Today was the closing date for submissions to the Bristol B-Open competition and I am delighted to hear that we have had 11+ proposals for innovative open data projects from Bristol companies. The expert panel (and me) will be shortlisting over the next couple of weeks. Fingers crossed we will be able to commission 3 really good ideas!

I only returned from leave on Monday and I was interested to get an update from Mark N (our open data project manager) about the requests for council data that we had received during the application process. It seems that not all council colleages share Councillor Mark Wright’s view that “Bristol City Council only has two forms of data – that which is confidential and that which can be shared”. We have other categories of data – “that which we sell” and “that which is expensive to collect and therefore we can’t just give away”! It is easy to dismiss then latter argument (whose money is it anyway…) but I have been troubled by the former arguement.

The example I was given relates to traffic accident hotspots. We had a request for this data but Mark was told that we could not just give it away as the Council sells it. My own view is that BCC has some sort of ‘moral’ responsibility to make this data available even if it means relinquishing an income stream, but in these austere times, I wonder what other people think… should the council (and Government) maximisize the revenue that might be gained from selling data, or should we give it away on the basis that we can encourage use for the greater good? #opendata #beopen  Any views?

Chris Quigley, founder of Bristol based eDemocracy Consultancy Delib has been speaking to the Guardian about his involvement in the online activities of both the Obama administration in the States and the Coalition government here in the UK.

Chris is a firm believer in policy crowdsourcing and has recently been working on the Treasuries Spending Challenge and the Your Freedom initiative.

Bristol Streets is a web site that provides map based information about transport, and individuals opinions of the city of Bristol. Local web firm Logogriph developed the map mash up, working with a range of transport data sources, including buses, cycle routes, trains and ferries.  There is also a layer to comment on the things you like, or don’t like, in the city, and your suggestions for how it might be improved.

Don’t forget, if you are have your own creative idea for using digital media to present information about the city you have have less than a week to get your application in to the Media Sandbox B Open competition.

Nlarge Photography are a group of young people between 13 and 19 who have undertaken an extensive programme of training in all aspects of photography. They meet every Tuesday at Knowle West Media Centre. The group are always happy to welcome new members. If you are interested in joining them you can contact them on 0117 9030 444 or  nlarge@kwmc.org.uk

The exhibition at the Create Centre is a retrospective showcasing their work from 2003-2010.

Make it Local aims to encourage collaboration between local authorities and digital media developers, to provide innovative, web-based services for their communities. Connecting Bristol launched a similar competition earlier this month.

Nesta recognise that Local Authorities hold data that digital creatives can use to build useful and compelling application. The competition is offering three local authorities up to £30,000 to spend with a digital media business in their area. If you are interested in developing an idea with Bristol City Council contact us. The closing date is 20 August 2010.

The Government has delayed delivering on its commitment to ensure that every UK home has access to broadband speeds of at least 2 megabits per second (mbps). The original target had been to achieve this by 2012, but this has been revised to the end of the current Parliament in 2015. There are in the region of 2 million homes that are not able to access broadband speeds of 2 megabits, and approximately 16,000 which have no access to broadband services at all.

Local Authorities have an obligation to have a process in place to accept petitions from citizens. By Christmas this year they will need to be in a position to accept ePetitions.

Petities.nl, the Dutch national petitioning website has produced this video to explain in simple terms how to make the most of your opportunity to engage with your authority in this way.

Bristol City Council was, with Kingston,  the first local authority in the UK to pilot ePetitioning six years ago. BCC is now piloting a cross-border europetitioning system which allows citizens to bring their concerns directly to the European Parliament. The system also operates in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Sweden. Petitions are translated so that support can be raised across a range of European member states. If you have an issue that you feel they can respond to post a petition at Bristol ePetitioning website and select the European Parliament as your target.

The Annual Good Communications Awards recognise achievement in all areas of public sector comms. This year Connecting Bristol has been shortlisted alongside Kent Connects and Hertfordshire County Council for the IT Partnership Award.

I’m currently testing the excellent (and free) instant webcasting application Bambuser, and will attempt to webcast the announcement of the winner live from the venue in the window below (this is dependent on a reasonable internet connection being available). Check back around 9.30pm this evening.

Update: Congratulations to Hertfordshire County Council who won the award. I’m afraid I didn’t manage to webcast the event live but this photo was taken just as Nick Owen was announcing the winner.

Barbara Janke, the leader of Bristol Council, has been producing regular video updates exploring a range of issues and concerns across the City.

The latest video in this series looks at the opportunities which should emerge in Bristol’s property sector as the City begins to emerge from recession.

The UK’s Digital Champion Martha Lane Fox has launched an ambitious manifesto aiming to bring the whole of the UK workforce online before the end of this Parliament. She hopes to achieve this vision by making the most of the skills, networks and equipment we already have by recycling kit, joining up existing infrastructure and exploit the assets and the skills that we already have.

In setting out the compelling reasons why we need to enable and encourage everyone to enjoy the benefits of being online Martha Lane Fox says;

We need to be ambitious, ‘think internet first’ when we design services, and put the needs of the hardest to reach at the heart of industry, charity and government. There is a social and moral case to make sure more people are online but there is a clear economic case too. We will all be better off when everyone is online.