How’s everything in your business? Getting back to normal or still stuck in the recession? Indeed does anyone know what normal is any more!

Well it’s our busy time of year here at WebsEdge. We’re currently working on tv projects ranging from university admissions to crime and law enforcement. And we’re on our travels too – Liverpool in September, Beijing in October and New Orleans in November amongst many others.

To kick this season off I’ve just come back from Montreal where, for the fourth time, we’ve been producing a series of tv programmes for the International City Managers Association Annual Conference. Before and during the event we talked to city managers from all over the world. And of course the main subject for conversation was the recession.

What really surprised me was the amount of consensus. Everyone it seems has been effected by it. Everyone feels the worst is over and yet everyone is wary about the recovery. What shape will it take and how will we even know it’s here?

Not surprisingly being in Montréal we worked with quite a number of Canadian cities. And it was really refreshing to do so. Canadian cities, it seems are investing heavily in their communities future and they can afford to do that because the recession in Canada has been less severe than in many other countries. And that I think says a lot about their desire to build a sustainable future without getting too involved in economic bubbles that all too often leads to economic bust.