Put 80 bloggers in one of our shiny meeting room (the kind that comes with interpreters booth all around, micros for every two seats, two big screen and a beamer) to propose them a quick introduction to the European Parliament, its website and its Press service and guess what will be their first question. You’re right: where is the wi-fi?

We don’t have a public wi-fi – not in the meeting rooms. There is one in the press room, which lays two continents away from where the bloggers were – OK, maybe not two continents but at least five floors. Too far away, I’m afraid. But try to explain that to bloggers : “We’re bloggers, we want to blog while you talk, that’s what we do”.

Er, sure, whatever.

We’re bloggers, we want to blog while you talk, that’s what we do.

Steve and I had prepared a good show for this demanding audience – you know, we kinda have a reputation to defend. We wanted to highlight the most interesting features bloggers oriented of our website, such as the RSS, the downloadable video on demand service of the Plenary session and, of course, our new Elections 2009 section. We also wanted to explain how we work, what’s our team, why our Unit is the coolest. The Boss-of-the-pop had prepared a flabbergasting presentation on Powerpoint and our lipdub video was set and ready (for some copyrights reason, our lipdub video has been suppressed by YouTube – that’s sad). We had prepared les petits plats dans les grands, as we say in French, and even before the event started, we knew the bloggers would blog us. That’s what they do, right? When they have an Internet connexion, that is.

The 80 bloggers in one of our meeting room – (c) Flasher T on Flickr

Wait – why were they here ?

Our friends at the European Commission together with their friends at the European Journalism Center have organised a blogging competition, called Th!nk about it (they th!nk a lot at the Commission, it seems). Here’s the competition explained by the organizers :

Each participant will post at least once a month (February 1 – June 9, 2009) on the THINK ABOUT IT Elections 2009 blogsite. In February and March, any European-related topic is welcome and from April-June the theme is the European Elections 2009 (issues, candidates, parties, EP, national views on the elections). Photos, audio and video are always encouraged! Postings have to be made in English (does not have to be perfect English; the five site editors can help with the language, if the blogger so wishes). The participants are also welcome to comment on the posts of others. (from Th!ink about it)

The participants were invited in Brussels for a kick-off event where they visited the main EU institutions (see it as a meeting rooms beauty contest) and discussed with some civil servants, including Steve and I.

We love this kind of event, because it allows us to  exchange with real people who really use the web and can critisize our website in positive or negative ways. So, we were set and ready, one of our colleague warmed up the audience by explaining the main power of the Parliament, bloggers were blogging, some were even filming us, others were recording the speach.

Suddenly…

The beamer crashed.

And I looked even stupider than usual while trying to fix it. I used all means at my disposal and stopped just before the atomic-fix-of-the-death – which consists in strangling the tech guy who came at my rescue – because he eventually repaired the damn thing.

Meanwhile, Steve was talking.  For one hour, without any slides to support his points. Oh, and the bloggers were blogging, filming, recording…

Once the beamer started, the real show began. The bloggers looked like they were interested in our website. Some of them asked technical questions, which, for a reason I have difficulties to grasp, I am the one who’s supposed to answer. So, NO, the video on demand is no embeddable yet, but all videos from our little sister europarltv are. And YES, you may use all contents from the European Parliament website for free, except the photos which come with copyrights.

The word “propaganda” was spoken out loud – about europarltv. In case you wonder, we don’t consider it as a bad word, in the sense that everyone is always welcome to challenge the essence of our work (Are the daily news we publish on the headlines propaganda? Is europarltv  too?). First, the best is to watch, read, and judge by yourselves. Second, in a web 2.0 world, is there still a place for “propaganda”, brain-washing and other control of citizen’s mind? Provided you have access to the regular Internet (versus, say, the Chineese one), we think the answer is no. Like I said, we love to debate those topics, so feel free to post a comment below.

Why didn’t we spit the news out?

At the time of the event, this blog wasn’t ready to be open – technical fussing again. And like the old Chinese saying I just made up says: “Don’t tell the lion you like its meat”, we prefered not to mention to the 80 bloggerstars the existence of this one. We’re often a bit shy.

We’ll follow the competition online and we may even report and dialog with the bloggers, especially if they write about the European elections – and according to the rules, they surely will.

In the midtime, you can check what they wrote about their days in Brussels:

• here (“I’d say the impression I got from the city was that the Belgians are sufficiently organized and orderly to keep it all running, but don’t care enough to make it sparkle.“),
• here (“There was little debate around my suggestion that European electorates were generally very poorly informed about European Parliamentary affairs and this had as much to do with the poor quality of the product as it had to do with the poor PR of the EP communications team.“) ;
• and here (““Why isn’t the wireless working in here?” a fellow blogger demanded. “WE ARE BLOGGERS,” he proclaimed as if it were the essence of his being, an article of faith.)
• or look at those photos from the event (thanks to Flasher T on Flickr).

Lively, challenging, not too respectful, young, cool and attractive  – everything bloggers should be!

Steve and I couldn’t come back from the wrap-up session at the end (there is always another meeting somewhere, you know), but a great colleague of us expressed to the audience what we felt about them: “lively, challenging, not too respectful, young, cool and attractive  – everything bloggers should be!”