Sometimes you’ve got to run to stand still.  So they say.  And its certainly true of anyone in the internet publishing business.  Both the technology and the (of course, related) fashion move so fast that if you don’t innovate you’re very quickly hopelessly antiquated and/or unhip.  It was in this business that, in spring 2008, I first heard the weary dismissal of an idea as being “sooo 2007″…  So, what to do?  Obviously keep it lean, mean, innovative, cutting edge. 

Yet this is the European Parliament we’re talking about here.  Not that the European Parliament is particularly hidebound or slow compared to its peer group – it really isn’t so bad – but it’s that peer group which is the problem.  A public administration, responding to the demands of political authorities, is never going to be exactly fleet of foot, as any serious change is going to have to go through a lengthy, inevitably cautious, and at times unpredictable decision making process.  And then there’s the question of how it gets paid for.  None of this is actually a bad thing, the last thing the taxpayer wants is a bunch of flash harries throwing money around on hare-brained schemes, but it does imply that the website will develop somewhat more cautiously than what we might call the industry norm. 

And to be fair, you have to remember that the EP website is a seriously weightly undertaking.  Our “news” part of it is only one small component of a sprawling enterprise: news site, vast quantities of more static information, documentary archive,  constantly updated politico-governmental resource, streaming and multimedia… And all this in 22 languages (so it’s really 22 sprawling websites, synchronised).  But though we may feel the technical guys’ pain, we still can’t help getting frustrated as we send each other links to the coolest websites out there, drooling over their technology, freedom and creativity.  We’re desperate to do some of that stuff.  Oh well, it’s good to push, but we have to be a tad realistic at the same time.

So imagine our excitement when we got back from our summer break to find a great big gift-wrapped parcel from our tech friends sitting on our desk.  Inside: photo galleries (at last!), multimedia mini-banners, a new package of promotional graphical elements, a set of “boxes” for “quotes of the day”, polls, quizzes and the like, and much more.  Visions of a new, graphically richer, multimedia dawn!  It had taken a while to arrive, and, OK, there were some initial glitches with some of our new toys, but now it’s up to us to get this show on the road.  Watch this space!