Steve
School Trip to the New World of Work
Cynical old fonx, not without cause, smell a rat the instant you start talking about “open plan” offices. It’s a trick, they aver, to squeeze us into ever smaller spaces, take away our personal domains and generally reduce us to Dilbert-esque cubicle wage-slaves. So what will they make of the “New World of Work”?
All is revealed: the 15 shows in the Christmas video.
Our latest Christmas video, as afficionados of this blog, and indeed many others, know, is based on the title sequences of 15 well-known TV shows. Well-known? Well, yes. But so far, no-one has been able to recognise them all, with age and nationality playing a clear role in determining which ones are familiar and which [...]
Is it uncool to say I love my job? WebCom in 2011
What is it that really matters to most people about their jobs, once they have one that can keep body and soul together in a satisfactory manner, that is? I suppose it’s about two things: (i) whether you actually believe you are achieving something, and (ii) who you work with. Simple really.
The Christmas video
This video is worth weeks of expensive team-building courses sitting in front of flipcharts or building rafts to cross muddy ponds – not that our employer has ever offered us anything like that – and is huge fun into the bargain. It has become part of the collective self-image.
New website: so that was the easy bit…
It’s blue, it’s new and it’s online – the redesigned official institutional website of the EU’s directly elected democratic lawmaking institution! And, speaking personally, I now know why you don’t do this kind of thing too often.
Unlocking your inner teenager
A lesson in the power of a little harmless silliness being learned in WebCom right now. It’s all to do with some very serious research into the potential of the Foursquare social network.
When is a birthday cake not a birthday cake?
Do you rely on Facebook to remind you of your friends’ birthdays? What exactly do you think you are being reminded of?
From the Tunisian camps
An experiment in WebCom this week. Parliamentary delegations are frequently accompanied by a press officer, but thus far we have had little success in arguing the case for a web editor to go along. Until now.
From Tahir Square to Brussels
Just a quick note to point to the presence in Brussels of a multi-party group of Egyptian activists, all involved in the revolution. Amongst them, of great interest to us, Waleed Ahmed of the 6 April Youth Movement whose Facebook group/page (English page also exists) were central to the organisation of the protests which led [...]
The (Flemish) Art of Politics
Though this was in part about getting to know the quirks and (generally hidden) wonders of our host country a bit better and indulging in a little inter-parliamentary liaison, it was really about doing something together and having the opportunity to marvel at something genuinely interesting, even inspiring. For whatever you think of all the constitutional contortions and political chicanery, the Flemish Parliament is undoubtedly the coolest parliament any of us had ever visited
Lessons from the Danish suburbs: Après Aarhus
Do Danish journalists get jobs? Why are Danish trainees so hard to find? Why do students still want to work for newspapers? Are media and journalism the same thing? Are Danes really the happiest people in the world? All this and more in these brief post-Aarhus thoughts.
Syrian Spam Attacks
Yesterday, 23 May, saw a resumption of massive spam attacks on our Facebook page by pro-regime forces in Syria. Thousands of “we love Bashir al-Assad” style comments posted to anything we post. We seem to have been identified as a ”foreign site promoting hostilty to the government of Syria” (the phrase was something like that). For [...]
Two decades and lovin’ it…
I’m not big on anniversaries, but something about today’s date prompted me to notice an interesting fact. Interesting for me, that is. Today is the last day of my first twenty years in the employ of the European Parliament.
Yes, Facebook matters. Bahrainis show the way
It’s been a big week on Facebook for WebCom. You know how we’ve been obsessing about what happens to all those comments we get on our Facebook page? Well, this week provided one answer.
Taking a photo
Sometimes the office routine is broken by people bearing orange juice, photographic equipment and crawling under the table. Another day chez WebComm. All in the interests of art, naturally.
Lessons from America 5: Living in 1996
Professor Sreenivasan has a sense of the passage of internet time. The first thing you find on entering his office in Colombia School of Journalism, on the right as you come through the door, is a small mortuary of defunct gadgets, physical testimony to the faddishness and rapid progress of communications technology.
Lessons from America 4: Why America loves a failure
America is of course famously, notoriously even, the country which loves a winner. So why is everyone so keen on failure?
Five Facebook mistakes
Typical mistakes (not just, IMHO) small businesses make using Facebook, according to a brief blog post spotted on Mashable. A lot of this looks familiar.
Lessons from America 3: Life beyond Facebook
Mid-life, it turns out that some of our obsessions are shared. One of these is worrying continually about What It All Means. Facebook, I mean.
Lessons from America 2: The Panic is Over
“The Panic is Over”; these were the words of David Plotz, gravel-voiced editor of Slate.com and personal (anti?)-hero of mine. It has to be said that, as he leaned back in his chair and sized up the three be-suited euro-dudes who had unaccountably pitched up in his premises (actually the meeting was in Slate’s kitchen), Plotz looked anything but panicked.
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