I have always been passionate about the EU, but somehow it has always managed to keep its distance from me. I have tried to move closer to it for a long time and now I finally came to this place they call the heart of the EU, Brussels, but it feels like there is something that is missing… maybe I expected the EU to be more present here. Even though it is certainly multicultural like a capital of Europe should be, I sometimes find myself looking around, maybe Strasbourg is the place to be. Would I feel more like I’m in the centre of Europe there?

Europeans, even people working for the institutions, including trainees like me, often talk about the EU as if it were a person with its own mind and free will. People often say “The EU is considering” or "The EU has decided". We have a lot of demands and expectations, but this figure that has promised us a lot of things in the Treaties doesn’t always seem to listen to us. On the other hand the further you move away from the institutions, the EU seems to be related to a particular place: “Brussels has decided”.

Speaking about the EU with friends of mine that come from outside the Union makes me think… to some of them it’s so clear that we Europeans form the EU.  To us the EU is often not unconditionally part of our identity. I can choose to be a Eurosceptic, but not a Finnosceptic. Nobody ever asked me, if I like being Finnish or not (of course I do, but hypothetically speaking…).  

Maybe the lesson to be learned is that the EU is not simply a physical place, not Strasbourg nor Brussels, it is not more present here than in Kittilä (I know, no one knows where that is), it is not a person either, someone who can solve everybody’s problems. I am part of the EU, but not because I happen to be a trainee at the EP, but because I believe in the European idea and I want to defend it and to take advantage of the possibilities that I am given.  If I want something to be done, I should make it happen, because the EU is not something external, foreign, Belgian. Maybe the EU is not as distant as I sometimes think, I am a (very tiny) part of it, so it’s actually closer than I might think.

You may think this is silly, but even though I don't know Jerzy Buzek personally I grew very fond of him these last few months. You know how sometimes people say they feel like they grew up with a newscaster, a TV presenter or a cartoon character because they would watch him everyday during their childhood? Well, that's a little how I feel. I started my first traineeship in the European Parliament in February 2011, a little less than a year ago and since then I've seen Buzek at the plenary, in videos, and on the news. I've also written numerous articles where I mention him and I've even had the chance to meet him 3 times in person, all of which I am sure he doesn't remember, but that's ok.

Jerzy Buzek at the start of his speech © European Union 2011 PE-EP/Pietro Naj-Oleari

The first time I met him, it was outside the Parliament in Strasbourg during the plenary in May. I waited for what seemed like hours to take a picture with him. A group of tourists, probably visitors in the Parliament, kept on talking to him and shaking his hand. His assistant, I can only presume, told him he was late for a meeting and should start moving. He walked towards me and I seized the opportunity to ask if I could take a picture with him. I really don't know why but my heart was racing and I tried my best to keep my eyes open and have a nice smile. It would have been a shame to screw up a photo opportunity with Buzek. Once it was over, I couldn't believe my chance. The other trainees would be so jealous when they saw my profile picture on Facebook… and indeed they were.

The second time I saw him, it was at a reception organised by trainees and his office in June. The reception was organised on the 12th floor of the PHS building, in the Presidential Salon. This time, it was a different story. There were 150 trainees in a small room excited to meet him. And they all had the same goal: to take a picture with him. It seemed as if Lady Gaga was in the room about to give a concert, but without the yelling and screaming, the trainees TRIED to look civilised but failed. I have a very special group photo to remember this day. Unfortunately, I am the only one who can know I was there as you can only see the top of my head. He gave a long speech about how as young people, we are the future of Europe, but what I remember the most is when he said “I hope that you are enjoying your time here in the Parliament, and in Place Lux!". Oh, so it is not a secret that trainees spend all their Thursday nights/ early Friday mornings at Place Lux? We should do a better job of hiding it next time…

The third time I met Buzek, it was actually kind of embarrassing and some of members of the Webcomm team know what I'm talking about. Two fans from the European Parliament's Facebook page had won a trip to come visit the Parliament's premises at Strasbourg and meet Jerzy Buzek. This was a big deal for the two winners to meet the President of the European Parliament. I hope I didn't ruin their moment nor the video that was recording. The incident is the following: I was standing close to them when they were introduced to the President when suddenly he turned to me and he asked me where I was from, thinking I was also a winner. He caught me by surprise and threw me off my guard. Quick, I have to think, what do I say? I finally mumbled something about being a trainee at the European Parliament. You know when you were a student and you weren't paying attention and suddenly the teacher asks you for an answer, that's exactly how I felt. He smiled, turned around, and I sighed in relief.

