Zoe Amar: We are delighted that this episode of Starts at the
Top is sponsored by Arvato CRM Solutions. Arvato CRM Solutions
designs and delivers award winning customer service,
business process outsourcing, and digital and Intelligent
Automation solutions with some of the world's most respected
brands, as well as innovative charity and public sector
clients. They partner with clients to help them define
their customer experience and transformation strategies by
implementing the right technology, people and processes
to improve their customer journey while driving new
efficiencies and helping them prepare for the future. To find
out more about how Arvato CRM Solutions could help an
organisation like yours, and to receive a free no obligation
chat, visit arvato.co.uk/walesairambulance.
Alice Kershaw: How do we increase digital confidence and
over the next couple of years I want people to feel more
confident about asking questions about digital. I don't want
people to kind of feel they have to know everything about
digital.
Zoe Amar: Welcome to a brand new episode of Starts at the Top,
our podcast about leadership, digital and change. I'm Zoe
Amar.
Paul Thomas: And I'm Paul Thomas. Our podcast is all about
leadership and brings you interviews with leaders who we
believe are driving positive change in the world.
Zoe Amar: Change comes in many forms. And we're equally
interested in speaking to leaders who are making
incremental change and shifting the dial within their
organisations. As we are speaking about huge systemic
changes that impact the world of work. The driving force of this
podcast is to share the stories across sectors and industries so
that we can all learn from each other.
Paul Thomas: And today we're sharing our conversation with
Alice Kershaw who's head of digital transformation at the
wildlife trusts. Alice is responsible for coordinating and
supporting the strategic root and branch digital
transformation of the wildlife trust's 2030 strategy, see what
they did there. But what's nice about this conversation is that
we're both big fans of getting out into nature. So although the
trust's work is quite familiar to us, it was lovely to hear
more about the digital side of their operations guided by the
wonderful Alice.
Zoe Amar: Before we get to the interview. There's a huge story
in the news this week about Russell Brand, who has been
investigated by the Times, Sunday Times and Channel 4's
dispatches on allegations of rape, sexual assault and abuse,
allegations that we need to say that Russell Brand denies.
Paul Thomas: Why is this relevant to us? Well, we thought
this was a topic that we should discuss, albeit not a pleasant
one. Not least because in this season of episodes, we have
spoken to Soma Sara who was author and fine founder of
everyone's invited, which is an anti rape movement organisation,
which allows survivors to share their stories through
testimonies anonymously on their Instagram, and on their website.
And we will share details and links back to that episode in
the show notes. But also, because I think there's a big
discussion to be had here about online influence and how it's
being used to weaponize social media followers to create
counter narratives that protect the people at the centre of
these allegations.
Zoe Amar: And what was fascinating about this was
something I heard on the news agents podcast, I was listening
to yesterday about the whole Russell Brand case. And they
were saying that the speed of response to when the story
started to break on, I think, Friday or Saturday, and then
straight away, it almost became a kind of online culture war
between people saying that they believe they're survivors. And
then other people saying this is an attack by the mainstream
media on Russell Brand was incredibly fast. And this is a
real insight into the way the stories break on social media
now and how people discuss controversy, isn't it?
Paul Thomas: Yeah. And also about the power of individuals
over institutions where they do have quite powerful numbers of
followers on channels like YouTube. So Russell Brand has
millions of subscribers to his YouTube channels, as other
social media outlets, and we're seeing this more and more with a
lot of these sort of controversial figures, I guess,
who are sort of building this narrative against you know, it's
them versus us. It's the big news media against the common
person, the common, the common man, in this case with Russell
Brand. And it was just interesting to see how quickly
that army was sort of whipped up into To support of Russell
Brand, as he said, particularly on Saturday, without really
having seen any of the allegations put in front of
them, I think it sort of started as he posted a video to YouTube
before, before it even been published on the time site. And
certainly before dispatches had gone out on Saturday night at
Zoe Amar: I'm thinking all of this is actually a really good
9pm.
indication of what we're going to see happening in the 2024
election, and it probably is going to be even worse. And the
implication there for the charity sector, which is
obviously where I spend all of my time is about these kinds of
cultural springing up very quickly online, where supporter
bases have already been developed in parts of the
internet, which because they're so led by their values, quite
rightly, charities may not be spending a lot of time how those
communities can be mobilised, and also how it's incredibly
difficult to have, you know, any kind of balanced discussion,
particularly about sensitive issues on social media now. So I
think some of the really fraught things we've seen coming up on
Social were probably I'm sure a lot of us have felt very
protective towards people, we know that our survivors are only
going to be magnified in 2024. When we start seeing all the
election campaigns playing out.
Paul Thomas: yeah, and I think, you know, you and I, and several
groups people had come have had conversations over the weekend,
I mean, this comes off the back as well, as, you know, Elon
Musk, and others using x, what was Twitter, still can't get
used to that, but using his platform to leap up in support
of Russell Brand, and that feels a bit odd. And then Elon Musk on
Sunday, calling out the Sauros organisation, so you know,
starting to sort of come out and show anti semitic leanings, I
guess, is the word I'm looking for. And then today, there's a
story about how he's making Twitter or looking to put a
subscription model on Twitter for every user. And you kind of
the conversation we had was that platform, although we all sort
of, you know, we've made great connections on it. And it works
really well, from a business point of view and an information
sharing point of view. The only reason really to be on his
channel anymore, is to almost sort of, you know, not let them
get away with this, turning it into such a niche chat, hate
channel, essentially, if it's going to be a channel where this
type of behaviour is tolerated and even supported, then it's
not a place that I want to spend any time but I kind of don't
want to throw in the towel either. And say, Well, look,
it's an open channel go off and do what you want to do. But the
minute he puts a subscription model on top of that, as well,
it just becomes a real, real challenge. I think
Zoe Amar: it really does. And I'm sure there's reasons why
he's having to do that because of commercially where Twitter
must be at the moment. But yeah, I mean, I think what's gonna be
hard for charities who will be looking to influence you know,
what, what goes in manifestos and those kinds of things in the
2024 election, is that you can't just completely opt out of
social, you probably can't completely opt out of Twitter,
if you're trying to do anything around policy and campaigning,
because I, you know, the other channels will help you make a
bit of a dip, it's hard to think about how you might influence an
MP unless there's a younger MP on Instagram, for example, is
probably all the kind of contextual stuff that messaging
you can do on those channels by actually getting to the MP and
their team, Twitter will probably still be your your best
route because I just can't see MPs making a mass exodus from
that platform, because that's the one platform where they do
have a presence. So I think that is is the thing, and I suppose
this brings us back in some ways to the Charity Commission social
media guidelines, which came out this week, and I will be writing
a blog about that over the next few days. But this is very
relevant to the Insight we've had into what's going on on
social media with Russell Brand being a real so kind of case in
point and the different sizes that were that people are taking
in that discussion. But also the fact that you can get yourself a
policy you can get yourself a plan in the way that the
guidelines say that you do, actually the number one thing
you also need to do is really to be prepared for when these
incredibly difficult discussions could happen and maybe someone
could potentially mobilise their base who has done Different
values from your charity. So that is definitely something to
consider the really difficult environment that we are now
seeing on social which charities are going to have to continue to
navigate through, and which will probably become even more
challenging in 2024.
