Digital

Why our team blogs

June 26, 2026 by deborahamzil No Comments | Category Content Design, Social Security Scotland

Claire Robertson, Senior Content Designer in Social Security Scotland guest blogs about the value of blogging.

On the 2 year (ish) anniversary of our Social Security Scotland content design blog, I thought it would be useful to reflect on the value of blogging and how it has helped our team.

What do other teams think we do

The reason for starting our blog was to use it as way of working in the open – with the ultimate goal of helping stakeholders understand what it is we do and the value we can add. As content designers, we’ve all experienced misconceptions around what we do. That is, we are brought in at the end to add the words, or to check for grammar and typos. Blogging helps us challenge these ideas by bringing stakeholders on the journey with us through our work.

Communication that lasts

In the workplace where much of our time is taken up with meetings, conversations and presentations – it’s important to remember where written communication might be more effective. Show and Tells absolutely have their place – especially to get a buzz going and an in-person conversation happening. Not every piece of work that has an impact is necessarily going to warrant a Show and Tell though, and there’s a lot to be said in having a written record of what you’ve achieved that you can keep coming back to.

For example, if I want to persuade a stakeholder of the value of having a pair writing session with me, I can easily point them to Morven McAllister’s blog which neatly explains what it is and how we might carry it out. Or I can show them Andy Robertson and Caitlin Stewart’s joint account of pair writing in practice so they can see a real-life example of what it can achieve. Blogs are also a great tool to use to onboard new team members too, showing them how we use journey mapping as a content design tool, for example, or how different processes work.

You might also find that when presenting work in front of a large audience you don’t always say everything you wanted to, or in the right way. The beauty of a blog is that you can make sure you articulate something exactly as you wish.

A way to form ideas

I find writing blogs a great way of fully forming ideas and making sense of them too. There’s something cathartic in sitting and writing down an idea and watching it take shape. Or not, sometimes. Often writing something down helps you see it through a second pair of eyes, and you realise it was better left as rambling thoughts!

Connecting with a wider audience

As our blog got up and running, we were also able to find a wider audience with the Scottish Government Digital Directorate who said they would love to publish some of our blogs on their digital blog (the one you are reading now). It has been a great opportunity for us to spread the word wider about the work that Social Security Scotland does and show clients the care and expertise we put into our content. It’s also useful for attendees of Scottish Digital Academy courses to read examples of content design in action.

Getting started

Below are some things that helped us get our team blog started:

• Find some champions – find some team members that are enthusiastic about blogging who are not afraid to give honest feedback. I need to give a shout out to Emma Jones and Therese Hooper for all the time spent helping edit blogs, generating ideas and being general cheerleaders for it.
• Create some guidelines – we created some guidelines for potential blog writers that were rooted in our original reasons for starting the blog. We wanted the blogs to be real life examples of our unique ways of working in the Social Security Scotland content design team. A common theme means that while every blog has a different author, regular readers know what to expect from them.
• Advice on structuring a blog – this part I’ve completely stolen from Ray Newman’s excellent LinkedIn post ‘How to write a blog post: the basics’. This article is the first thing I send to a team member who is looking for some practical steps to take them from a blank page to a blog post.

Just do it

My main piece of advice for anyone thinking about blogging is – just do it! It’s not something you want to overthink. Easier said than done, I know. After years of writing factual and action based operational guidance at work, writing a blog in my own voice and expressing my opinions suddenly felt quite exposing. That gets easier, the more you do it though. You don’t need a groundbreaking idea or a perfectly crafted first post – you just need to get started.

Tags: content design, pair writing, Scottish Digital Academy, Social Security Scotland

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