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Innovate by building on what’s there

Bill Thompson and the New Statesman New Media Awards 2008 from David Wilcox on Vimeo.

Technology writer Bill Thompson, a judge in the New Statesman New Media Awards 2008,  has been involved since the awards started 10 years ago. He is well-placed to applaud both the consistent support of  NS publisher Spencer Neal, and that of competitors committed to turning ideas into action.

On this occasion Bill was standing in for Cabinet Office Minister Tom Watson, who was called to a Commons vote. Earlier Tom - see interview here - had launched a competition called Show Us a Better Way offering £20,000 in prizes for projects to use government-collected data more innovatively for public services.

Bill said he thought that Tom would ask those assembled to be patient but persistent, recognising that government has habits that are hard to change.

He would also ask people to keep up the pressure on him and his team to open up services, to take more risks and to break down unnecessary barriers.

I think he would ask you to prove him right by building great services and tools on top of what is already out there, by stretching the limits of the possible and even the permissible

To give him ideas and allow him to demonstrate what could be done with existing services, and what more could be done if more data feeds and data sources were opened up.

Then he would ask you all to come back next year and win this competition.

Full recording here of the awards ceremony.

Bill suggests in this interview at 2gether08 that you should be embarrassed if you don’t make the effort to understand new media.

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