Getting audiences involved in activities run by the Â鶹Éç and our partners using our TV and radio programmes is at the heart of the Â鶹Éç's to inspire a life full of learning for all our audiences.

In January we announced that Â鶹Éç Online would be reshaped around , including a combined .

Things To Do is in line with the emerging product vision, seeking to unlock the learning potential across all Â鶹Éç programming.

The Â鶹Éç already runs a number of popular broadcast related activities like the the or activities. It has also had success in other initiatives like and which let audiences know about partners' activities that engage audiences in learning about nature or history, for example.

Connecting it together

Until now though, this sort of content has lived in lots of different places within Â鶹Éç Online.

Most often it was not connected and could not be searched together by location or date, had different user experiences and frequently was provided by different technical solutions.

Things To Do now brings this content altogether in a single solution making it easy for audiences to discover, and when they do, they'll find a consistent user experience that connects them with the wealth of Â鶹Éç activity in this area.

All of the activities are about learning and/or participation, and are:

• Free or run on a cost-recovery basis,

• Run by the Â鶹Éç or publicly funded or not-for-profit partners,

• Tied to our TV and radio programmes or learning campaigns.

So, a user might find out about one of the nature activities off the back of an on-air call to action by Kate Humble on .

They might then participate in an activity. Here's a nice comment on Flickr from someone who found out about a Bat Walk via Springwatch and Things To Do.

We'll be working with some of the Â鶹Éç's biggest programmes and events - , ,, and the , to name a few - by putting all these events in one place we're hoping to inspire a greater number of people to interact time and time again.

We're not just trying to make things easier for audiences.

Things To Do is designed to help the Â鶹Éç meet an important part of its - to be a "catalyst and connector in the public space" and "help other institutions to reach and enrich the public".

To make this happen we've provided a single set of tools that makes it simpler for Â鶹Éç TV and radio programmes to promote their activities online or work with partners.
And we've made it easier for the great partners we work with - organisations like the , the and the . Our new admin interface will open shortly allowing, all our partners to enter their activities in just one place.

We've also announced an exciting data-sharing partnership with the online aggregator for the cultural sector,, to allow cultural institutions across the country to share easily their public-facing learning activities related to Â鶹Éç programmes and brands.
We'll also be linking to their websites, where editorially appropriate, in line with our commitment to double external referrals for the benefit of the wider web.

What next?

We'll be continuing development to improve the user experience, working closely with the two agencies who have delivered Things To Do: and .

There are also a lot of exciting things to come, including improved mapping as well as more social and personalisation features.

The next big milestone to watch out for though is the mobile browser version of Things To Do, allowing users to find activities around them while they are out and about, the development of which is sure to keep us all really busy over the summer!

Ziad Dajani is the Editorial Lead Product Manager for Â鶹Éç Things To Do, part of the Â鶹Éç Online Knowledge & Learning product.

N.B. You can read Saul Nasse's thoughts on Things To Do on the About The Â鶹Éç blog.

(Ziad's job title corrected 4th Jan 2012 by Ian McD)