The movement evolved from being #15mani (demonstration 15, referring to the date of the first clash) and #nolesvotes (don’t vote for them) to #Democraciarealya (real democracy now), but it is also known as #nonosvamos (we are not leaving), and #acampadasol (camping at Sol). Another popular hashtag is #yeswecamp. No need to explain it, I think, as neither needs 15-M, with the date and the M for Madrid or May put together in a way that makes one think of 11-M, the tragic date and month of the bombings in Atocha station.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cesarastudillo/

This apparently chaotic and disorganized twitter universe exemplifies the very essence of the movement: spontaneous, even if some want to see a dark hand behind it, heterogeneous, even if others want to see only young or unemployed people involved, and unpredictable. It is neither clear what they want, nor where they are heading  nor how long the protests will last. They have already warned that the movement does not finish with Saturday’s elections.

It is however possible to identify a few of their requests and slogans, even if I am sure not all the protesters share all of them: no to politicians’ privileges, no to corruption, media neutrality, electoral reform, economic measures to take the country out of the desperate situation it is in. One may think it is a demonstration against the government, but I am not even sure about that. Some are angry with the government, some with the opposition, but most with politicians in general. Anger and frustration are what, ultimately, unite all those people, and what have made other in many other Spanish cities join the protest.

Twitter acted as the platform needed to spread those feelings, to let people know that they were not alone, helped to organise the first camp at Puerta del Sol and is still the boiling ground in which many communicate what is happening in Madrid and beyond.

International media coverage also reflects this confusion. It was reflected on the Washington Post’s frontpage, with one of the best photos of  the protest, and while CNN says it is caused by unemployment, which is higher than 20% and specially hits young people with a rate of around 40%, the BBC even compares it with the Egyptian revolution, saying that, as in Tahrir square, the pacific demonstrators are organizing the protests in committees.

#italianrevolution?

I think that some comparisons are at least risky, as the situation in Spain has nothing to do with that of Egypt or Tunisia, but the truth is that the basis is the same; discontent, mainly with the political class. Madrid could be the European version of what happened in North Africa, especially if the movement spreads to other countries… and this morning Twitter already woke up with the trending topic #italianrevolution.

Photo from edans on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/edans/

Twitter acted as the platform needed to spread those feelings, to let people know that they were not alone, helped to organise the first camp at Puerta del Sol and is still the boiling ground in which many communicate what is happening in Madrid and beyond. Both Spain and Italy are now approaching elections, both countries face a complicated economic situation and citizens of both countries are tired of learning about political scandals through the news.

The unanswered question is now how this civic movement will affect the elections, and what will be its ultimate consequences. While waiting for the answer, the revolution continues to be tweeted.

Two months ago, EP’s information office in Madrid organized the meeting “the EP and the social networks”. The ingredients: 22 bloggers, 2 MEPs, a mayor, several communication experts*, 4 people from the Madrid EP information office, 1 from Barcelona, 1 from Brussels (myself), lots of portable computers and a WiFi network. And the result was a piece of cake.

The internet, European arena for debate

The meeting was divided in several workshops. After the presentations, the morning opened the debate with hot topics: the first course was “social networks as a tool for citizen’s freedom of expression and political participation”, with MEP Pilar Del Castillo. Her views on Wikipedia and on internet piracy heated the public, and she answered all the questions looking delighted to debate on the subject.

In the afternoon, MEP Salvador Garriga focused much of the attention during the roundtable “communicating Europe through social networks”. Other speakers included the co-editor of bloggingportal and author of the blog “Europasionaria”, Laurence Modrego, who gave the event the international touch from the side of the bloggers. Her impression after the meeting… “yes Spain is different“.

Self-criticism

We say very often that we want more feedback on what we do. Cordoba gave me the opportunity of getting two kinds of it: feedback on what we do and on what people think we are doing. It was surprising to see that many of the participants, even if having an interest on the EU and being very active on social media, were not aware of what we are doing at the European Parliament. During the opening debates, I heard some criticism and lapidary sentences which I was not expecting to hear from a group like that… sentences very close to the topical ideas we are used to listen to every now and then.

