Winners announced in Socitm 2008 photo competition

The competition tied in with the recent Socitm Insight report around Web 2.0 - Web 2.0: what it is and why it matters - a briefing for public sector managers - and the associated microsite www.socitmweb2.net that has been set up to demonstrate web 2.0 functionality such as blogs and forms.

The competition attracted 23 entrants who submitted a total of 141 images to the Socitm 2008 group page in Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/). The competition was featured on the Socitm Web 2 website www.socitmweb2.net as an exercise in photosharing, one of the web 2.0 developments discussed in the recent Socitm Insight report.

First prize and best image of the social side of event: Martin Gore of NW Business Link

Joint Second Prize and best image of the professional side of the event: Terry Street, Socitm Consulting

Joint Second Prize and best image capturing the conference location: Steve Scott, Leicester City Council

President's Prize: David Goddard, Socitm Office

Photos for the competition were taken on a range of devices including mobile phones.  All images can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/groups/socitm2008/pool/

The photos were judged by:

Richard Steel, President, Socitm
Vicky Sargent, Marketing Consultant, Socitm
Rob McCarthy, Managing Director, GOSS Interactive

Commenting on the competition, Socitm President Richard Steel said: 'With web 2.0 coming up again and again in the professional sessions at the conference, it was good to be doing it as well as talking about it. All the experts say you need to participate in web 2.0 to understand it, and for some entrants this was their first experience of photosharing. It has been fun to do and many thanks to GOSS Interactive for supporting us.'

Rob McCarthy, Managing Director at GOSS added, "Socitm is right to acknowledge that innovations around Web 2.0 take some time to become adopted. Allowing members to try out such techniques for themselves, gives them first hand experience in generating content and sharing ideas. The Web Content Management Solution from GOSS Interactive - iCM, intelligent Content Management - allows for the full integration of Web 2.0 functionality, supporting user generated content such as tagging, forums,  polls, file sharing and social networking, plus engaging client side environments such as personalised homepages, RSS feeds, mapping information, embedding widgets and providing pod and webcasts."

Further information:

Vicky Sargent or Rob Adams, Socitm Press Office
Vicky.Sargent@socitm.gov.uk or Rob.adams@socitm.gov.uk   Tel: 07726 601 139

About GOSS Interactive

GOSS Interactive facilitates the delivery of business goals in the online environment, enabling organisations to keep their websites agile and relevant.  Through its Intelligent Content Management (iCM) software suite, GOSS Interactive provides content rich Web 2.0 websites and the technology to maintain them, hosting services for websites, intranets, extranets and e-commerce tools.

GOSS Interactive supplies solutions to an impressive portfolio of central and local government authorities, as well as high-tech industries and professional services including Brittany Ferries, Virgin Trains, Wrigley and GMTV.

For more information about GOSS please see www.gossinteractive.com