So what’s your year been like so far? If you’re anything like us you’ve seen off the snow – though it doesn’t always feel like that – and you’re looking forward to Spring and what lies ahead.

For us here at WebsEdge it’s a busy time. We’re working on a new initiative this year - the Local Government Challenge - where we bring two teams of aspirant local authority chief executives together to work on a number of leadership challenges. It’s fun and exciting and a very different way of seeing who is up to the mark. If you haven’t been following it please take a look here on our local government channel website.

And we’re working on a whole host of public sector television projects here in the UK. Later this month we’re covering conferences on people management and culture for the local government channel. And then in April it’s the first ever Surgeons TV for the Association of Surgeons in Britain and Ireland. And whilst the UK public sector market remains challenging there’s still plenty for us to get our teeth into.

But a growing amount of our work is in the US now. In June for example we have two major conferences to cover for our Global Health TV Channel -Women Deliver and the Global Health Council’s Annual Conference. Both take place in Washington DC and both tackle progress on meeting the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

These are obviously exciting projects. And the filming for them takes us all over the world. One segment alone takes us from the US to Haiti, Afghanistan and Malawi! The logistics are challenging but we really enjoy making such relevant content.

So it’s already been an exciting year and we’re not even a quarter through. Let’s not kid ourselves - it’s going to remain economically challenging for some time to come but I can’t help but feel that as the world continues it’s journey out of recession opportunity is still out there as long as you know where to find it.

What a night for television audiences. I think some 20 million people tuned in to watch the final of this year’s X Factor and what a finale it was with the favourite Joe McElderry taking the honours.

Right now the Local Government Channel is involved in its own talent search. We’ve teamed up with the Local Government Association to run the Local Government Leadership Challenge.

Based very loosely on the concept of the Apprentice, ok I’ve got my shows a little mixed up here, the idea is to set two teams of individuals from councils throughout the country a number of challenges to revitalise their communities. There are various of these ranging from promoting local libraries and other services to giving a boost to the local high street.

And we’ve got off to a flying start. The contestants have been chosen, the challenges set and everything kicks off in January. We’re going to be filming every one of them and posting the results on our web site. So be sure to tune in to see how the candidates are getting on.

A little light hearted but with a very serious message. Our attention is often drawn to high profile talents on a national and international stage. But very often there’s some excellent work being done on our own doorsteps and it is high time we recognised it!