It was somehow frustrating, but also very encouraging; the latter, a feeling that only became stronger after presenting them what we do. They praised our efforts on Facebook and Twitter, and were very surprised that this blog is not more “advertised”, being “a reference in European communication” (not my words!). Writing for y(EU) was unanimously considered an excellent intitiative that should “get more official support”.

The more than twenty posts published after the meeting confirmed that there are people out there who want to discuss about Europe, with very good ideas and an enthusiasm that is so encouraging feeling from time to time. I came back from Cordoba happy, with a renewed strength, and convinced that the European debate arena that we aim and dream to create is not such a utopia.

My conclusions are that we are going in the correct direction, but we should not stop in our efforts to bring Europe even closer to the citizens. We need to better “sell” what we do, informing about it: it is not enough to do it, people need to know about it. There is still something missing when such an interested public admits that they were not aware of many of the initiatives we are taking.

The parallel meeting

The magic of the internet and its power to bring down borders was tangible during the whole day. The discussion did not only that place in that room in Cordoba, but also in many other cities around the world where people were following it live via twitter, sending us some comments or opinions and even opening a parallel debate on the net.

The hashtag #PEredes, created for the event, was Spain’s top trending topic for the whole day. And for the first time, nobody was looking at me as I presented the Parliament’s activity on social networks… they were all focused on their computers, twitting what I was saying. It felt weird!

Another interesting outcome from the meeting was a video in which the participants answer in one short sentence the question: “what do bloggers want from Europe?” Another sign of the participants’ enthusiasm: shortly after, the video was subtitled in English by Alejandro Palomino, who honoured the name of his blog “La traducción es la lengua de Europa” (literally, “Translation is Europe’s language”).

It is impossible to include in a single post all the richness and the very good ideas that came up in a whole day of debates… but if you can read Spanish, I recommend you to read the posts published on it:

- Chronic of the European bloggers event in Cordoba, by Ciudadano Morante

- Comunicar Europa, crear una necesidad, by Borja Ventura in Sesión de control.com

- Europa en redes y blogs: pasito a pasito, by Rosa J. C.

- Europa: “pero es que yo soy así”, by Juan Luis Sánchez

- Blogueros europeístas toman el pulso a la Unión, by Raúl Solís on cafebabel.com /sevilla babel

- El Parlamento Europeo y las redes sociales, on La traducción es la lengua de Europa

- Four posts by Dídac G. on Pasaporte Europa: Cuando los políticos tuvieron miedo, La cara del Parlamento Europeo, La cruz del Parlamento Europeo y Bonus track!

- El Parlamento Europeo y las redes sociales, on Euromovilidad

- Europa será de los europeos o no será, by Aitor Ordax

- Otoño o invierno en Córdoba con el Parlamento Europeo, by Álvaro Millán

- Europa necesita que pensemos que la necesitamos, by Borja Ventura

- Europa Polichinela, by David Martos on Periodismo Humano

- Encuentro de bloggers europeos, by Emilio Fuentes on europe@s

- Redes sociales, libertad de expresión y participación ciudadana, by Encarna Hernández on Más Europa

- Recapitulando: Encuentro Parlamento Europeo y redes sociales, by Eva Peña on Eva en Europa

- Los blogueros y las redes sociales se adueñan de las ideas políticas, by Fernando Navarro on Europa451

- Comentarios sobre el encuentro “El Parlamento Europeo y las Redes Sociales”, by Francisco Ruiz on Internet como recurso educativo

- Comunicando Europa a través de las redes sociales, by Lorenzo Juillet on Los Euros

- Several audio interviews by Macarena Rodríguez on La Oreja de Europa (see the bottom of the page)

- Conclusiones de #PEredes, by Paco Luis Benítez on Tractatus (i)Logicus

- Europa: la institución o la persona, by Paco Torres

*The experts: Susana del Rio, member of the European independent experts panel on Science, Society and Governance; Fátima Ramírez, director general for consumers at the Andalousian government; Francisco Polo, director of Actuable.es; Pau Solanilla, coordinator at Europeando.eu; Ignacio Escolar, author of Escolar.net; and Sonia Blanco, who moderated the debates

Here it is: the story of four monkeys that lived together in a cage. They loved bananas, but they rarely got one. One day, a banana appeared tied to the upper side of the cage, so they were happy and sent one of them to get it. But when the monkey touched the fruit, they all received a not very pleasant cold shower. And they hated cold showers!