Buzek's popularity is off the charts

Don't get me wrong, I am sure that Martin Schulz will be a great president as well. But it just won't be the same… Buzek is Buzek. Why is he so popular? Well, first of all when you take a look at him he just seems like a nice, simple, accessible person. If you ask the EP trainees to describe Buzek, they will ALL say the exact same thing: "He reminds me of my grandpa". I would also like to add that he embodies the "cool attitude".

To confirm that I am not the only "groupie" out there, let's look at some figures.
According to Xinhua, a Chinese news website, "the 72-year-old Polish engineer-turned-politician has at least one mission well accomplished: maintaining his personal popularity, as always and also via trendy channels". "The secret to his accomplishment" resides in the fact that he was the first Parliament president to hold a live chat with Facebook users. I guess now is also the time to say "kudos" to the Webcomm team who make these chats happen. Thanks to them, Buzek is more popular than before.

Chat with EP president Jerzy Buzek © European Union 2011 PE-EP/Pietro Naj-Oleari

Buzek is also popular in the political circles. Xinhua indicates that he was named "MEP of the Year 2006" in the research and technology category and crowned as "Best Polish MEP" in 2008 by Polish media. " Prior to the MEP errands, Buzek had also been a popular and respected Prime Minister back at home, who had initiated Poland's accession negotiation with the European in 1997 and guided Poland into the NATO structures in 1999 ".

Today definitely marks the end of an era.

A new perspective on my city

Or DG-day, if you will. 1/9/2011: my first day as a trainee at the Directorate General of Communication, Web Communication Unit. Rolled out of bed, into the shower, and sped out the door, subjecting myself to the hustle and bustle of the noisy city life shifting into first gear. Where are you all going? Young people, old people, people who look like they would have wanted to get a couple more hours of sleep in (guilty!) people who look like they haven’t been to bed yet. In tram 25, over the sound of Adele – who is, incidentally, setting fire to the rain – I hear cellular phones going off and the occasional coughing up of morning phlegm. Fact: you know exactly which sound I’m talking about. Once out of the tram, I follow the stream into the metro station. Obligingly, I swipe my metro pass and get on the orange tube that will bring me to Maalbeek, which is as far as public transport will take me.

Once emerged from the underground, I take a left and another left as I begin my search for the right building. There’s no way of mistaking the European Vibe in the air, important-looking men in suits and elegant women in heels throw me sympathising (pitying…?) looks as I get out my map and double-check the address where I am expected at 9 o’clock. It is now 8.30h. Biting back the annoyance I feel at looking like a tourist in the city where I was born and raised, I continue up the street. Without too much trouble, I manage to find the MOY building, enter, and have a chat with the receptionist who tells me that; yes, I am in the right place. So I put my envelope back in my handbag and wait. The time is 8.45h, and I silently congratulate myself for making it there in time. At 8.50h I fish the envelope back out of my bag, mainly to give my hands something to do, and – horror – noticed a sentence at the end of the letter, casually informing me that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Apparently I need a badge to get into the building where I am expected at 9 o’clock. Ah. Off I go again. So much for punctuality.

It is 8.55h and I find myself queuing (Swedish style!) with a group of trainees in the “Centre d’Accréditation” to get a badge, with a horrible picture to match. I hurry back to the MOY building, past security; and hit the elevator button that should take me to the 2nd floor. Scratch that, I take the stairs because the elevator takes forever. Upon asking the receptionist where the stairs are, he indicates them with a wave of his hand. (9.27h, in case you were wondering.)

Muttering a few choice profanities, I take the stairs, two at a time. Praying that I’m still somewhat on time (as if…), I make my way through the hallway on the second floor, gazing at each of the office-numbers on the doors as they zoom by, when I hear my name. “Caroline?” I twist around and see a pretty (“Don’t mess with Evita”), young (“Don’t mess with Evita”, bis.) woman standing in the doorway that I had just unceremoniously raced past.

“Yes?”

“Welcome, Steve has just started his introductory meeting, follow me.”

