Helping Civil Space find its voice
Co-creating the voice of a SaaS product
Before it was acquired by Zencity, Civil Space was hatched at the digital agency I worked at, Domain7. In fact, before it was Civil Space, it was a clever little tool we helped build for our clients at the District of North Vancouver.
I was just digging up the original plans from the workshop and strategy for that original version:
(Okay, admittedly, that's a little boring to read; just wanted to give you a glimpse behind-the-scenes)
We took that workshop, and turned it into a tool. Took that tool, turned it into a product. Took that product, and turned it into a company.
My colleague Tim Booker was leading the product development, and I had the privilege of helping define some early features, be a bridge between the client, and eventually help a little bit with the development of Civil Space's naming, brand explorations, voice and tone, and content marketing. (Brennan Gleason's got some great logo explorations on his Dribbble site, shown below).
In what other ways did I help this lovely product find its way?
- Drafted early voice & tone guidelines for the proto-brand
- Manned a trade-show booth at a Government of Canada innovation fair
- Gave product demos to clients on behalf of the CEO
- Was an early user of the tool for citizen engagement research, running full processes, then synthesizing the results using qualitative research tools like Dovetail, for clients like the University of the Fraser Valley (for their Strategic Imperatives Report).
- Providing feature improvement suggestions to the product development team (including being an early voice for the adoption of AI synthesis tools)
- Co-presented on the topic of inclusive engagement for audiences at the IAP2 conference and more, with presenters Tim Booker and Renée Mak
- Wrote, hosted and produced a podcast feature on the nature of inclusive engagement
- Co-hosted a full-day "design thinking for civic engagement" session for government leaders
- Participated in extensive research and user engagement processes, led by Renée, to determine how to make the product more inclusive and accessible
- Probably wrote some blog posts as well
Civil Space was eventually acquired by Zencity, and became Zencity Engage. It's still great. You should use it!