Paul Thomas: Yeah, no, I think it will, won't it. And I think
it's really hard to even join in any conversation on that channel
on twitter or X, Twitter, X, it's really hard to see any
conversation on that without sort of delving into the
comments and seeing such an array of sort of that sort of
mobilisation that kind of, you know, taking over of the
conversation is just really, really tough compared to what it
used to be compared to the channel that we all, you know,
hope and wish it will be that threads isn't quite yet. You're
right, you know, it's still the de facto channel, I wonder how
that will change when the subscription model, if it
happens comes in. And when he starts to charge everyone for
their use of the platform, how many people will move away from
it, but I said, I would suspect that mainstream media and
politicians, journalists, or those people that use it as a
channel today will probably just cough up the money, I don't
know, will depend, and we'll have to see, but certainly be
interested in going into 2024.
Zoe Amar: There are some very weird behaviours, or perhaps
they're getting magnified because of the political and
economic tension, which are only going to ratchet up next year
aren't they because, are they one of the things that I worry
about most in the context of the charity sector is it seems to me
that key thing that sector does is about, you know, calling
truth to power effectively. And it's really hard to do that when
people have such a strange relationship with the truth
online. And you highlighted when we were talking about this
earlier that with the Russell Brand case, and obviously he has
denied the allegations. The fact is that people were making this
rush to judgement before they had even seemed to have heard
anything about the details of the dispatches programme. And
since when did justice become a spectator sport that feels like
part of what social media is now this kind of gladiatorial
exercise in picking a lane? So I think that this really
highlights how much of a difficult climate this is for
organisations who are there to shine a light on what's going
wrong in the world and what needs to change?
Paul Thomas: Yeah, I completely agree. There was a great article
in the spectator that we will link to by Sam Leith, that I
think we'll link to in the show notes. I think everyone should
go off and read that. But yeah, you're right, the cult of
personality, isn't it? It's the he can't have done these things.
Because that literally out of the mouths of some of the
journalists on GB news, I mean, it's not necessarily a space
that we're going to pay much attention. But literally sort of
saying, Well, look, I'm gonna believe Russell Brand over the
the allegations because I know him because I watch his content,
really? So a couple of years of watching him on YouTube, and you
think that's enough reason to give him a pass for all of this
bad behaviour. And it's so you know, so bad when you listen to
watch the dispatches TV programme, I think in
particular, to look back at some of his past behaviour and look
back at some of his past performances and just see it
writ large. You know, you even if he's proven to be innocent of
the of the crimes that he's alleged to have carried out.
There is a there is a behaviour there that is just apparent.
It's very, very strange. Very, very strange indeed. Anyway...
Zoe Amar: Now for our interview with Alice Kershel. We are very
excited to welcome Alice Kershaw to Starts at the Top today.
Alice Kershaw is head of digital transformation at the wildlife
trusts, and she's responsible for coordinating and supporting
the strategic root and branch digital transformation of the
wildlife trusts 2030 strategy. Alice works with a wide range of
people across the Federation to inspire and CO develop business
cases for change, using insights, new ways of working
and digital technologies. Alice also develops funding bids for
this work, and oversees the delivery of transformation
projects and governance, while supporting the upskilling of
others say that all wildlife trusts are strong and effective
players. She has been in her current role since October 2021.
And prior to that worked at the National Lottery Heritage Fund,
bringing in a new culture of service design to help people do
the things that matter to them, including undertaking complex
business critical technical overhauls of legacy systems.
Alice is a claw Leadership Fellow with a particular
interest in systems change and agile methodologies and how
partnerships work together. Prior to the National Lottery
Heritage Fund, she worked in a variety of roles in the broader
heritage sector, working to solve knotty awkward problems
with others. She lives in Shipley near Bradford, and
enjoys being out on the moors in her spare time, usually whilst
eating cake. Alice, welcome to Starts at the Top.
Unknown: Thank you very much. And it's good to regret bits of
my bio while it being read to me, thank you very much for
having me.
Zoe Amar: You should regret nothing. We're excited to dive
into especially pleased to hear that mention of cake because
this is this podcast is just a thinly veiled opportunity to
talk about cake in my view. So I'm very, very happy to have you
here. We're so excited to hear more about your story. And for
anyone who isn't familiar with Wildlife Trust, can we begin
there? Can you tell us a bit about the Wildlife Trust in the
Federation how it all fits together?
Alice Kershaw: Yeah, it does make us sound a little bit like
Star Trek when we say Federation, I think it works
very well. So we are a federation of 47 fiercely
independent charities that work together for the same goal. So I
work for the Royal Society of Wildlife Trust, which is the
central charity. But there are 46 other wildlife trusts that
cover the UK there's one wherever you're listening to
this, if you're listening in the UK, there is a Wildlife Trust in
your area and on some of the islands as well. So we
effectively have so like the Isle of Man has its own Wildlife
Trust too, as does Alderney as does the Isles of Scilly. And so
they work and manage reserves. They have members in every
patch. Basically, we have nearly a million members across the UK.
Collectively, we're one of the largest environmental NGOs in
the UK. But we work really locally. And that's a kind of
key aspect of the Wildlife Trust Federation. So there is a slight
difference between the organisation I work for which
has a UK wide remit and supports those trusts and what the trust
themselves actually do.
Zoe Amar: Wow, that's really interesting. And we're going to
hear a bit more later about how that structure is working in
terms of your digital transformation. And so now's a
good place to begin, actually, can you tell us about the
digital journey so far at the Wildlife Trust and what you've
learned along the way?