About 1 month later

A swarm of new trainees have descended on the unit, and I take pride and pleasure in informing them of the seemingly mundane pieces of trivia that I have gathered throughout the past month: stay away from the vending machine in the cafeteria because it will eat your money, yet refuse to distribute the food you paid for; use your informatics-degree to figure out how the scanner works (What’s that? You don’t have one? Oh well, no scans for you, then); and don’t trust Italians who say they will be ready for lunch “in 5 minutes”. There is no “in 5 minutes”. There is only you, gnawing off your forearm 30 to 45 minutes later, depending on how hungry you were to begin with.

Besides eating and failing to scan Very Important Documents, we also do some work, when we can fit it in. (Very) simply put, we help to manage the website: writing, scratching, re-writing, brainstorming, translating, interviewing… Let me clarify something: for a 24-year old with a degree in communication studies, a solid background in languages and a profound interest for the EU, the media and their love-hate-relationship, this constitutes a dream job. I happen to fit that profile to a tee, would you believe it?

Okay, so the first months had some kinks. Halfway through the first (!) day I managed to lock myself out of my account and I will need to sleep with an EU-dictionary under my pillow (I am a firm believer in osmosis) if I have any hope of producing an article that’s halfway decent any time soon. But all in all, I consider my first month here a success. However, if you see me some time next week wandering the streets of Brussels with a wistful expression on my face and a sign that says “ex-trainee”, you will know that something has gone terribly wrong. But if not, that means I’m still part of this dynamic group. Or, as Dr. House puts it: “There’s no I in team. There’s a ‘me’ though, if you jumble it up.” Here’s hoping.

Is democracy green and sparkly?

 

Better the devil you know

“Was this here before?” I couldn’t help but wonder. I think I must have put this question ten times on my way home. In Brussels they were talking about CAP reform. Here, people were selling fruits and vegetables on the side of the road. Back in the European forums they were discussing about road safety, and here, although few and far between, one could still spot carriages pulled by horses on the roads. And to top it all out, people still made the sign of a cross every time they passed in front of a church. Matter of fact, our first stop on our way back home was a monastery. And the explanation, as my mom put it: “well, since we happened to pass by, why not light a candle?”

I used to laugh about all this with a certain Swedish friend. I used to think that all these facts fall into the “unfair stereotypes” category that every European culture stacked over years. Now, on the other side of Europe, I’m not so sure. It dawns on me that maybe all these may seem like stereotypes in Brussels. Here though, they are just the harsh reality.

So I began to wonder. If we were so far off to consider this reality, how is the mighty European forum looked at from this neck of the woods? It took me a while to even form an opinion, because the fact is, it doesn’t exactly keep the headlines here.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the local and national media. The first EU story I saw was not even directly related to the EP. It was about the deadline set by my country’s government to enter the euro zone. Other than that, the effects of the economic crisis and our bickering politicians were stealing the show. So what seemed to be so important in Brussels, here was even hard to follow.

Is it still high and mighty?

No. At least efforts are being made to bring the activity of the EP in front of the general public. And I’m not talking about specialized media niches that cover EU affairs, no Sir! The EP’s web page keeps you up to date with all the activities of the Parliament. The EP’s team of editors works hard on offering user-friendly news about the Parliament and its members. These news cover decisions that could affect millions, and still, they don’t seem to have the same life-changing ring in the national media. Why?

The web site of the EP is definitely not a niche. It does not adopt a highly specialized language, on the contrary. The language is set to fit the taste of our common Latvian grandmother. Question is: why do I need to search for EP news? Of course I am following the EP’s activity on Facebook as well, but in both cases, the user, i.e. me, needs to be proactive about it.

The plan is to bring the EP to the citizens. To open its gates and to let them see that politics, even at a European level, is not something that comes from high above. There are some projects being set up right now that will do just that. Unfortunately, they remain suuuper seeecret.

“We need more Europe”, an MEP once said, and that’s exactly what they are trying to achieve in the EP. From aside, I can only confirm the need of it.

Greetings from Kansas!

I was suggested to write a blog post about my experience here at the European Parliament, inside the WebComm unit and especially about the development of the Facebook Chat Application we just finished.

I don’t feel terribly confident about writing non-scientific content, especially with all those talented editors around me, but I like challenges and I thought it might be an interesting experiment.

