Archive for February, 2009
Sakharov makes sense
I really like my job. It can be tough and demanding but also enriching. Last year I was coordinating the communication campaign for the Sakharov Prize. European Parliament gives it every year to those who fight for human rights, promote democracy etc. As it was also the 20th anniversary of the Prize, we decided to invite all the previous laureates and make a round table at December plenary.
A tramp abroad
They come and they leave and without them, our life at the office wouldn’t be the same. Our dear trainees, Cristina, Cliff, Franck and Richard, have shared five months with us. We asked them to testify about this experience. Here comes Richard’s vision of our own little world.
REAL politics in the European Parliament?
Organisations, so they say, are rational enterprises, deciding their priorities and allocating resources on the basis of a cool analysis of need. Alternatively, as anyone who has ever worked in an organisation can attest, humanity imposes its own, not-always-quite-so-rational, world view on the neat theory of organisational utopia.
For your information, I have a question: how much is a light bulb worth?
Climate change, saving energy and economic crisis are the hottest and sexiest topics in Europe at the moment. Every week we are writing articles about EU policies and the debates held by the European Parliament on how to solve the current crisis or which policies are the best ones.
Too young to be a veteran
It is strange to hear that someone talks about you as a veteran when you are not in your thirties yet; but the truth is that in a dynamic and challenging team like ours, in the webcomm, it is not that difficult.
Sex, porn and Britney Spears
Fear not, you’re still on the irreproachable collective blog of the EP web editors. But you are also on the internet, and I was much struck a few days ago by the information, from the impeccable source of one of my co-workers, that the three most commonly searched terms in Google are the three that [...]
Public versus secure
All night long I had nightmares about being stripped bare by security officers who were looking for plastic guns in my pockets. This morning I feared coming to work. Not because a man with a gun robbed yesterday a branch of the ING bank in a building of the European Parliament. But because I feared [...]
Albert or Javier? that was the question…
Every Wednesday, the team meets to propose subjects, ideas, stories and angles for the Headlines of the week to come. Get an insider glance at what was proposed, refused, discussed… this week, through Hanna’s eyes.
The election website in one picture
Editors write and Web-designers, well, design. So when comes their turn to post here, they’d rather do it in a graphical way. From Fred and Sophie, our talented web-designers, and Nicolas, our analyst, comes the summary of a year of collective work. In one picture. A la Feltron.
My first day in the office
As one of the newest members of our team I remember very well my first day in the office. Actually, I will never forget it. It was a disaster!
Moderation in all things. Hmm…
When we announced to our political masters that – in line with the exhortation we had received to introduce “interactivity” on the website – the new elections website would include polls, reactions and debates, they were worried. They were worried about the kind of thing that might find its way onto the institution’s website. This is understandable; even those of them who did not know the internet well knew that it is an anarchic, uncontrolled place full of mad people with crazy opinions spreading wild rumours. Well, yes it is.
MCMLXXIX….MMIX
When the first elections to Europe’s parliament were held in 1979 I was a energetic four year old. We had just moved to Ireland where we would spend many happy years.
Cities of culture: my Vilnius
Here we go again. You can’t put it all into a synopsis, can you? Maybe this blog will help some thoughts on my hometown not to be wasted?
The flood gates open
Call it the Obama Effect, call it the Tide of History, call it about time, but whatever it was it happened this week. A big week for the web team. We got the go ahead for a series of new enterprises we have been working on behind the scenes for a while now.
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