Alice Kershaw: Yeah, so for me, it's been really interesting. So
I was brought in off the back of the fact that in 2020, the
wildlife trusts took the approach under a new chief exec,
Craig Bennett, who came from Friends of the Earth to actually
have a full co creative strategy that was going to take us up to
2030. So the whole strategy was co developed during kind of
COVID times people came together from the Federation, then use
that time in order to come up with a really decent strategy
they could all agree with and sign up to, which isn't
necessarily hugely common for these kinds of Federation's. But
critically, for me, this strategy is made up of kind of
three layers. So we have our kind of big goals about what we
want to do, we have under that transformations. And under that
we have things that enable those transformations to happen. Now,
transformation four is what you described in the kind of
introduction as a root and branch digital transformation,
because we love an ecological metaphor. But effectively, that
was the thing I was brought in to support the wildlife trusts
as a whole are trying to do and solve some of the most kind of
genuinely difficult problems in the UK. How do we stop climate
disaster? How do we stop the decline of nature? How do we get
people engaged? How do we change behaviours? How do we make the
most of our own reserves? How do we mitigate against climate
change? There's some big problems here. So we have to be
able to make the most of everything. And digital is one
of those things that was identified as part of a key
transformation for the Wildlife Trust together collectively to
make. So I came in about 18 months ago with the kind of
remit of looking at how do we coordinate that? How do we work
across that? How do we kind of raise awareness of digital,
because people don't... I'm going to caveat this. I like
working through all those just cause i'm really interested in
digital. I'm fairly confident that most of my colleagues did
not come to the Wildlife Trust Federation, in order to think
about digital things. They came here because they're interested
in protecting and enhancing nature and wildlife. So
effectively, there isn't really a lot of that kind of skills and
knowledge that you might see in say, kind of arm's length bodies
or local government or national government around the kind of
digital skills we might expect to see. So things like service
design developers UX UI, that kind of stuff isn't really here.
It's not available within the Federation. So they needed to
kind of bring in someone who had a bit of knowledge about that,
to kind of take for with the digital components of the
strategy. And our strategy around digital has kind of three
key things about it. One of them is about being more aware of
digital sounds like you know, what is it, are we making the
most of it, what kind of stuff is out there? The fact it's
beyond technology. And it's not just about a tool, or bringing
in a new tool, although I'm fairly confident some people
expected, I'm just gonna go, I've got the tool that will
solve everything. Anyway, we can probably come back to some of
those thoughts. But basically, the fact it wasn't just about
that, the fact about we, we need to make it inclusive and
accessible, and people want to use it. So there's that side,
there's also people being more skilled about it, that was a
really critical thing in our strategy development that we
wanted people to have the skills to use, the technology we're
bringing in, and also skills around ways of working, like
collaborating is critical for what we're doing. And actually,
that's hugely supported by digital. So that was the other
one. And then there's kind of third key strand is being what
we call more informed, which is that, you know, how do we use
the data that we have on people and habitats and species to make
really good decisions, and to be able to actually see the impact
of those decisions? On wildlife, we haven't got any time to
waste, we need to make sure that we're making good calls. And
that's where the data comes in. So that's kind of what our
strategy fundamentally looks like, and the kind of remit that
I have to work in.
Paul Thomas: I was just gonna say how many people since you've
been there have asked you for an app?
Alice Kershaw: I think it must be in the dozens. And I will
take as a major win the fact that I occasionally get an email
from someone who said, I thought we might need an app. And then I
remembered what you said about what's the user need. And now I
don't think we need an app. And that is the kind of progress
that I want to see more of.
Paul Thomas: Digital transformation drinking game, I
think is coming coming soon.
Zoe Amar: Yeah, that would be great merch Paul. We should
definitely, definitely launch them in time for Christmas,
hopefully. No, that's really interesting, Alice. And there's
so much that I'd really love to dig into more, because you've
described this, you know, that is roots and branches, you were
saying you're taking this very holistic look at your digital
transformation, which I think is exactly the right thing to do.
Can we just unpack it a little bit there. So just starting with
the skill side of things. And I'm really mindful of what you
were talking about earlier, where staff and volunteer
motivations might not always be about I want to do this because
I'm interested in digital, I'm interested in helping, you know,
that climate disaster and look after landscapes and those kinds
of things. How do you bring people like that on boards?
Alice Kershaw: So there's been a couple of different ways, I
suppose the initial answer is in as many ways as possible. So we
can either we do stuff like I just put out a podcast today
with our, one of our EDI leads that's gone out on our internal
intranet, which is called Wild net, which is all about digital
accessibility and inclusion, because we know that there's
really big connections between kind of accessibility and you
know, climate change, and who's impacted all that it's a really
important thing. So how do we tie that into the values that
the organisation has? So it's things like that, it's quite
specific stuff. Like I've been running a course called Agile
for beginners, which is all about, you know, but not pitched
as like, Oh, this is digital skills. But like, how does this
help you manage project, we are dealing with really complex
projects. So actually, this is a methodology that works quite
well. And also is already in use, you know, we have projects
where you might test something out on a reserve, see what
happens, get that feedback, then test something again. So how do
we make the most of that, so some of those skills, are
courses that I run myself, others are ones where I've
brought people in to do it. So for example, whilst we don't
have let's say developers in house, because of the fact that
people have come from often scientific backgrounds, what we
do have is people who are handy with like R and Python. Now,
that's great, because if I can, you know, we have, like, say, we
don't have devs, but I do have people who know how to use those
kinds of, like, have those kinds of skills. So bringing in kind
of how do we bring those people together? How do we make sure
that people's skills are like high enough to be able to do
that to be useful across the Federation. So there's been some
specific training in that which has been identified. And we're
also working with the Open Data Institute, because we know that
one of the things that we have is some real pockets of great
high data literacy really, really strong. But given what
our ambitions are, we have to be able to have something that can
be rolled out a bit wider around that. So we're looking at kind
of data skills specifically related to the kind of data we
have, because we want it to be specific to habitat data and
species data and actually use some of the datasets that we
use, and use those as the example. So we're working with
the ODI, having done a bit of research on what people want to
roll out a kind of bit of a self serve course, so that the
courses we do and run kind of regularly, but then there's also
courses that people can access in the kind of copious spare
time that no one has, but actually are much more able to
kind of dip in and out of and do specific little bits when they
need and when they find useful, that's hopefully based around
real use cases they're going to have. So that's the kind of
skills work we're looking at. But there's definitely a kind of
wider ambition to build in the kind of businesses usual skills
approach because obviously our technology is changing all the
time. The you know, the things people need to know is changing
all the time. We can't just keep doing one and done. So the data
one I think will be an interesting test to see if
that's helpful. Have approach works. But I am quite keen to
see that in the future, we have a lot more skills training
that's just available in a number of different formats as
people need it, and changes and updates.
