New Media Awards ... in modest new media

The New Statesman New Media Awards last night managed a combination of stunning rain-free setting (College Gardens behind Westminster Abbey), a highly-engaging cross section of media types and politicos, and a reminder through one of the winners (Stop the Traffik) of the darker side of the real world outside. More on that later. I took my camera along to try a bit of very modest new media myself.

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First of all I have another example of what happens when you give the camera to someone else, in this case the distinguished technology analyst Bill Thompson, who writes for the BBC about the online world. I was wandering about with my pocket-sized Sanyo Xacti when Bill decided this was the time and camera with which to demonstrate the MySpace picture-of-me-and-my-mate technique recently learned from his daughter. It is even more embarrassing than the last one, but this blog is dedicated to an open approach, so I feel it can't be suppressed. 

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I then went inside the marquee to a more coherent introduction to the awards by another BBC technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones. He's recently been researching Facebook, where remarks that he lacked online contacts led to the establishment of the group Befriend Rory Cellan-Jones. It has 411 members. In our joint video interview Bill recalled a year when everything went terribly wrong ... but this year it all went smoothly, with some insights from Mike Butcher into the judging process.

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We also heard from Labour MP Barry Sheerman, who made us all feel good by suggesting new media was contributing to a potential revolution in education and career development.

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The New Statesman is, of course, a Labour-supporting publication, but this year demonstrated an even-handed approach in the awards by offering no impediment to the choice of Tory leader David Cameron as winner in the Elected Representative category, more for the Webcameron site than his constituency one. I was one of the judges, and as the awards site says:

What impressed the judges was Cameron’s continued engagement with the project, the genuine use of it by the public and how the site had encouraged others in politics into using similar online communication and engagement methods.

Perhaps it is just as well we didn't give the award to one of the other finalists, Councillor Andrew Burns, for his Really Bad Blog which is showing a Normal Service Will Resume Shortly post at present. It is still carrying comments, including Watch Live Sex NOW!!! On another site, of course.
David Cameron was in Rwanda, so couldn't turn up in person. Instead we had a rather good stand-in performance from Ed Vaizey MP, Shadow Minister for Culture. I missed his opening line about being David's avatar from Second Life, but caught most of the rest.
Of the other winners, I agree with William Hilderbrandt about the winner in the Advocacy section.

Perhaps the most impressive example of the way new media can connect people was this year's advocacy winner Stop The Traffik (STT). The website, which is little more than a year old, is campaigning to end human trafficking has exploded into a global coalition of more than 800 organisations with its website translated into 20 different languages.
Peter Stanley is STT's strategy director and said: "A lot of our success wouldn't be possible without the New Statesman. We're now speaking to 120 of the largest multinational corporations, to the UN, to MTV and celebrities. We have people organising events and concerts, sending us money they raised for us that we knew nothing about."

I interviewed Peter Stanley, and will write a further item about that.
The crew at MySociety are quite rightly pleased with their success in Modernising Government (No 10 petitions) and Contribution to Civil Society (FixMyStreet). Futurelab won the education section with Create-a-scape, enabling teachers and students to create mediascapes using a PDA handheld computer, headphones and a digital map of their area. Intelligent Giving were a worthy winner in Information and Openness, providing independent assessments of over 1500 charities "to help you give happily and with confidence".

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The winner of the Young Innovator award, 21-year-old James Wheare, created Livebus which gives users real-time bus information across three counties. Judges were impressed by his plans to expand it to the whole of he UK. At the awards James said he was feeling a bit guilty since he now has a job, and hasn't updated the site for some months. Expansion may take a little time.  That's the problem with innovators - on to the next thing.
I think congratulation are also due to Kathryn Corrick for chairing the judging, Charlotte Eisenhart for organising just about everything,  New Statesman publisher Spencer Neal, and sponsors Atos Origin. Can I come next year, please?

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