...when the monkey touched the fruit, they all received a not very pleasant cold shower

Confused by the experience, they sent a second monkey up, and the same happened again. So they learnt that they should not try to get the banana if they didn’t want to have a cold shower. They got used to living with the banana over their heads, and when one day one of them was moved from the cage, and a new monkey came instead, they did not let him try to get the banana. They did not want to get wet.

One by one, all the original monkeys left the cage, and all the newcomers learnt that they should not try to get the banana. And the day came when all the “original” monkeys were gone, and none of the inhabitants of the cage would touch the banana, even if they couldn’t know why.

This tale illustrates fairly well what may happen in many organisations. Rules are fixed on a certain basis, but with time nobody remembers anymore why it was decided to follow rule Y and not rule X, but as it is already part of the routine, nobody really discusses it.

That can be a good attitude when things are working fine. But what happens when more and more people start feeling that the rule could be improved? And even if everything works well, and everyone’s used to and comfortable living with a certain rule, what if a new perspective shows that things could be even better? The banana is still up there, but is does not disturb the monkeys down on the floor. But one day a new monkey decides to try to get it on a new way, and nobody gets wet. Even better: they are still comfortable in the cage, but now they have a banana.

Lots of conclusions can be driven from such a story. Procedures are fine, and it is always advisable to inform newcomers about the rules. But don’t be too rigid, be open to new ideas: new perspectives can bring fresh air in. Either new ways to do things or constructive critics to procedures that may be already out of date and worth considering substituting.

And about the coffee machine… you should have one in the cage, as they are “places of knowledge”, according to the trainer. So let the monkeys meet around the coffee machine and they may find more than one way to get the banana without having a shower. Or who knows, maybe they decide to go to the supermarket and buy bananas for everyone.

I will briefly explain how the system works for those who are unfamiliar with it. EU competitions are usually structured in two phases. The first consist of 4 tests: verbal, numerical, abstract reasoning and situational judgement.

Even EPSO says that “candidates are also reminded of the fact that admission tests are no longer knowledge based – but rather competency-based tests. Therefore, extensive preparation time is not necessary”. It does not mean that you don’t have to prepare the tests at all… but it does recognize that even if you live for the competition, the pass for the second phase is not at all guaranteed. In my case, I hope that extensive “divine support” will work better; my mother and aunt worked very hard to get it!

The numbers give by themselves an overview of the “lottery” touch of the competition. In the one I just took we were almost 30.000 candidates; the best 315 will make it to the second round to fight for 105 positions.

On my arrival at the test centre I could only remember the discouraging figures. The place was packed, it was too hot in the room and finding a place in the waiting room was already a first success. There was a queue to leave your things in the locker, a queue to register at the reception, a queue for the toilet. A few familiar faces, some friends, and many complete strangers. If we listen to probabilities, someone here will pass. Why not me? It is like getting a free trip for you and all your friends… and I got it twice, so why not the competition, too?

To be continued (I hope).

I remembered the technical discussions about mac users not being able to watch some debates, while struggling to see some of the commissioners hearings from my own mac. You do get much more passionate about a problem when you encounter it “face to face” than when you think of it in a meeting room, believe me!

I also had the strange experience of meeting “my baby” after it was already born and kicking. I am talking about the hearings website, a project in which I had long been working together with Florent. I had to leave it days before the birth and I only saw the final result when it was already online, and it looked great. Wow. 

Florent doing such a huge work alone and informing me about “our project” (another wow to him) brings me to something I am also looking at with my new eyes: my colleagues. I have always appreciated the team, I am not referring to that. But my first day in the office consisted on a planned 2 hours meeting that was finally prolonged for almost 60 more minutes. Why? Because the team being so enthusiastic. Nothing new, but the amount of questions and ideas caught my just-arrived attention. Passionate discussions during a work meeting, isn’t it unusual? It was interesting to follow them almost as an outsider!

