Back to our seminar of 29-30 September (see previous post). The Big Issue.

At events such as this seminar, one subject often emerges as the one which sets the debate alive, gets people disagreeing with each other and spills over into the conversations at the table later.  It may have been me who set the ball rolling, but the subject was in the air anyway.  For my presentation, scheduled for the sleepy post-lunchtime slot, I thought I would try to keep people’s attention by showing them a couple of fun internet videos as illustrations of the kind of thing we could potentially do ourselves to promote the elections.  One was the Google Gmail collaborative video, a possible model for a mad-ways-of-getting-votes-to-Brussels exercise of some sort.  The other was the highly successful and utterly joyous first “Where the hell is Matt” video, which shows a man doing a silly dance in locations all over the world, suggesting great “voting-dance” possibilities for us. (If you haven’t seen either or both of these, PLEASE do so, you’ll be grateful to me for weeks, even if you do not reach the end of this post as a consequence.)

The question which these videos raised, and was later reinforced by a discussion of whether EP communications staff could blog and/or participate as such in online debates and comments columns, was that of where the limits are to what we do online.  For some, I felt, the issue was one of decorum, that is somehow does not befit public servants to engage in “unserious” communications of this sort.  Others felt that the attempt to be “cool” would also lead to neglect of older target audiences.  Still others insisted that such activities would compromise the status of public officials and expose them to the risk of criticism for overstepping the mark.  These are indeed all valid concerns (also touched upon in a previous post) but I feel they are all contingent upon a particular view of the world which is changing.  Ultimately, we will simply not be able to stand by as opinions are increasingly formed, news increasingly circulated and publicity increasingly obtained via the informal channels of the internet.  

Moreover, as I was delighted to hear our Director-General point out in her concluding remarks, to be “cool” is not necessarily to be “unserious”.  In the end, it is for the medium to suit the message and the target audience.  I have a notion that she, like me, would be more cautious in practice than she is in theory. There are limits, and we have – for our own good – to be cautious about getting carried away by notions of what is possible for a public institution.  (One of the worst downside risks might actually be the cringe factor (remember this?), “like when your dad thinks he’s being cool”…)  But at the same time, no-one ever made much of an impact in communications without pushing the limits somehow.  It’s all about how and when. 

To conclude, another illustration.  This video, explicitly aimed at getting out the vote (in the US), was released this week.  It’s raking in hundreds of thousands of views. It is cool, yet not unserious. Yes, it has a couple of rude words… Sure, it has celeb pulling power. However, I think this is also just really well done, showing that you don’t have to be silly or obviously funny to go viral on the internet and that a serious message is not necessarily a turn-off.  So is this the sort of thing we could do?