So where to start? First of all let’s break some myths here. The European institutions and especially the European Parliament are not only composed of old-lazy-boring-suit-wearing guys. I mean I only discovered a small part of the European Parliament, which is the WebComm unit, part of the DG Comm. and all I could see where young, motivated, dynamic people. This is quite the opposite of my preconceived ideas and I really like to be surprised. Of course we have to face a little bit of administrative slowness for some things but in general I’m able to do my job in a smart, agile and constructive way. So that’s done.

About the Facebook chat application. I can say it has been quite a challenge for mostly 3 reasons :

1. Real-time web application
2. Scalability
3. Agility needed

1) Real-time web application

Maybe it’s time to do a short (and incomplete) history of web development

Traditional web applications are not designed to be “real-time”. By “real-time” I mean that all the users connected to the application must be signaled all the changes as soon as they are made (in real-time) and not only when they refresh the page. Maybe it’s time to do a short (and incomplete) history of web development :

1) Static pages: at first they were static html pages. A guy would write HTML* code in some text files, save those in some directory. Other people could then connect to www.someserver.com, their browser would then start from the index.html file located at the root of the web directory, parse it and display it. The user would typically click a link and would then load another html file eg. contacts.html and see the contacts page of the site.

This had many disadvantages :

1) HTML is not easy to write for anybody, so you need specialists for any page produced

2) You had to write html for each and every thing, if you wanted a gallery with 200 items, you would have 200 html files or 1 gigantic one.

3) Content was really static, meaning static text, borders and pictures**

Trying to ameliorate, server (scripting) technologies were developed. In fact you don’t have to write every line of html of what the user sees. You can write code that generates HTML files. Let say you have a e-shop, you don’t have to create an HTML page for every article, you create an article template, an administration site where men can enter information about the products, you then associate urls to different products like www.eshop.com/products/1 www.eshop.com/products/2 would return an HTML file generated “on the fly” by the server using the template and filing in data from the administration site.

This illustrates Mathieu's point (or so we are told)

But server technologies couldn’t solve entirely the third point (really static content), Content could be generated by the server and customized for the user, it wouldn’t make the user’s experience much richer as the user was still seeing a static HTML file and clicking to the next static text/image page. So “they” came up with javascript which was a way to modify what the user see with scripts. It changed web programming forever because you could now write logic that would execute on users actions to the page.

For example you could have a button that would become red when the mouse was over it, or a panel that would open when clicked. Well I’m digressing a little bit, let’s hurry up. After that they invented “ajax”*** so that the browser could contact the server using javascript and fetch new content to refresh your page, so you didn’t have to “navigate” to another page on every action that required interaction with the server (like viewing other items or submitting a form).

Nevertheless all these evolutions lead to the webpages you see now, well that’s not entirely true, because javascript could make the pages more dynamic but it couldn’t make them more “multimedia”, and the users wanted videos and sounds, that’s were macromedia jumped in and came up with flash, that was later bought by adobe and that we still use to watch videos and sounds on internet, recently this changed because we see a trend to come back to pure html/javascript with the coming of html5 and it’s video and audio tags as well as css3 for the animations.

2°) Scability

To explain my point, all these evolutions didn’t solve my problem, because as I said, a Chat must be a “realtime” application and all this javascript and servers stuff cannot do real time applications, why would you ask me ? Because in this standard model content is send to the clients/users only when the user click somewhere or do something, at this precise moment a connection is made to the server, which responds with required content. But in a multiuser chat, when somebody sends a message, all the other users of the chat must receive this message ASAP.

A solution could be to have each client connect the server every second or so to ask if there is a new message. The problem with this and that’s where we get to the second difficulty, is that “it doesn’t scale”! First let’s explain the term : “It doesn’t scale” is a shortcut for something like : it works for 5 users but it doesn’t scale up to 10000 users.

Why this method of having each client ping the server every second doesn’t scale ? Because if you have 10000 clients connected, that makes you 10000 connections by second to the server just for the “realtime” features, meaning that it doesn’t event include the users loading the page, interacting, liking and sending message and you get those 10000 connections per second even if nothing happen during this time.

After a lot of experimentation and researching I chose the following setup: nginx + uwsgi + python/django + APE =)

The solution needs to be able to send messages to the clients as soon as (and only when) a new message arrives. That’s were “server push” arrived, it’s actually an umbrella term to describe the possibility of sending data from the server to the client when new data arrives and not when the user refresh. Real push is called “http streaming” and is not supported by older browsers aka IE. So tweakers came up with a solution called “long-polling” the browser opens a connection to the server, the server wait to answer, the connections is kept open, when fresh data arrives, the server answer like he should have directly when the browser receives data, it handle it and then reopen a “long-polling” connection to the server. You can visualize all this in the Figure 1.