Zoe Amar: That's a great approach isn't it. And I love
what you've picked out there around helping people identify
the skills they already have, and these transferable skills
around data, and also where they get to apply those skills as
well on a day to day setting. And then still on that skills
piece, because you talked about the need to keep growing those
skills. How do you incentivize that with staff to get them to
keep moving ahead on that journey of developing their
digital skills?
Alice Kershaw: I think it's always a challenge, because our
resources are very tight. And so I think there's something around
working with, for example, HR teams, working with our training
teams, working with people who are delivering training to make
sure that it is always available, there is wider
ambitions around do we need something like digital
champions, do we need to kind of really focus in on kind of train
the trainer approaches, which works quite well, for things we
do, for example, around our carbon work, we have trained the
trainer there, where people are within trusts able to then pass
on that training, I think the incentive is always how it makes
people's jobs easier, and frees up time to do the things they
actually want to do. The incentive is not digital is
interesting, I think digital is interesting. I am well aware
that that's not the incentive for anyone else. So having I do
a course, for example, which is called like, stop inbox
overwhelmed. It's all about digital ways of working. If I
call it digital ways of working, no one will go to that. So it's
like, what does it what are people telling me? They're
telling me they have too many alerts, they have too many bits
of information? Well, that's about you know, how do you make
the most of collaboration, software's and ways? Sorry?
Yeah, no, that was the right word, and collaboration,
software and ways of working, that come from the kind of more
digital space and internet era ways of working, as it's phrased
in, you know, the public digital, like definition, how do
we bring those in, without making them seem scary? You know
what, so we have people, for example, will do things like
make a user manual of me, which is great, you know, that comes
from a kind of digital background, but actually enables
them to have good conversations with their colleagues, but how
they free up time to do what they need. So it's digital
without using the word quite a lot of the time.
Paul Thomas: We've come across that many times, haven't we, in
our conversation Zoe? Where were in sort of skirting around the
issue and saying, Well, actually, it's it's learning,
it's learning the digitalness of everything that you've been
doing already. And I've found two or three organisations that
I've worked with, who I've said, Well, that sounds like agile
project management way you're doing that as well. You know,
the way you described it, that you'll find pockets of people
doing things in a way that you just recognise, as you know,
being badged with a digital name, but the digital name or
labelling it is really unhelpful. So how do you how do
you sort of do that with, I imagine you've got quite a
diverse internal audience in quite a big age range, I would
imagine.
Alice Kershaw: Yeah, I find that it's, I mean, it's a big age
range. It's a big skill level range. In terms of digital. It
is a hugely expert organisation, which is quite an interesting
place to work, the level of specialism is often very, very
high. So everyone is incredibly passionate and incredibly good
at what they do, which I'm sure is true of every organisation.
But I will say I have found that quite striking here. So it's a
real mix. But it's people trying to do their best in what they're
doing. And that's really handy, because everyone's job is
impacted by digital. So it's finding the right angle on that,
in terms of how I actually do it, I go out and visit trust. So
you know, I will go and visit I will offer I do workshops for
them, I can help them come up with strategies, I do Lego
series play workshops, which can be quite good fun, and also help
people shape their vision of what they want to do. And also
it's nice and disarming, because it's not pure digital, I'm not
turning up with a load of mero boards, although I'll happily do
that as well, you know, wherever people want, go out, talk to
people see what's people's jobs are really like, but I also have
a couple of parts of the governance of the transmission
for programme, the written branch digital transformation
programme is that we have a digital transformation delivery
group and an advisory group. These are made up of people from
across trusts. So the delivery group is people who might be an
IT manager, they might work in comms, they might manage a GIS
mapping platform. Anyone who's self identifies, as I'm
interested in digital, I get those people because that's the
enthusiasm I need to be like closest to it. That's where we
can use digital jargon and language. We can work together
we can do all that kind of stuff to see strategically what we
need to do, but also get that feedback for people on the
ground. The other one, the advisory group is Chief execs
who are particularly interested in digital and that's hugely
valuable as well. So I work with I think it's about 12, Chief
execs, directors and trustees of some of our wildlife trusts, and
they regularly give information on what's going on the kind of
real pioneering work that's happening. The really
interesting thing things that are going on issues,
opportunities, that kind of stuff. So I can't get around
everyone, I can't keep in contact with everyone. But I can
hear back what's going on. The other thing is I do work in the
open. So I put notes out. And I talk about what I'm interested
in, that often results quite well. And people replying to me
going, Oh, we're doing that, or I've seen this, or I'm
interested to know more about this. So that can be quite
useful as well, by just saying, I am interested in examples of x
and people go, Oh, yeah, great. We're doing that.
Zoe Amar: And tell us a bit more about some of the challenges
that you faced along the way, and how you've dealt with those
challenges.
Alice Kershaw: So I think there's the initial challenge, I
mean, I'm fairly sure I'm saying things that loads of people have
said on this before, the initial challenges of like tech will
save us, it's like, great, we've got someone in, they've got
digital in their job title, they'll solve it all by bringing
in some new thing, or fixing the old things in a way that we
didn't think about. And it'll all be fine. And I think my
approach of it's more about the culture and the ways of working
than it is about finding a brand new shiny tool is a challenge.
And it's been a challenge where I've worked before, it's
certainly not new to this. But it's that expectation,
management of the quick wins are not always that quick, some of
the things are going to take a bit of time. And without the
resource available there of for example, you might see something
you want to do. But if we don't have developers, if we don't
have user researchers, my level of confidence in that being
definitely the right thing. It's not always high, you know, so
there's something there around how I make sure that the
research that's going into what we're doing is good enough
quality to be able to define the tools that are coming out of the
other end, if it is a tool based solution is definitely a
challenge. So that kind of lower awareness of kind of user
research, as opposed to you know, we're great with
analytics, we're great with looking at data. And we're
pretty good with insight on species and habitats. But the
stuff around people and exactly what they need from us has been
quite an interesting journey, I think. And it ties in to some of
the stuff I know, we discussed before this around the next door
nature programme, which has taken a different approach to
this. And I can come on to that in a minute. So it's a there's
definitely, that aspect is also that everyone, I mean, once
again, not new, but everyone is incredibly busy delivering often
outside, they're not in front of computers. So I honestly can't
over communicate it what I'm doing is the other thing, we
have an intranet, if you're a reserves manager, you're going
to look at the intranet that often probably not. So I need to
make sure that I'm getting stuff in, you know, staff briefings
and emails and like, say, physically going to places and
talking to people is really critical. And so for me the
challenge of how do you get to 3000 staff, most of which are
not in an office, that is a really critical challenge. So I
relied slightly more than I might expect on kind of word of
mouth and turning up for staff meetings, things like that, that
just enable people to be aware that I'm there. And then when
they're thinking about something digital, they might get in
contact with me. But that's definitely definitely a
challenge. The other one, which I would just find, which is
probably also not unusual, is just that kind of connection to
kind of that thing where when you get an email from like
LinkedIn, and someone's like, Oh, I've got this great AI thing
I want to sell you and you go, Oh, yeah, that's clearly
rubbish, delete, the slight issue I have is that there isn't
necessarily digital confidence to go, That's rubbish delete,
instead, kind of take it quite seriously. And my concern is
people just wasting the time of charities is just really
irritating. And so that's kind of a slightly different
challenge. But you know, there's, I get a lot of emails
which like, oh, we should we should look into this. And I'm
looking at going, you don't need to you already have a system
that does that. Like, don't, don't be ripped off by these
terrible emails. I'm sure you must get more than me of those.
