The day when…
Lunch with the nicest ex-drop out ever …
Thursday at EESC ‘s “literature lunch” young English author Helen Walsh was reading from her novel “Once Upon A Time in England“. We were transferred from a sunny Brussels rooftop terrace to a cold night in a tough Warrington housing estate. She started reading and it suddenly felt colder. The tale sent shivers down the spine. You knew something bad [...]
The hysteria has begun
Here we go again…World Cup in Football. The next 4 – 5 weeks millions and millions of people will spend endless hours singing, drinking and shouting while watching grown up men chasing small leather balls in South Africa. It’s the 19th edition of the World Cup and the first ever to be held on the [...]
EPSeptical
That is how I have been feeling after participating in a competition to become EU official. I tried to prepare it seriously, and then you arrive to the test centre and you can’t avoid wondering if it really made a difference. The European Personnel Selection Office, EPSO, prepares the 3 types of tests the same [...]
The Office or… Transformational Digital Engagement.
A day in London today for a digital communications workshop at the UK Central Office of Information (COI). The event brought together public sector (mainly governmental) communicators from across the EU and a smattering of hipsters from Google, Facebook, Microsoft and the like. Organised with firm-handed devotion to timing, the workshop was intensive, leaving a [...]
So this is what its like after all
So this is what it’s like? After more than a decade and a half as a journalist, I am now a source. One of the… yes, one of the “faceless bureaucrats”.
The day we wanted to go to the 12th floor
This day we thought we were going for a regular lunch at the EP, instead we were taken on a rather Kafkaesque behind-the-scenes tour.
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…
Meeting Mr Rasmussen
It is quite a heady experience to sit in the office of the head of the world’s largest military alliance and ask him questions about global geo-politics. Geographically, at least, our questions ranged from Brussels to Moscow via Washington and Kabul.
The day the system broke down
This week started with a huge system failure. The first thing we noticed was that “Outlook” was not responding anymore. It left – for half a day as we discovered later – with no mention of when it would come back, and we couldn’t write e-mails to each other anymore. It became a day of [...]
What I really wanted to say.
What can’t be said in a meeting can be posted on a blog. That’s what blogging is all about, right? So, here comes what I couldn’t say in one of our big meeting.
P.S: I love you!
There is one phrase that comes to my mind when I think of the Open Days 2009: “We owe (it) to those who came, who passed by, who will come, who will pass by” (by Greek poet Kostis Palamas). And I have one thing to say to those who came (or not) and who passed by [...]
Aaaaaarrrrgggghhh! What’s going on?
A girl hurtles screaming down a deserted corridor. We are told to “be prepared”. What on earth is going on? What indeed? Be prepared.
The human faces of (some) public faces
“One must go in and fetch a diamond out” says one of Arthur Miller’s characters in “Death of a Salesman”. The same process applied to collecting 10 reasons to vote from ex-EP presidents when they gathered in Brussels last week. I met them together with other three editors and our photographer Pietro and asked them to give our readers the reasons to participate to the European elections.
REAL politics in the European Parliament?
Organisations, so they say, are rational enterprises, deciding their priorities and allocating resources on the basis of a cool analysis of need. Alternatively, as anyone who has ever worked in an organisation can attest, humanity imposes its own, not-always-quite-so-rational, world view on the neat theory of organisational utopia.
Public versus secure
All night long I had nightmares about being stripped bare by security officers who were looking for plastic guns in my pockets. This morning I feared coming to work. Not because a man with a gun robbed yesterday a branch of the ING bank in a building of the European Parliament. But because I feared [...]
Get ready!
After a crazy (in the bad sense) start of the week – a creative project that made the second half crazy as well, but in a good sense :) We will never look at the plenary chamber, toilet mirrors, interpreter booths, TV sets and TV studios, carton boxes, popcorn, ushers, Pietro and, definitely, Fred the same.
She is coming! And I saw her first!
In one month (8th October), Ingrid Betancourt will come to the European Parliament, and I imagine every single member of this team would love to interview her… If the agenda of the visit is not very tight, if she is not very tired, if we manage to get an interview with her, if….you will see [...]
My first time with Alanis Morissette…
I love my job because sometime is in movement. I love it when I have pressure on my shoulders and I need to think, react and shoot as quickly as I can, and sometimes also quicker than I could! [...]
The day we invented the synopsis
Here is a simple question that tormented us for quite a long time when we were just drafting the organisation, the process and the methods that we now use daily. Those were the days when we were about to start to write and publish on the Headlines and when we were slowly gathering the small team that became our Team – and our Unit.
a local global phenomenon
Fascinating to see how a little office stunt, a bit of fun for the office Christmas party, can take on a life of its own thanks to YouTube. That’s what we found anyway…
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