Archive for November, 2009
Writing for the EU: creativity lost?
Belgian service providers are like an episode of Prison Break. Every time you think things can’t get worse, they continue surprising you. There, I’ve put it on paper: my own opinion (although probably shared by many expats here in Brussels). Sharing my opinion with others through written media is something I’ve not been doing for [...]
Top five myths about social media
Tibo writes about varying reactions to the new social media frenzy in the European Parliament. Some hesitation about diving into this anarchic new world is perhaps understandable, and common in organisiations. I happened upon this interesting blog post about the “top five social media myths”, actually about the top five fears organisations feel about allowing [...]
The digital mailman
As you know, and thanks to our online communication campaign, we became a kind of team of new gurus on new and social media. We are the first to be surprised by this constant demand for conference keynotes, institutional or inter-institutional workshops, informal meetings with more or less close colleagues who’ve heard that we *know* [...]
The photo man, seen but unseen
A quick plug for Pietro, our photographer. His is the most visible work in our team, as he illustrates just about everything we produce, and indeed provides even more illustrations without us producing anything to go along with it. And yet, poor lad, he’s not very visible himself. Perhaps it’s his shy retiring nature…
Obama – the lost logos
Sorry if I’m slow on the uptake, but as I have been going through a bit of a revival of interest in the Obama campaign lately, I happened to come across these – failed alternatives for the Obama campaign logo, including the original version of the one with which we all later became familiar. It [...]
Lisbon and how to sell a Treaty with a new Parliament
Selling chocolate and soft ice at the age of 15 was not a challenge. The customers came, graving for it, and happily paid for their sweet treat. Now, over 20 years later, the challenge is of another scale. I’m working on a tough sell – Lisbon, the EU’s notorious reform treaty, and the new EP in the making.
There are two kinds of people
As we know, there are two kinds of people. But there are also two other kinds of people: the ones who love the Muppet Show and those who just like it. This has been a tough Wednesday for our team, everyone deserves a break. Here come three minutes of pure happiness, found by Fred: Bohemian [...]
Being a Mac, being a PC
Hunch is a website “which uses multiple-choice questions to help people make decisions, whether it’s what kind of camera to buy, where to go on vacation, or more than 5,000 other topics.” They came up with a study on “Mac vs PC People: Personality Traits & Aesthetic/Media Choices”. I feel this will become a meme on [...]
Where is everyone?
Evita picked it up first, Steve twitted it first, so all what is left to me is mentioning it here. It’s a great story from Baekdal (no, never heard before) on how you can connect with people. Is it by advertising in newspaper? (sooo last century) On blogs maybe? (soooo two years ago). Or on [...]
And the LUX Prize winner is…
…LUX Prize cinema award goes to the movie “Welcome”, by French director Philippe Lioret. Welcome shows a swimming instructor in France who agrees to help out a young Kurdish refugee that needs to swim across the English Channel to join his girlfriend who has already emigrated to England along with her family.
Prizes everywhere…
I am curious how many people already saw the three finalist movies for the EP LUX Cinema Prize. Personally, I have not seen any of them yet, although all seem worth watching. There is one about a Kurdish man trying to get to England, “Welcome”, one called “Sturm”, about a Yugoslav war crimes prosecutor and [...]
Our Lip-dub video
A few years ago, to celebrate the fact that we were a real team, we shot this lipdub video. We were quite shy at the time and we published it somewhere hidden on the big Internet. Since Christmas is coming soon, and since we have a blog, we thought you might like to see it [...]
Chat with an MEP on Facebook: “Wow, it worked”
“Hey Miss Turunen! Is that really you?” This was one of the questions posted during the first web chat on our Facebook page last week. Well, to answer it somewhat belatedly: yes it was really her, Parliament’s youngest Member. Sitting to my left in her office, logged into our page with her very own personal [...]
Post-match analysis: Personal Democracy Forum in Barcelona
Conferences are like London buses. You go for ages without one showing up, then they all come along at once. Suffice it say that, thanks to an improbable number of internet/politics conferences in a very short period, I feel I am becoming something of a connaisseur of the genre.
People care about the Telecoms Package
Sitting in a web ‘n’ politics conference in Barcelona, I see how fired up these guys are about the internet-related aspects of the Telecoms Package. Efforts to lobby the European Parliament by the international online community are used as examples of successful campaign by two speakers (him and him). These people present the EP as [...]
Networking breakfast
I can’t recall ever actually seeing a “networking breakfast” on the programme of a conference before. It may be just me, but the very concept fills me with existential horror. Is it possible to “network” over the cornflakes?
Beaujolais nouveau
This Wednesday- is the day young French wine lovers around the world look forward to midnight and the beginning of the third Thursday of November, when they will be able to broach this year’s Beaujolais Nouveau bottles. Just curious what new pallette of taste this year wine shall reveal?
No you can’t have my keynote!
Can I have a gripe here? Just a little one? Ever been a presenter at a conference? I bet you’ve received that email a few days before with just a little request…
Meeting Mr Rasmussen
It is quite a heady experience to sit in the office of the head of the world’s largest military alliance and ask him questions about global geo-politics. Geographically, at least, our questions ranged from Brussels to Moscow via Washington and Kabul.
How to get grey hairs in a few months
Separately, every uncertainty is not too difficult to manage, but all together, it becomes very quickly a huge mess.
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