After a lot of experimentation and researching I chose the following setup:

nginx + uwsgi + python/django + APE =)

What are all these geeky terms ?

Nginx is a next gen webserver that’s capable of handling a ridiculous huge amount of connection on ridiculously small hardware. It is in my opinion a huge concurrent to the fat apache out there.

Uwsgi is a “fast, self-healing and developer/sysadmin-friendly application container server coded in pure C” and it executes python code that runs the django framework.

Python is an interpreted, object-oriented, high-level programming language with dynamic semantics. What this all means is that you can be a lot more productive with python than with other low-level compiled languages (because high level means you don’t care about the low level stupid stuff, and interpreted means that you don’t have to recompile the program after every change, it just runs directly)

Django is “The web framework for perfectionists with deadlines” or a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

APE is Ajax Push Engine, one of the more mature libraries out there for doing server push, it can be configured to user different transport and is also written in C (read : it’s really fast)

So all the business logic and serverside was developed in django.

Real-times updates are sent from django to APE which send them to all connected users and then there is a lot of HTML/CSS/Javascript/Jquery to hold it together in the browser :)

So now we have enough “nerderies” I think. Feel free to contact me if you have some technical questions.

3°- Agility

That’s were I get to my last point : Agile development. We didn’t want to come up with the “wonderfullest chat on paper” that would turn unusable in practice. So we progressively developed features and tested it among us to feel and touch the thing, changing it multiple times. And that’s what agile is all about : small, realistic iterations that are validated, or in other words : if you do a lot of small steps you can only do some small steps in the wrong direction, but if you try to do a huge step, you can end-up doing a huge step in the wrong direction and lose a lot of time and money.

Agile thus equals programmers not programming wrong, but also not getting crazy during long periods alone in their desks. And small iterations, means frequent tests and meetings, and that’s where we get to the interesting part of all:

Humans working together to share with other humans their dream: democracy and freedom!

As a bonus, here is a video showing the coding process of our facebook’s chat application.

Visualization of the EP-FB chat source code evolution. from Mathieu VDH on Vimeo.

Cheers,

Your fellow Facebook developer.

* imagine HTML as language to layout text, images and frames on any screen

** picture were introducted in 1994

*** Asynchronous Javascript And XML

Iurii, Elodie and Ekin, our three Facebook fans who came to Strasbourg. Above, with President Buzek.

End of last year, three fans of the European Parliament on Facebook came to Strasbourg to attend the award of the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought. They were chosen by draw among almost 2.000 people who registered to an event on Facebook. Iurii, 22-years old, Ukrainian, and Elodie,  24, French, tell us about their 2-days experience in the European Parliament.

Iurii:

If someone asked me a month ago “What is the Sakharov prize?” I would answer “This has something to do with the freedom of thought, right?” Currently I would say that this is an annual ceremony held in the European Parliament in Strasbourg to honor those people who have made a major contribution to the fight for the freedom of thought in their country. The prize is named after Andrei Sakharov, Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident and human rights activist. Who could have thought that I would know all this because of a social network called Facebook? I sure didn’t. But because of devoted work of European Parliament’s Facebook division and Web department such people like me are getting to know more and more about human rights and freedom of thought.

On December 15th I had the honor to be present at this ceremony together with 2 more young people from Turkey and France. This incredible opportunity became possible because of tremendous efforts of the EP workers, especially those of the Web Department, Events Unit and numerous other people who contributed to it. The program for the day included not only the ceremony itself, but also a seminar on human rights for journalists, a tour around the building, a possibility to be present at the debate on the annual report on human rights, lunch at the EP restaurant, the opening of the Silhouettes of the Sakharov Prize laureates and even more. The day was filled with various events to say the least. I would like to point out that the events were not obligatory i.e. we were not forced to attend them. But who would want to miss at least one of them really? In the evening we had a lot of free time, which we spent wondering around the city centre, admiring the Christmas decorations on each and every building. I think that Strasbourg is called “the capital of Christmas” for a good reason. I would like to thank all the EP staff, especially the Facebook division of the Web department for all the patience, support and positive attitude.

Thank you everyone out there for using Facebook!