But there's something about that and how decisions about digital
are made, which I think is a challenge. Not just common to
us, but it's definitely something I see quite a lot of.
Zoe Amar: It's a very big challenge across the sector,
isn't it the quality of procurement, which I think comes
back to skills. And also I think this is going to get a million
times worse, once we see lots more AI products coming on the
market, our inboxes are going to be overrun. And I hope that that
is going to encourage more charities to really think about
how they can run a good procurement process and do much
better due diligence.
Paul Thomas: With the AI in particular, already hearing so
many clients just started on their, their journey and they're
already talking about process automation and stuff like that.
And it's like yeah, okay, put it on the roadmap, but can we not
have a meeting about it until we've decided whether we're
using teams to communicate or not? Or whether we need a
standard intranet? It's things like that, that drive me
completely and utterly potty.
Alice Kershaw: Yeah, I, I would agree. I mean, we have big, big
ambitions with our data for sure. But for me, there's
something fundamental about we need to get our data standard
state models and data processes right before we think of putting
an AI anywhere near it. Because yeah the potential is huge.
There's loads, I think it's brilliant. There'll be loads of
great things we can do. We need to get the foundations in place
before those things are even anywhere near where we want to
be thinking about. I think it's great that people are horizon
scanning, though, that's definitely like Happy Days
great. But the link between where we are now and where we
want to be, it's, let's be sure we're going to be making the
right calls with that
Zoe Amar: it's about readiness isn't it, is about getting
yourself into the position to be ready to use these technologies.
So do you have a sense, Alice right now, some of those
aspirations you might have with those new technologies?
Alice Kershaw: I think it's interesting, I think there are,
there are huge opportunities with some of the new tech. And I
know, we have projects, for example, Surrey space for
nature, which is looking at kind of satellites, use of satellites
to map some of the kinds of areas around Surrey, and use AI
on that to kind of start to interpret what that data is
telling us. So we have some really pioneering projects,
there are some phenomenal projects across the Federation,
one of the things I've always found really fascinating is
because it is 47 individual charities trying to solve
problems, the level of innovation is actually really
high. The issue we sometimes have is scaling by innovation.
So checking that we're not actually doing the same thing in
more than one place. So well, we have stuff like that, and you
kind of go okay, that is obviously something that could
do really well. But do we have other ones who are trying to
solve that problem in a different way? And how do we
kind of make sure we have an awareness of that, collectively?
And what you know, so we have got some AI in use, we have got
some big aspirations around our data and how we bring it
together. I think for me, there's such an obvious kind of
way to look at our impact by bringing it together at scale.
We work locally, but we influence nationally. So how do
we make sure that we are using data both ways so that we can
support those decisions being made on a local level, but we
can also see at scale, what's going on, because our members,
our species, and habitats don't know where the boundaries are
between wildlife trusts, they're not visible on the ground. So it
means that things cross them all the time. And we at the moment,
don't have the biggest awareness of what's actually going on
there in terms of kind of single supporter views, in terms of
real impact on certain things. So we want to move towards a
point where we have that at our fingertips, we have it self
serve, we have it across the Federation. And that's
definitely a really big ambition, along with putting
communities at the heart of things and actually working more
with. So just to confuse things, Federation is the the trusts
coming together we call the Wildlife Trust movement, that
kind of wider membership campaigners, people who work
with us. So how do we, like move away from being top down about
that? And go a bit further towards what do they need us to
do? Where can we catalyse stuff? Where can we start to make a bit
of an impact. And we need more information and data in order to
personalise some of that journey and approach, make sure it fits
their context, make sure it makes sense to them. So there's
some really big ambitions there about how do we do more, and add
the value that we can add and stop trying to go into areas
where we don't add as much value? So there's some quite
kind of key ambitions.
Zoe Amar: Yeah. And that's points to one of the challenges
that I imagine you face in your kind of context, which is about
how you make decisions about digital in that federated
network structure. Can you tell us a bit more about how you do
that?
Alice Kershaw: Yeah. So I mean, ultimately, I can't ever tell
anyone what to do. I think that's right. I am not a
decision maker, I can recommend things I can suggest approaches,
I can model things. But I would never say this is what we have
to do. We always do collective decision making. It often relies
on consensus, or it can rely on like I kind of identified
projects that are really interesting, that kind of
surface and scale can be very, very influential. So if it works
in a Wildlife Trust. So this next door nature that I
mentioned, there's also a project called Evidence
emergency, which is looking at our kind of species and habitats
data, and that's a group of trusts have identified that that
is a problem. And they are working with me and with others
on what our solutions might be. So decisions tend to get made
kind of in that way. There is a formal governance structure, we
have a council, we have, you know, kind of many advisory
groups and boards and we have strategic groups and co chairs,
all that stuff you might expect on an individual trust by trust
basis, the decision is going to be made by the Chief Exec. So I
will have conversations with them. We have kind of regular
kind of town halls and conversations around this is the
state of the sector. These are things you might want to think
about. But ultimately, collectively, our decisions are
made through our strategy, but they have to be also kind of
done on the ground. So there's a lot of where things like case
studies of what works quite well. Getting people to talk so
we do show Intel's on like trust they're doing particularly
interesting things that helps others then make decisions in
their context. Because I think it's also slightly different.
You might be working somewhere where something is really
important to you but isn't, you know, you might have different
habitat, you might not have a marine area, you might be in
Wales, and therefore you have the Welsh language aspect as
well. So there are different contexts, we always have to take
into account. So that's a Wofully way of saying that
effectively, decisions are made locally. So I want to find the
best way to support people to make those decisions with the
best information. That's where my role kind of comes in, rather
than saying, This is what we should be doing.
