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.

So what’s caught my eye this week here at WebsEdge? Well it’s interesting. The headlines are full of news of the iPlayer and the iPhone. And as regular readers will know I’m a great fan of both devices.

But what’s really grabbed my attention is the work that’s being done to help communities engage using on-line video. More often than not it’s actually practical applications that are making a difference. Let me give you some examples.

We’re currently working on an initiative with Norfolk, Virginia to let job applicants get more of a feel for both the city and the job specification through the use of on-line video. Straightforward enough you might think. But it’s actually making a real difference to their recruitment. They’re finding it much easier to get people to relocate after watching the video.

Another is the work we’re doing with the International City Managers Association based in Washington DC. We’re helping them run a simple competition where young people can upload their own videos and have people vote on them. Again, nothing too complicated but it facilitates two way communications and lets people feel a part of things.

And I think this is the way things will develop. There’s a great demand for top quality content delivered on-line – be in Doctor Who or CNN’s Doctor Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Literally millions of people a month are consuming television in this way. And running alongside that you’ll see lots of different communities coming together in a very 21st century way through the growth of on-line video.