If you still don’t – join us!

Iurii Medentsii from Ukraine

Elodie:

Winning the trip offered by the European Parliament for the award of the Sakharov Prize only by being friends with the European Parliament on Facebook and joining the event was just unbelievable for me. I couldn’t think it was real, until I arrived in Strasbourg.

Has anyone already win something through Facebook? Europe makes it possible, and especially the Facebook team of the European Parlement ;)

It was just awesome to be in Strasbourg to participate to  the Shakaraov Ceremony together with the other two winners Ekin and Iurii. Living in Brussels and going to Strasbourg for the ceremony made the trip just completely 200% European :)

The very well organized trip was for us an awesome experience: we had the pleasure to see how the Parliament works on a busy plenary day, to attend the award of the Sakharov Price and to meet the President Mr Buzek.

Unfortunately, Guillermo Fariñas couldn’t be there so we had a ceremony with an empty chair. Despite this, the entire day was dedicated to him: in the Parliament precincts, during the ceremony of the Sakharov Prize, during the debate about the Annual Report on Human Rights with Mrs Catherine Ashton, and also during the opening of both exhibitions: the one about Andrej Sakharov in the Parliament and the one on Human Rights in the city of Strasbourg.

I would like to end with a great thanks to all the team who organized our trip to Strasbourg ;)

Thank you all for everything, because the Strasbourg European Parliament trip was simply amazing.

Elodie Begou

In one month I visited or participated in the work of all DG Communication Units – the Web Communication Unit, the Press Service, the Audiovisual Unit, the Media Services and Monitoring Unit and the Europarl TV Unit. What are my main conclusions? The European Parliament’s communication policy is certainly following the new challenges of information era. During the last year it has become more active than ever to respond to all the new requirements by using such new communication tools as Web-TV, Facebook and Twitter. The European Parliament provides all kind of information (written, oral, audiovisual and web) on the EU matters in all official EU languages. So no doubts – wonderful work is done here.

They say here they want to reach their "Latvian Grandmother" - well here the Speaker of the Latvian Parliament (and my boss), Gundars Daudze, shows how it's done! - from Saeimas Flickr page

Also in Latvia we’ve learned the lesson of information revolution and widely opened the door of the Latvian Parliament to the new media. We started to use Twitter in August 2009 and for the moment we have more than 1200 followers (it is remarkable achievement for Latvia). We have put a lot of effort to develop Youtube and Flickr account. But the question probably remains the same as for the European Parliament – how to sell this all these good products that we produce to the general public?

There is no simple answer to this question. But in my view one thing should be done for sure. There is a need to explore internal communication between the different units of the European Parliament. We cannot expect people to know and use all these wonderful products if even our colleagues from the third and fourth floor have only a remote idea about our work. In my opinion this is the general problem in all public institutions, in Latvia as well. We could ask a question in the Latvian Parliament – how many of you know that for almost a year the Parliament is in Twitter? And presumably not even a one sixth of all staff would be informed.

I understand that for such a huge institutional body as European Parliament to make it happen is even more complex task but still it’s worth trying. Only by working as one united body one can expect better results.

I want to thank all the people who were involved in my education process here in Brussels. I was positively impressed about the things you’ve done in a couple last years. And hopefully I will be able to take this good experience to Latvia.

Lāsma Lapinska

This is more or less mirrored by my use of the internet, thriving with billions of pieces of information, all linked together, sometimes without any logical scheme, and it’s easy to get lost. On time I was looking at the Napoleone Bonaparte page on Wikipedia and ended up reading about projects for the fourth generation nuclear power plants.

Let’s be honest: with all its mind-bogglingly possibilities, internet is anyway just another place to muck about. It’s always the same old story: the telephone allows you to communicate with people and hear their voices from all over the world, but then you will probably just call your buddy who lives two miles away and comment on the latest football match.

Today, Facebook is the most accessed website in the world, more than the Holy Google itself: it looks like people just can’t go on with their lives without knowing what pudding your cousin’s best friend’s brother in law ate this morning or what incredible, uberfun party your ex attended (and of course you weren’t invited to).

It’s really about our own nature: since the stone age and before those nice hairy ancestors of ours loved to live in small groups, communities, and now that we shave and our frenetic lives have cut out most of the leisure time, it’s just normal for technology to come in our aid providing us with new means to interact with people. I mean, of course nothing can compare to hanging out with your buddies for a beer, or dating your girlfriend, but in our fast paced life is good to be able to stay in touch with friends everywhere without too much of a hassle.