Zoe Amar: You know, I think that kind of structure could
ultimately work really well for digital, couldn't it because
what you're describing there is something which is devolved. And
if you can empower the movement to be really skilled up and to
have a really clear idea of what success looks like and
incentivize them to collaborate. You could be absolutely cooking
on gas.
Alice Kershaw: Yeah, I think I mean, honestly, I think the
potential is enormous because of that. Like, it is a you know,
it's a decentralised structure. I've often, you know, it gets
described as things like, you know, mycelium, it's like, we
connect, and we share energy, Oh, we love ecological
metaphors. The other one is a memoration...
Zoe Amar: Just keep giving them to us Alice, we like them too.
Alice Kershaw: ... memoration that it's all individual birds,
but we make the shapes together. But they're still distinct and
individual. And that's quite important to know kind of how
the Federation works, because that grassroots local knowledge
is the really critical thing. There is a reason we are not one
organisation. And that is because that local specificity
has always been so important to working with kind of species
habitats and people, that's like such a critical thing. But like,
say, it is a huge, huge strength to be able to draw on that local
trust and that local knowledge as well.
Zoe Amar: as a bit of a challenge in many ways. And I
can see how it can be as well. But what you're describing here
is how that decentralised structure, that network effect
can essentially end up being a real strength content.
Alice Kershaw: 100%. And it's, it's that bit that allows for
the innovation. And once we can kind of scale the knowledge,
that's why that communication, that collaboration becomes such
a critical element of digital transformation. Because if all
trusts know what the other trusts are doing, and can learn
from that, and do the feedback from that, and take forward
things when they get to the right point, we can basically
scales to pretty quickly, I mean, the next door nature
project came out of a thing called Team Wilder, which is
initially trialled on Hampshire in the Isle of Wight. And they
were doing work of how do we work with local communities in a
different way, that work was so influential that eventually it
was scaled across an all Wildlife Trust to doing it, that
hasn't taken a huge amount of time, we have the ability to
deliver things quite quickly. So once they work, we can scale
them and we can deliver services that help support that. It's
just finding those kinds of sparks that enable that to kind
of move forward. That's the, for me something that's quite
critical.
Paul Thomas: So you might be coming to this when we discussed
next door nature. But so a lot of digital transformation
focuses on internal mechanics, and you've described you know
how that's happening internally to the organisation. How much of
that do you transmit to the people that access your
services, and donors and people like that? And how much of it
comes through in your communication that you're making
these changes? Because that's a bit that I think always goes
missing in terms of communications, we think about
how we talk to our employees about digital transformation,
but not necessarily to the people we serve.
Alice Kershaw: Yeah, it's true. And I think it's possibly,
because it's a more extreme version of what I said earlier,
which is, you might not work for the Wildlife Trust, because you
want to deal with digital, you're probably not a member of
the Wildlife Trust, because you want to, you're like, Oh,
they're really good at Digital. That's not that's rarely a
reason. What you probably do want to know, though, is that
were quite efficient and effective, and that we're
putting the most money into the stuff you do care about, like
helping our reserves and making sure we're bringing back species
and doing reintroduction all the great stuff that you actually
pay your membership for. That's the point is, so there isn't we
don't explicitly kind of say, you know, this is our digital
transformation programme. And this is what it means you can
find information on our website, if you go there, there's a thing
about working for the Wildlife Trust. So there's a little bio
of me just to make the point that actually working for the
Wildlife Trust is not just about being reserves manager, it's
there are actually quite a lot of other roles kind of behind
the scenes that might be interesting to people. You know,
digital skills are the kind of thing we want to see in the
Federation, you know, all his jobs go and do keep a lookout.
But you know, so these kinds of things are where we start to
talk about it. What you tend to do is see it so we kind of
showcase the projects that are doing really interesting things.
We start to put out new tools, new approaches, there's things
being tested. There's new ways of doing comms that you might
get tested. We're not necessarily going to say this is
a digital transformation test of a new way of communicating with
you. Because I think that might be weird. I would love to get
more notes public. The moment my notes are done internally to the
Federation. And one of the reasons I want to do stuff like
this podcast is to talk a bit more about what we're doing to
an audience that might be interested, I think I am quite
keen to try and think about how we talk to an audience who might
not be so interested. But I think it's probably the show
don't tell element which is you will get a better experience
from us. And that will be the digital transformation rather
than us necessarily kind of telling you that is so there's a
an organised group of organisations based around
Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, who are working on a what's called a
digital membership hub, they are quite explicitly a digital
transformation project, I've been training them in Agile,
we've been running it as an agile project, they'd be doing
it sprint, and this is all about putting out kind of marketing
information, getting that feedback, doing a B testing, all
that kind of good stuff, but very explicitly doing it in a
digital way of working way. You would know that from getting any
of their comms. But it's you would have a more personalised
experience than you've previously had with Well, that
just leads to having some success and people kind of being
happier with the comms. They're getting more people becoming
members, more people taking part in actions for nature, those
kinds of things. But it's not necessarily I don't think
anywhere is it badged externally as this is a digital
transformation programme, but it very much is in terms of
changing the way that that group of Trust works with each other.
And works with its kind of the public that it serves.
Paul Thomas: It's interesting, because I was just thinking,
it's a little bit similar, or the the sort of the step is a
little bit similar to project I was involved in for a short time
with CAMRA, the campaign for real ale, similar kind of model
that they have lots of different bodies around the country,
responsible for local local areas. But there was a call out
that they put out to CAMRA members to say, anyone with
digital skills would like that, who would like to join an
advisory network. And I joined it for a short period of time,
it was quite hard work. But it was, it was one of those things
that sort of dropped into the inbox. And I thought, Do you
know what I mean? Have an interesting in CAMRA. I'm a
member. I like beer. And, and maybe I can help maybe I can
offer something that is going to help bring the organisation
forward. So yeah, that sort of stuff is done. And it works and
can work really quite well.
Alice Kershaw: Yeah. Also, if anyone would like to come in,
advise us at the Wildlife Trust, I would happily take that we do
have people who've given us support. And when I'm talking
about our advisory group, you know, that includes Trustees
with digital skills, which is hugely valuable. So yeah,
definitely up for that. Also, if anyone wants to give us free
beer, that's also fine.
Zoe Amar: And if anyone, if anyone wants to get in touch
with you, Alice to offer you either digital advice, or free
beer, where should they do that?
Alice Kershaw: So I am, given my complimentary thoughts about it.