I could go on and on, but let me just use the blog this time to thank the web team again; it is such a challenge and a privilege to work with people like you. If you, reading now this post, are not part of the team … I would like to know how you see us from the outside.

Thinking about this coincidence I remembered that a few months ago I also had an unexpected meeting: a girl with whom I used to play basketball in Madrid when I was 12, or maybe 13, at the swimming pool of my gym in Brussels. I have more and more the feeling that this is a small world.

A friend knows a friend…

It's a small world... (photo from Flickr by kosmonautica)

It is true that Brussels is a kind of a melting pot that reunites many different people from many different profiles; but even taking that into account I still think that if I could know where all the people I have met in my life are, I would have some surprises. Maybe one of them got married with someone I met in a totally different circle, or another one is working in the most original place in the world… who knows!

That brings me to the title of this post, which fortunately does not refer to the temperature now in Brussels, but to a theory, the six degrees of separation. I am sure most of you know what I am talking about: that every single person in the world is separated from, and connected to, everyone else by just six others.

This idea constitutes the core principle of one of our initiatives for the elections campaign: the YaBs, Yellow and Blue want-to-be secret agents that have already infliltrated the 27 member States searching for one particular celebrity each of them. This blog has already talked about them: departing from Brussels, with 27 different missions, they have to be given from one person to another until they reach their objective. I am sure many of them will succeed in their mission with the power ful weapon of  “a friend knows a friend that knows a friend…”

Making the theory a bit more complicated, that would also somehow connect Audrey Tatoo and Iker Casillas, as both of them will receive an agent that departed from Brussels on the 9th of May. And that would also connect me, and all my colleagues, to them, as we saw how the agents were born; in a way they are our little creatures.

Many of them will (I hope) reach their destination after meeting some other European citizens on the way, to whom we would also be connected, as well as Casillas and Tatoo and all the other celebrities YaBs are looking for… this is starting to be a bit complicated!

In any case, the success of the YaBs’ missions would be a nice way of proving that the degree of proximity between so many different people is really amazing. So I propose a change in the name of the theory… six degrees of separation?? Better say six degrees of proximity!

The latter happened to me last week. In an interesting coffee break with some hard working colleagues who are totally devoted to the communication campaign, I learnt that in some countries, like Spain, the chicken of the installation is bilingual. It means that its messages are delivered not only in Spanish, but also in Catalan, Basque and Galician.  

Maybe this ability with languages is one of the reasons why this motive has become one of the most popular among the citizens. Even if cat lover Thibault thought everyone would fall in love with the cat and the lion, the truth is that the “beauty queen” of the campaign is the chicken. By popular request. One of them even got a love letter in the form of graffiti: “Je t’aime, poulet” (I love you, chicken). A public love declaration many women and men would dream of. Well, the chicken got it in just a week: it was love at first sight.  

In other cities passion towards the giant chicken has reached a point I could have never imagined. Like a pop idol, one of them was “assaulted” by fans that took away the labels dressing it. As the campaign invites voters to do, someone in Madrid made a choice: they wanted a naked chicken.

The naked chicken in Madrid (photo from the EP Flickr account)

Some said it was vandalism (“the chicken was vandalised in Madrid”). I prefer to understand it as another love declaration. A passionate one: you know what they say about Mediterranean people and Latin Lovers.

I must confess that at the beginning I could not understand why so much noise for a chicken. But now I have to admit that a giant chicken that travels all around the European Union, doing stripteases if the fans so require, and speaking so many languages (more than 25!) to get closer to the citizens, has a kind of a charm.

I must confess that I am a bit confused today. It was my birthday not long ago and the messages I got from my friends were quite contradictory: some of them saying that I am so young, others that I have already left my youth behind. If I try to think of it from a professional perspective it is difficult to decide who is right.

“To became children in the adult’s world”

When I arrived to the Web Communication service of the European Parliament I was one of the youngest members of the team, I could even say one of the youngest of the directorate general. But time is very intense and productive here: I have already seen many colleagues –friends- leave, new working methods be developed, new babies being born (real and technological ones, like this blog). I have been working here since year “1 b.S.”, that is, before Steve, our head of unit. I am a prehistoric member of the team, one could say. Only in three years!

