online document easily:

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

Government-friendlyRead+Comment

• Low cost (from £450+VAT, plus as much help as you need)

• Quick: can have an attractive, professional-looking site up and running in hours

• Transformational Government & COI standards compliant:

• Designed for time-limited sites, with functionality most CMS don’t offer

• Subdomain can be mapped to your chosen subdomain or as a simple redirect (myconsultation.department.gov.uk or department.gov.uk/myconsultation)

• Indexable by search engines and The National Archives - add to your sitemap

• Easy to track cost and usage data if you want to report on it

• Cross-browser compliant - yes, even IE6

• Ready-made Privacy, Accessibility and Moderation policies and T&Cs for you to tailor

• Core templates and functionality accessible to WCAG Priority Level 2 (AA)

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

A sales pitch in three flavours (kind of)Read+Comment

Off you go

Keys to the site

Happy to help Jim’ll Fix It Something Else

A bit of help tweaking it and getting it right

Whatever you need: help with inputting content, tweaks to design or functionality

A private version of Read+Comment on your own servers, or customised to you

£450+VAT £950+VAT From £1,950+VAT

Let’s talk!

Traffic limits apply. Costs for 1 site for up to 12 months.

http://helpfultechnology.com | hello@helpfultechnology.com | 020 3012 1024 | @lesteph

What’s next?Read+Comment

• Find out more about the service: http://readandcomment.com

• Check out the public demo: http://demo.readandcomment.com

Email or call for a chat about the options:

• info@readandcomment.com

• 020 3012 1024