I am on LinkedIn. You can find that please don't try and sell
me an app. Please, please don't. But I am on LinkedIn. I'm also I
say I'm on Twitter. Who knows if I'll be on Twitter by the time
this comes out. But I am currently still on Twitter, at
Alice Kirshaw or if you want to find me but LinkedIn, if you
Paul Thomas: Or meet ups on the moor with cake...
just search my name and Wildlife Trust it comes up, you can find
me. But I would be very keen to hear from anyone who would be
interested to talk to me about specifically anything about
skills, data, or how you've made the most of digital, I would be
really up for that.
Alice Kershaw: Absolutely, cake, if anyone has any good running
routes, or wants to know any good running routes, or where
the good cake is around West Yorkshire also hit me up.
Zoe Amar: I mean, I would definitely download an app that
was kind of cake based. Where can I find good cake when I'm
going on a walk?
Paul Thomas: Yeah, I'm a big walker as well. And, and you
look at the, it's a struggle to find walks that include, it's
not a struggle to find them. But there ought to be a filter for
walks that include a pub and or a good cake shop or cafe where
you can actually stop and get something. A rest and a bit of
respite and restoration. I'd be up for that. So yeah, anyway, or
just a map of the wildlife trusts that have cafes.
Alice Kershaw: I was just thinking, I was like, how do we
bring this back? Yes. A lot of not all the reserves have cafes,
not all of them are publicly open, but there are some amazing
cafes or Wildlife Trust reserves. So it is well worth
having a look on your local Wildlife Trust website. There
will be a list some of them have brilliant cafes. I can
absolutely say some great cake out there.
Paul Thomas: It starts with cake, our new podcast.
Zoe Amar: Oh, well we look forward to... We should
definitely rebrand to that Paul. So Alice you know, you've made
so much progress during the time you've been there and the amount
of things that you've done and where you see yourself going is
so exciting. Is there anything if we could go back to when you
started that job in October 2021? Is there anything that you
wish you had learned earlier?
Alice Kershaw: I think there's some things I've learned twice,
you know, I mean, when you get that kind of, you know, that
initial wave where you think I'm really getting to grips with
this organisation, I really understand it, and then you have
the like, depths of actually I do not, I still have quite a bit
to get to grips with. And then I'm kind of on the second one
up. And I think there's something around things, I mean,
some things that are not surprised, no one has any time
known as any resource. But simultaneous, everyone is really
keen to help. This is an organisation in which people are
really happy to have conversations with me, they're
really happy to talk to me really happy to help. One of the
things that I had not quite clocked. And actually one of my
colleagues has written an interesting blog about this that
came out yesterday is eco anxiety, because one of the
things that I've kind of had to learn and deal with is the
reality that every day, I am looking at what is going on, in
the UK, around climate and nature emergency all the time,
that is my job, eight hours more a day, I'm sat in front of a
computer, and I am aware of that, that is something I had
not, I genuinely not particularly about it,
obviously, I wanted to join the Wildlife Trust, because this was
something I was passionate about trying to get involved in. But
mentally, that can be a little bit of a challenge, because
you're constantly aware of that in your job, I have a slight you
know, everything. Like if this digital transformation doesn't
work, there's a lot riding on this, you know, we are trying to
do really big things, I really want to be able to support this
organisation to do really big things. And that feels quite a
lot of pressure, when at the same time we're seeing our
latest, you know, mitigation documents, or we're seeing the
impact of species declined through our species data, or
we're seeing, you know, pollution going into the rivers
looking at other people's data, you know, we look at, you look
at the surfers against sewage maps, you see, you know, you're
seeing this stuff all the time. And I think that's something
that I kind of have to learn and relearn is how you balance that
against. It is wonderful to be working with people who are
trying to solve this problem. And it sounds really
sanctimonious. But I think for me, there's something about the
mix of those things where it's like, you just have to hold on
to the fact that I am working in an organisation and with
partners who are trying to do something about this. And that's
really critical. But it is unexpected to what I was kind of
thinking about when I started working here.
Zoe Amar: So interesting, because you're absolutely right.
I think if you're leading any kind of charitable, digital
transformation, there's a lot at stake isn't there? And that's
where I think it can be a real contributing factor to burnout
can't it?
Alice Kershaw: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, it's singularly, we're
not alone, every single charity, like you say, is trying to deal
with really big problems. And at the moment, the problems are the
biggest they've been for quite a long time with every single
charity. So yeah, I think for me, finding peer networks of
other people doing digital transformation and data work is
hugely valuable. It's valuable within the Federation. And
there's people who I really, you know, I lean on a lot to have
these kinds of conversations with, and to be able to share
those feelings is really, really important, because digital is
not always seen as a particularly emotional sector to
be dealing with, but actually, it can be quite isolating can be
quite lonely, and you can feel under quite a lot of pressure.
So being able to, you know, pick up, pick up the proverbial
phone, it's always teams or zoom, let's be real, and have a
conversation with someone about what they're doing, what they're
working on, the kind of stuff they're feeling is absolutely
vital release valve, actually,
Zoe Amar: I can see that and there's a lot of heavy lifting,
isn't there in terms of the stakeholder management and
leading and dealing with organisational change as well?
Isn't that that, that does have a bit of a human costs, too. So
what else do you do to look after your well being, then make
sure that you've got that balance right?
Alice Kershaw: I mean, it's an interesting one, because one of
the big things I do for my well being is get out into nature. So
like, I mean, it's a good fit in some ways. So you know, just to,
I just gotta keep plugging stuff, we have 30 days Wild
comes up in June, it's open now, sign up. But genuinely, like, it
sounds really, like I'm not just plugging it, that ability to go
out and spend time in nature is hugely, hugely valuable. You
know, it's like actually, like, this is the point, I don't want
to spend my entire time just sat in front of a desk, designing
stuff and writing copy, I want to actually be out and
experiencing that because nature has a big part to play in our
own well being. So there's that. There's also just the ability to
get together with people I work on my own at home quite a lot.
But I will go and visit other colleagues who are based up here
in the North of England and when I go down into our Newark
office, and just spend time with people because that's really
important as well. It's not just about the kind of delivery
focused bit it's about why you're doing that delivery can
be quite important. And then on top of that, it's also you know,
the usual thing of get help when you need it nature can't solve
everything for you. If you know in the past, I've benefited
from, you know, engaging with local mental health networks,
and don't ever feel ashamed or embarrassed of doing that.
Because yeah, you can go for a nice walk. And I'm pretty sure
we're all we all know that. But sometimes you might need some
extra help.
Zoe Amar: 100% Yeah, I think it's, it's so important for
leaders to tap into that I myself talk to a therapist
regularly. And it's almost like seeing as a personal trainer in
many ways. You just got to do whatever you got to do to, you
know, to keep looking after your own well being because I think
is a really important thing for leaders, isn't it? You can't put
on anyone else's oxygen mask, if you haven't put your own on
first, like people always say.
