Over 200 ideas already submitted in UK Government competition

With plenty of time left until the end of September deadline, over 200 ideas have already been submitted to the Show Us A Better Way competition being run by the Power of Information Task Force.

A great deal has already been written about this fantastic initiative - most of which is linked from Nick's post on the subject.

In the last few days Tom has praised the Royal Mail for allowing people entering the competition to use the full Postcode Address File dataset and Ed is rightly pleased that entries are moving "beyond the simple map mash-ups".

Casting an eye over the entries, and 200 of them makes for a lot of eye-casting, a number of things come to mind.

There are an encouraging number of 'green' or eco-friendly themed ideas that have been submitted, including the fantastically titled How green is my 'hood?.

Despite the competitive element to the set-up there also seems to be a good, and helpful, set of comments appearing alongside the ideas... mostly just one or two comments per idea - e.g. Cycle Parking - but hopefully the wisdom of crowds can be harnessed to help the submitted ideas develop into something even better.

Some of the ideas have been submitted in a very basic form (e.g. Parking Fine Justice) whereas others are almost built (e.g. Where can i live?) which will presumably make the challenge of handing out the £20,000 prize less than simple.

But the prize almost seems to have become a secondary issue here.

The fact that so many people have taken the opportunity to participate in the creative development of useful, valuable informational services on the web must be a good thing.

Even those with little or no technical expertise are taking part and finding clever, creative solutions to improve the world around us... and that is definitely a good thing in so many ways.

So, what are you waiting for? Now it's time to submit your idea.