Just a quick one to point to an interesting survey from consultants Edelman published last week. I attended the launch event in Brussels ‘The Centre” as one of a panel of three along with Dutch Green MEP Judith Sargentini (@judithineuropa) and lobbyist Caroline De Cock (@linotherhino). Caroline wrote a short post about it on her blog, so I won’t describe the event, except to say it was a couple of hours well spent.

The survey compares the use by staffers (and thus by their bosses) of social media, both as sources of news and information and as communication tools. It looks at the US Congress, the European Parliament and the French, German and British parliaments. I am glad to report that, as far as the European Parliament is concerned, Edelman’s survey bears out our own modest research in terms of teh use MEPs make of social media platforms.

Perhaps for me, one of the most interesting observations in the study is that Facebook seems to be faltering somewhat in both perceptions and use across the survey, while blogs remain popular and Twitter seems very much to be where the action is.

The question from the audience which struck me most was a rather sweeping one about the “future of online communication”, to which my only honest response could be a (slightly dressed up) “dunno”. The question incidentally reminded me of a much applauded remark by Tom Steinberg at PDFEU 2009: “Love your geeks!”. He was pointing out that the real advances in online communication come not from the stuffed-shirt managers (like me, I suppose), but from geeks in sheds having brainwaves and writing code. So I duly ate a little humble pie. Frankly, who does know?

I hope Edelman won’t mind me posting a couple of slides from the presentation that caught my eye. In the first, we discover that the epistolary art is alike and kicking in the French Parliament. In the second, that people look at social media exactly when you’d expect them to (bear in mind when you post). In the third, the results for the European Parliament. As I say, interesting.