Steve
Rotten tomatoes?
Rottentomatoes.com actually haven’t got round to it yet, but we are seeing some reaction to our “six-pack” of videos on the web quite rapidly. So far, thanks to the critics, who seem to like what we did. First off the mark was Julien, as ever (thanks to him for spotting the other posts), then Macarena, [...]
Video six-pack.
It’s a tradition. Now and then we make a video, especially just before Christmas. Sure enough, at the end of last year, we made Writing for (y)EU. Basically, it’s a commercial. It’s about the stuff we do. You may know it; it’s on our Vimeo page and was embedded in a previous post on this [...]
California Dreamin’
If you work in something called the Web Communications unit, chances are you’ll happen upon one or two co-workers who like gadgets. Well, yes…
Presentations: how to
A while back this blog featured a minor rant about why one shouldn’t hand over one’s powerpoint (or keynote) files to the conference organiser. On the grounds that it’s nice to have one’s prejudices confirmed, but maybe more because this is a wonderful masterclass in making slide-based presentations, this Authors@Google video, “Presentation Zen” by Garr [...]
Website: where we are now. Auditioning too?
An interesting showcase of what Parliament currently does online getting underway as I write: the hearings (“auditions” in Franglais) of the commissioners-designate for Barroso’s 2009-2014 Commission. Even with our “old” website, combined with the newer tools we have picked up over last year, there seems to be a reasonable amount we can do. Tibo commented [...]
Help! It’s a blank sheet moment…
It’s a classic fantasy. You can start with a blank sheet, your options open, all choices yet unmade, no idea too crazy, no limits except the limits of your own creativity… I refer, naturally, to designing a website (what else?).
That was the year that was
One year ago. December 2008. I just remember being incredibly stressed out; and, remarkably, that Tibo was even more so. We were up against the deadline for signing the “online” contract with our agency. We maybe didn’t realise it at the time, but in that contract the shape of WebCom’s annus mirabilis could already be discerned.
Professional chatterboxes
Already thought by some of our colleagues to pass our working hours in ways that are not quite serious, we have just started a new line of work which will give them another stick to beat us with. Yes, we now – officially – spend our time chatting online.
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 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 [...]
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?
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…
New media needs time
Something I heard which struck me somewhere recently, in Dublin I think. It won’t be right exactly, but it went something like this. The subject was the use of new media by politicians, organizations, businesses. “Nobody knows what they’re doing with new media. It took people twenty years to work out how to use TV, [...]
Dublin Web Summit – post match analysis
Whither the web and new media? Whither politics and the new media? Whither commercial organizations and the new media? Did the Dublin Web Summit provide any answers to these questions. Or did it conclude we should go down the pub instead?
Guys in black and no ties
Dilemma. The sartorial angst of the eurocrat-turned-web-dude can become a major preoccupation, especially when facing a new oh-so-cool peer group in public. Damn! I haven’t a thing to wear…
Bloggers: “the parasite killing the host”?
The internet “leeches…reporting from mainstream news publications, whereupon aggregating websites and bloggers contribute little more than repetition, commentary and froth. Meanwhile, readers acquire news from the aggregators and abandon its point of origin—namely the newspapers themselves. In short, the parasite is slowly killing the host.” Thus David Simon, creator of the Wire, to a US Senate [...]
The dangers of targeted online advertising
Congratulations to Bálint Szlankó, who today won the European Parliament’s Prize for Journalism in the internet category. (We will publish an interview with him on Parliament’s website on Friday, 16 October.) I went to check one of Bálint’s blogs, this one on foreign affairs, which is really interesting – though unfortunately I cannot read the content [...]
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