Alice Kershaw: Very good point.
So what else is on the wish list then? So if we wave that magic
wand for the other things you'd like to achieve in digital over
the next year or two, and we talked about your aspirations
around AI? What else would you like to do?
Well, so in the next year, we're going to be launching our kind
of one of our actual, an actual digital product, like everyone I
work with is going yeah, that's all thing rather than just a way
of working anyway. So we're actually going to be launching
our next donated digital output, which so when I was talking
about the fact that we want to work more with local
communities, and actually work for local communities to give
them what they need, we've been running a project, which is
funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which has changed
the way we're looking at Community organising. So the
idea is that it should permeate every aspect of the project. And
we should really look at what people need and want, not what
we think they need and want. So that tool is going to be
launching in about June, July time. And what's going to be
interesting about that, is that I think it's probably quite
different to what we initially thought people needed and
wanted. Also not surprised who worked in digital. But when you
start to have a look, kind of we thought that they might want to
think really jazzy and something, you know, really high
tech and like, do we need something that's like got like
maps on it? Or works a bit like Facebook? Or what what do people
really need? And then we brought in a consultancy, called gigs
for social change, who've been doing some user research,
they're fantastic, highly recommend doing some user
research and starting to look at what do people actually want
from us? And it turns out that what they actually wanted, was
quite similar to what I just described, we want for
ourselves, which is case studies of what's working, who's doing
it, where are they doing it? What kind of stuff are they
doing, what resources have they created? What can we learn from
and scale from everyone else? So weirdly, we kind of didn't
necessarily take from what we thought we needed and scale it,
we just kind of went, Oh, that guy wants to look jazzier. So
that's been quite interesting. So we've kind of really use that
as a learning opportunity for like, how to do a project
differently. How do we actually kind of make sure that it's not
just about the kind of stats of it being used, it's like,
actually, we have a little bit of permission to fail, I'm
hoping that it does do what people need, because we've
really based on user need, but for me, the aspiration is, we
learn from that project, and future projects are based on
that approach of what do people need from us? Rather than what
do we think they need? We know what bits of our website are
popular, we, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we know
exactly what people need when they are trying to manage their
own projects out there. So that's one that I think is a
really important one of like, what's that project does and
what comes after that. So that's a big aspiration. But there's
also, well it's kind of phrased making data work for people in
nature, which I've kind of described how we make the most
of our data, looking at kind of really exciting stuff for me
around like data infrastructure, do we need a data lake? Do we
need a data warehouse, that kind of exciting stuff, which I'm not
going to go into, because it's so deadly for anyone else. But
the you know, like getting the infrastructure, right, and the
culture, we have a cultural roadmap for data, and we have a
skills roadmap for data. So now we need to back it up. We've got
to the point now where we need the infrastructure to back up
those ambitions. So how do we look at that? Then we also have
the kind of how do we increase digital confidence. And over the
next couple of years, I want people to feel more confident
about asking questions about digital, I don't want people to
kind of feel they have to know everything about digital. But I
would love it if people were like, You know what? I'm curious
about that. And I don't know about it. And I'm gonna go and
see what that means or what it might look like, or ask someone
else publicly about it, or share what I'm finding that I would
love to see. Because I think that'll be a real sign that
we're getting further in our digital maturity that people
aren't kind of going oh, it's a bit embarrassing not to know it,
but instead of actually having a look. And then at the same time,
there's also a thing in our ambitions around what's kind of
quick term like high integrity digital, and this is like making
sure our digital is meeting our values and that we have opinions
on it. So when we're looking at things like AI, does it meet our
ethical values? Is it something we should be using it? Do we
have an opinion on that? Do we need to have an opinion on that.
But there's something there about like if one of our values
is being is having integrity, then how do we bring that into
our tech, is it making the most of what we have having best
value, having the stuff that's got the lowest carbon footprint
and having a real conversation about that alongside a wider
kind of carbon mitigation, so my big ambitions around digital
around that kind of those kind of almost three pronged things
of like, let's get more confident with it, let's get our
data better and in the hands of people who need it. And let's
make sure that it's actually got the integrity that we deserve as
Zoe Amar: I love that I think are so important to take a
a charity,
values led approach, especially with all the many developments
that are going to come through with emerging tech. And I think
not enough, not enough organisations necessarily put
those values at the heart of their digital transformation.
And it's such an important thing to do. So that's really
exciting. And we'll be cheering you on Alice.
Alice Kershaw: Yeah, no, thank you. I'd be, I mean, there's
such a long way to go. And there's so much learning for us
to do so, for me, it's you know, it's really valuable. Seeing the
stuff you put out, listen to your podcast, learn from others.
That's a really valuable thing. It's like, what can we draw on?
We are, you know, the things we're really good at the things
we're really learning, and how do we make the most of those? So
yeah, really appreciate it. And it'll be exciting to see where
we go, because I think the potential is absolutely massive.
Zoe Amar: Brilliant. Well, we look forward to hearing how all
of it develops.
Alice Kershaw: Brilliant.
Zoe Amar: And we hope to see you on a reserve soon. Cake in one
hand and perhaps beer in the other.
Alice Kershaw: Well, I've got another app idea that was not
what I expected to come out of this.
Paul Thomas: Exactly. Overlooking your data lake, you
can't have a warehouse, it's got to be a data lake.
Alice Kershaw: Well, you know, it's, I mean, we were trying to
work this out the other day with the metaphors of like, what does
that what's the data beavers are to the data lake? Do we need a
data Lodge? I don't know. I'm sure we can work it through.
Zoe Amar: Amazing, fantastic. Thank you so much, Alice, a
delight to talk to you. Really brilliant to hear about all the
amazing things that you've achieved so far, and very
excited to hear what you do next. So please do let us know
how it goes.
Alice Kershaw: Thank you.
Paul Thomas: Thank you so much to Alice for making the time to
come on to the podcast, you can find more information about the
wildlife trusts via their website at wildlifetrusts.org.
Zoe Amar: We'll be back in a fortnight with a brand new
episode, this time speaking to Ben Lindsey OBE of Power The
Fight, an award winning charity, which tackles violence affecting
young people. So stay tuned for that one.
Paul Thomas: And you can support the podcast by leaving us a five
star review wherever you listen to us, whether that's Apple
podcasts on Spotify or Google.
Zoe Amar: Thank you for listening, and we'll see you
next time.
Paul Thomas: Thank you and bye for now.