This however generated an unsettling issue: internet addiction. We have actual rehabilitation centres bristling with poor souls who are desperate for their internet fix. Twitter, Facebook, mySpace, Second Life: these are the new drugs of the third millennium. These addicts lose their jobs, their friends and give up on their real life in favour of a fake one where they can be someone else, erasing all the problems and not worrying about any consequence.

The question is: what’s the boundary between healthy and distorted? How can someone find out if he has a problem? How is it possible to help?
As always, education is probably the best way of dealing with these problems. In the globally connected world of today, kids (and adults as well) should be addressed with these issues, explaining how serious can be the consequences of an obsessed relation with the web. Family and friends can also provide invaluable aid to help those who already find themselves stuck in this vicious circle.

So, in the end, do I believe in those e-things?
No, I don’t believe in them and I don’t think they are as life-enhancing as they pretend to be, but I still take advantage of using them because they can be useful, and because with such small time to muck about, being a geek can just be hard at times.

“Anthropologists have argued that, contrary to popular perception, early hunter-gatherer societies enjoyed more leisure time than is permitted by complex modern societies. For instance, one camp of! Kung Bushmen was estimated to work two-and-a-half days per week, at around 6 hours a day,” claims one of the largest online encyclopaedias.
Maybe this is the time to slow down a little bit and to start to make working meetings more efficient so we can work only 8 hours a day and dedicate our other 8 hours to active or passive rest time.

Webinars
Tired of travelling, moving and staying away from friends or family? Instead of having face to face meetings you could use modern technology to speed up your conference procedures. “Face-to-face meetings used to be the only way to get things done. Now the best way to save money, time and travel is to collaborate over the Web,” says one of the modern technology web pages. By pushing few buttons you can host or attend live meetings, demos, webinars or even give presentations, share web pages, whiteboards, voice, video – even record your events. This sounds easy and really handy, but resembles Star Trek a little bit.

Lunch time with allies
By accelerating the seminars you can have more time for our daily animalistic survival routine – food. It does not need to be seen this way if you go with your fellows. :) So how much? 30 minutes or for the lucky ones even an hour? Better than nothing. If you need to meet a VITK friend (very important to know), lunch is the time for that. 15 minutes to get there, 30 minutes to eat lovely menu for 5 Euros, 15 minutes back and your lunch-socializing or even business is easily done.

Evening food session with your Cherie organized via new technology
Now you can work hard for another four hours while checking your online social networks to see whether there is anybody organizing dinner. For those who are less lucky and cannot use anything else except the company’s webpage there is a new technology. You are not from the same city, or distance between you two is long, you are both crazily busy and finding new and different places for the two to meet may prove trying, as it would be for many in a similar situation.

There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.
Christopher Morley

But thanks to new software which provides meeting points of interest between two points, it can be easier. These two points are Points A and B. In either one, you can choose to use your current location or put the address in to your phone. After settling on the locations of both Points A and B, tapping the “places to meet” button provides a list of places to meet by category and subcategory, for which vendor ratings and reviews are provided. It also provides the distance from a vendor to both Points A and B, so you’ll know who’s really driving or walking more. And you can even meet “by coincidence” at the bus stop or other “random” places.

Sporcializing
“Join a club with people who have common interests. You don’t necessarily have to have a lot of common interests with people in order to make friends with them. In fact, some of the most rewarding friendships are between two people who don’t have much in common at all, but if you have something in common with people, it can make it a lot easier to start a conversation and plan activities together,” suggests the online encyclopaedia. But on the other hand practicing a sport together such as tennis or golf provides a very neutral and healthy environment for a little gossip as well as business conversations. Simply it is crucial to multitask. (It has been proven that man can do it as well :) )

Cheers, Ho ta la, Na zdravie
These are the magic words that make deeper talks, eventually trustworthy friendships and good business deals. To get to this stage, you just need to check your online social networks or phone book to write few messages or to make some calls. All in all it shouldn’t be more than few minutes while your are having your 5 minute break.
A very clever and funny friend of mine told me that you do not do business at work but during lunch, golf or evening drink. These five tricks can make you efficient or even successful, but at least it gives you some idea how to catch up with your friends, loved ones or partners.