And the same applies to the whole team; now it is not the beginning anymore, the proof of fire is approaching and elections are just around the corner. We are still young, but we are also veterans in what we are doing. Constantly evolving, constantly thinking of new products and ideas: videos, blogs, going into the 2.0… We have written so many stories that sometimes it gets difficult to remember them!

This is making me remember the famous Blade runner quote: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams … glitter in the dark near Tanhauser Gate. All those … moments will be lost … in time, like tears … in rain. Time … to die.”

I am much more positive. I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe. A video spread like wildfire off Brussels´ corners. I have watched a tapas become mousakka… grow under the clouds near the Luxembourg square. All those… were just small moments that will guide us to the European Elections… in rain. Time… to go on working!!!

Oh, no!! I am doing it! I am talking like a veteran! Let me do it a bit longer and take this nostalgic opportunuty to remember Christine, Gaëlle, Marie, Andrea, Anna, Karim…

Forgive me for this weird post… I suppose I am still getting used to my new age.

Photo: (CC)  andrewjstevens on Flickr.

So, let’s be cool, let’s put a virus in our life. It is the trend of the moment. You just need a good and powerful one, it will spread all around and reach people you never though it would. Don’t think I am crazy. Even if the favourite season for our not-so-dear friend Influenza just started, I am talking about a very different kind of virus. A non seasonal one: a marketing virus.

Viral marketing is the advertising El Dorado: viruses are cheap, they spread easily, they normally get to you through a trusted source. There is only a problem: how to create a virus? Some examples have been surprising even to the ‘parents’ of the creature. Others are well thought products. In any case, it is clear that the favourite environment for these viruses to spread is the internet, and we know a bit about it, so why not create a virus?

Some of the most creative members of the team have already come with some ideas, some attempts that have not been able to become stronger than the institutional vaccination. But WebComm creative laboratory never sleeps; sooner or later we will manage to break the barrier. Until we do so, you can start tasting watching our Christmas greetings video “Friday I’m in love” that ended up being an unexpected Brussels virus.

But there are people that mean something to us personally, that can touch us with their story and whom we really want to take the opportunity of talking to: it can be now or never. I am sure each one of us has at least a name to say, someone they would really like to ask about an experience, an opinion, a fact. In my case one of those big names is Ingrid Betancourt.

Even before she was freed, I found her story fascinating. Not knowing very much the details, she had “the essentials”: compromised, touching, brave, she had become a symbol. The Parliament had many times asked for her release, she had even been nominated for the Sakharov prize. And there is a poster in front of the door of my office asking for “libertad para todos”, freedom for all, with a photo of a much youger looking Ingrid.

When she was released, my journalistic instinct made me jump from the sofa and run to write the news. It was difficult to convince myself of the fact that the news rythm in the EP is a different one: I am not longer at a news agency! But that instinct made me stay awake until very late, when I finally saw her getting out of the helicopter. It was true, she was free.

The day after, the President of the Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering, invited her to come to the Chamber. She was the “most wanted” guest of the moment, but I knew the European Parliament was different, it had a meaning to her, as she would explain months later during her speech in the plenary chamber in Brussels. So I though the opportunity was there, I could interview Ingrid Betancourt. But then she came to the Parliament for two days and… I just saw her from the distance.

We wanted to do an interview together with EuroparlTV, it seemed like the perfect plan, but I did not think of what finally happened: she refused to do any interview, after having already fixed an appointment, saying that she was very tired. My first thought was that I could not understand. She had said she was tired, but speaking for five minutes sitting comfortably on a sofa wouldn’t be that tiring, would it? I looked for all sorts of ways of convincing myself that I would get it in the end. Finally a red light turned on in my head: maybe I had idealised her, maybe I had built an image of her that did not match with the idea of her refusing to attend any interview. Just a press conference. I thought all that until I saw her speaking in front of the plenary in the most moving speech I had seen since I work here.

Now I know: it is not sitting or standing, it is not lights or flashes. She is mentally and emotionally tired. I wish I could have written that interview, but I wish even more that she will have the opportunity of resting. In the Chamber she said she will not, until the ones who are still in the jungle are freed… I hope we will all see it. Maybe then I will have my interview and I will tell her about this post.