Steve
Lessons from America 1: possibly surprising things we learned stateside
This was the kind of visit where you envy almost everyone you meet their cutting edge, exciting and oh-so-cool jobs. It was a visit of contrasts: we met people from the administration and Congress, people from the media, people from academia, people who had just done extremely smart things. Meeting all these people, we learned a great many things. This post, and those to follow, will outline a few of them, in no particular order.
Letting creativity in
To witness real creativity is surely also to stop and wonder about oneself and one’s own world, about the place of artistic creation in a life spent in offices, working for institutions, which, however important and genuinely ideal-founded, live a daily routine of office politics, meetings, hierarchies, procedures and rules.
Data visualisation: the beauty of stats
One of things we’ve been saying lately is that we must aspire to better presentation of information on Parliament’s websites using graphics and multimedia presentations. Well, if we were looking for inspiration, we couldn’t do better than this remarkable and illuminating visualisation of the world’s changing wealth and life expectancies over 200 years. Absolutely amazing. [...]
Parliamentary Staffers on social media – a survey
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 [...]
10 reasons it’s great to be a Brit in Brussels
How often do you hear expats whinging about Brussels? All the time, that’s how often. But, frankly, when I hear my own compatriots complaining, I really don’t understand. It’s great to be a Brit in Brussels. Here are ten reasons why.
Social media horses for courses
People no longer want to know whether they should be using social media (and how they can get away with it), but want to know what social media they should use for which purpose. So how does it work for us?
Oh no, it’s the budget again!
Some things are tough to communicate. The annual EU budget is the classic example. So how do you do it?
“Doing something” on Facebook
I suppose it’s the price of success, but we are starting to wonder how to deal with a new phenomenon: the “do something on Facebook” syndrome.
So how was #pdfeu for you, this year?
Last year, Year One of the Personal Democracy Forum in Europe, I wrote a rave review of this Barcelona-based event. By happenstance, it came for me in a succession of internet/politics events, and, frankly, stood head and shoulders above the rest. So how did Year Two match up?
After the outage…
No, not yet the post-match analysis of the PDFEU conference in Barcelona. Don’t fear, posts are a-coming from the Parliament gang on this once-again stimulating and not-to-be-missed event, I’m sure, but right now the objective is a more straightforward one: to post the “missing” Keynote presentation I had hoped to show. If truth be told, [...]
Do you want to know more about Belgium?
We live and work in a country called Belgium. Many of us view this country rather affectionately. It does not give itself airs and graces, and, if it takes pride in anything, it is in it’s own quirkiness. But even those of us who have been here a long time sometimes struggle to grasp all [...]
Barcelona trepidation: #pdfeu and beyond
The second European edition of the Personal Democracy Forum is coming up in Barcelona on 4-5 October and WebCom will be there! The level of the speakers is scarily high and the question is: what will we say in such exalted company?
Live tweeting: mad dogs and Englishmen?
Live tweeting Parliament occasions – is it worth it? The trials and tribulations of your institutional twitterers laid out for all to see. We need to know: do you want us to do this?
Waltzing Matilda Interview
Three of our number (Raffaella, Tibo, Steve) were interviewed on our social media activities on behalf of the European Parliament by the Commission’s “Waltzing Matilda” blog. Read the interview here. This was in fact the second in a series of interviews with EU social media types; the first was with the estimable Antonia Mochan in [...]
Some spice for the weekend
A certain team member, Tayebot, he of the highbrow articles on various editorial models, could not be accused of not having his finger on the throbbing pulse of the internet. Yesterday, he shared with us the current viral internet sensation – the latest Old Spice commercial featuring new über-hunk Isaiah Mustafa, which has gathered close [...]
Ideology over nationality
This report is being passed around Parliament at the moment, in what in other contexts might be called a “viral” way. It’s votewatch.eu‘s analysis of MEP voting patterns, and attempts some conclusions about the political character of the European Parliament one year in. It concludes that ideology beats nationality in EP votes.
The steamy EuTube video: right or wrong?
Observers of the Commission’s occasionally excellent offerings on EUTube cannot have failed to notice that among the top twenty most viewed videos on EU Tube, several unashamedly use sex as their selling point. Is this the right way to go?
Top five EU videos
Come up with a sample of EU online videos illustrative of the best the EU has to offer in terms of online video, they said. Two or three from the Commission and two or three from Parliament. So here they are, my top five euro-vids.
Strange figures in the streets of Ljubljana
Wondering why you haven’t heard from Manja lately? She’s doing other things now, in Ljubljana, among which organising this intriguing art happening outside (and inside) the Europe House in the Slovenian capital. Pretty cool. Check it out here
Selling Europe’s Lifestyle
Came across this video clip on the EU Shanghai Expo website. Nice film, very professional, and an interesting attempt at capturing an upbeat view of “Europeanness”, still a tricky concept, at least when seen from inside. So this is us? What do people think?
Recent Comments