If you really want to touch the reader, first we need to start from a very beginning, none others but the writers.
This is how it works…every beginning of the week I am sending out an email informing 4-5 people that have expressed their wish or that reached their turn that it’s up to them for a short while to keep the blog ongoing.
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Still, no matter how much we enjoy writing for it or how many reviews we might get for our blog, we still don’t seem motivated enough to write on and keep the blog flowing on a weekly basis. After some inquires, I reached the conclusion that we are all finding some difficulties after all in mixing personal with professional worlds. Because let me tell you, this is not a typical blog where you can write yourself away with anything that blows in your mind.
No…With just a bit of exaggeration, every time we write, it feels just like we are walkers on a thin rope carrying a weighted pole, trying to maintain equilibrium and not lean too much on the right or too much on the left… But clearly… we are writing about EU, about our job within the institution, but we need to be careful to maintain a very clear equilibrium between this and thus avoid any possible confusion. Our work is to write and communicate to citizens, but under professionalism we are real people and we came up with this blog exactly to reinforce this statement.
Well, then I am wondering, should we try to preserve this mixing idea, but in the same time come up with more challenging and inspiring ones for us, the writers? Should we just back down, simplify it and just go for work related blog, news and everything we are usually writing about or should we become even more personal and closer to ‘real people’?
It feels just like we are walkers on a thin rope carrying a weighted pole, trying to maintain equilibrium.
My head goes around series of blogs, interviews, VIPs, news, more fun and inside touch, but I am continuously puzzled and cannot seem to brush off whether it would actually reach both writers’ and readers’ interest.
Let alone the bawl outs, I still cannot help but wondering, are we doing it right? How could we do it better?
Nadina wonders: how to motivate our team to write more posts on our blog? To all writers and readers… http://bit.ly/aY5QSA
Speaking for myself, I like the content and the balance between “eu stuff” and your very unique and personal individual voices. In no way I want the “professional” side to take over completely. I think this blog should be your outlet for your own views of the EP and how it works, but also about how your day to day lives go on within it. As you said, this balance is hard to achieve, but by writing in your own personal voice about larger issues, I think you’re reaching out to people. It’s much better than just reading in the impersonal style. In terms of writing, this could be difficult (in a ‘what opinions should I publish?’ kind of way) so you might want to set parameters as a team, define topics you can blog about. You can also perhaps use the design of the site to divide between the more hands-on content from the personal thoughts/essays. Just my 2 euro cents :)
To all writers and readers… http://ff.im/-lCl5P