Thought so. And we are too here at WebsEdge. It’s been a busy year and there’s so much more to look forward to!

Last week in fact we were at the seaside in Bournemouth for the Local Government Association Annual Conference. We were there for two reasons; to show a series of programmes we made through the local government channel and to honour front-line workers through the council worker of the year awards.

Around the conference we conducted some research into how citizens interact with councils and what their major concerns are. As you can imagine people are concerned about crime etc but by and large they were happy enough with the overall job councils are doing. But what really surprised me was how poorly they think councils communicate. And get this. Only 6% use the Internet as their primary means of communication. When we pushed them further 64% wanted to see video as part of that communications mix.

A lot to ‘chew’ on when we made it over to the council worker of the year dinner. At the dinner we showed videos of each finalist which had played on our website over the past ten weeks allowing citizens to vote for their favourite worker. It was a good night and everyone enjoyed picking up their prizes and toasting the winners. View the winners collecting their awards!

But what stuck in my mind was the 21 year old man collecting his award for bravery. The video showed how he had saved several lives through cool thinking when the bus he was travelling on almost crashed because the driver suffered a heart attack. Luke received a standing ovation from the whole audience and was widely applauded in the press the next day. View his story here.

At the end of the day video tells powerful stories – be it on or off line. And if institutions are going to communicate with their stakeholders in the 21st century they’re going to have to make a whole lot better use of it.

Communications and consultation are the watchwords of local government today. In the UK, there have recently been a number of central government announcements about e-government becoming we-government. Citizens, we are told, will have more involvement in health and social care decisions in their local areas, and in the design and delivery of public services.

All well and good. The trouble is, the public doesn’t believe it will ever happen. Government consultation does not always have a very good record for translating into measures that the public has asked for.

WebsEdge has just conducted a survey of 1,000 UK citizens to find out what they think local government’s top neighbourhood priorities should be. Not rubbish, as you might be forgiven for thinking if you read the acres of newsprint in the UK devoted to the subject (waste management came a mere fifth). It’s neighbourhood crime. And what’s interesting, is that there is a real appetite for helping to solve it – by using local government websites more, by posting photos or videos of the results of anti-social behaviour to speed up local government decision-making.

At the moment, there isn’t a lot of incentive to use the website – only 6% of people mostly get their information about local government from the council website. But imagine if you made these sites dynamic and interactive, using the combination of visual (photos and videos) and text content that they asked for in the survey. You could build real online communities, and use them to engage residents to participate in real decision-making. With that, you might just find citizens and local government working more closely together after all.

Read How Councils Communicate: Feedback from Stakeholders GfK NOP here.

May is really hotting up for all of us at WebsEdge. We started off with our local government employee of the year awards. The aim here is to find those council workers who go over and above the call of duty in delivering excellent services. We’ve gone round the country making videos of the 41 finalists and now it’s down to the public vote. View the finalists videos on www.localgovernmentchannel.com.

And you know, something extraordinary has happened. On the first day we had over 5,000 votes and we expect over a quarter of a million before this thing ends. And this is in a field where apathy normally reigns. Local Government the world over has a poor reputation and people often don’t bother to vote in local elections. But if you make the stories real – and about people – voters engage.

We also started a new television service for secondary school teachers. Again, this was very well received. It seems examples of best practice, when told well, are really interesting to professionals. View the videos on www.nahttv.com.

And a bunch of us have spent the last week in Detroit. We’ve been looking at the whole issue of regeneration and how we can bring our inner cities to life. What have we found? That whilst regeneration means billions of pounds are spent on new buildings it only really happens when it extends to peoples lives. And again, it’s those people stories which really count. View the stories on regenerating brownfiled areas at www.icmatv.com.

Most exciting of all four of our colleagues are setting off for South Africa this weekend. They have a couple of jobs to do. We’re covering a major international event in Malawi. But we’re also stopping by our friends in Illinge in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. We’re really excited about that and can’t wait to see how they’re getting on.

So it’s quite a month and we’re not halfway through yet! But what ties all these activities together? You know it’s interesting. These events are global. But in each case we’re talking about community engagement and what makes a difference in people’s lives. And we’re just delighted to be able to play a small role in all of that.