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.

In that contract the shape of WebCom’s annus mirabilis could already be discerned

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, Scholz & Friends, our part of their big framework contract with the Parliament they won earlier in the year. Things didn’t have to be this tight, but there was always another quibble, another detail to be clarified, another dispute to be settled, another box to be ticked. However, we made it; the procedural issues were ironed out, the budget people gave us the nod, the financial controllers appended their seal of approval.

We maybe didn’t realise it at the time, but in that contract the shape of WebCom’s annus mirabilis could already be discerned.

Hitherto, we had had a clear, well-defined job: to publish on the “headlines” page of the Parliament’s website every day. We thought we didn’t do too badly: we had made big efforts to make the site far more attractive and varied than before. The team had upped its game, kept up a stream of great editorial ideas, absorbed some inspiring training in the secrets of good hackery (cheers Ben!). Traffic to the site was increasing steadily – we were doing OK.  But we knew it wouldn’t be enough for the big elections communication campaign coming up in 2009.

Our world did not collapse under an avalanche of obscenity and abuse from Parliament-haters, nor did political extremists hijack our comments columns

Already, at the end of 2008, we were about ready to go with a special new site for the elections. We were inordinately proud of this, not only for the result, but for the way we did it: in a small team bringing together editors (Eirini and Gaëlle), designers (Fred and Sophie) and geeks (Nicolas and Pascal). Most significantly, this site trailed a whole new departure for the Parliament online, because it included interactive features: comments, debates, polls. It had not been easy to persuade our bosses, still less our political masters, of the wisdom of letting the great unwashed loose on Parliament’s website, but 2008 was also the year when a certain US presidential candidate changed the rules of online campaigning, something which helped our cause considerably. At the same time, the site set a new tone: graphically appealing, occasionally light-hearted, not-too-earnest. It went live on 19 January 2009. Our world did not collapse under an avalanche of obscenity and abuse from Parliament-haters, nor did political extremists hijack our comments columns (well, maybe once…). So far so good.

A team that delivered the goods in 2009

However, the real revolution was still to come. The election communication campaign had to be about reaching parts of the public we don’t normally reach. A year later, it seems a completely banal statement – itself a measure of how far things have come – but we knew we had to get outside the website, and establish a presence on the internet where the people are, to talk to them there, engage them there and maybe get them to wake up to the European elections in June. As one of the Scholz guys put it at one point: we needed to “go fishing where the fishes are”. It was a message which, moreover, we found our masters, administrative and political, had thoroughly taken on board.

As I said, the seeds of all this were in the contract. Workshops on social media, the design of profiles on MySpace and Facebook, a YouTube strategy, online widgets, a Flickr page, viral videos… Ideas all in there, only needing to be made flesh. I, and others, have obsessed lengthily about all of this on this blog. It is interesting in retrospect to see the doubts we had, the sense that we were taking something of a gamble, the notion that all this could come horribly unstuck. Now it seems inevitable, but when we did it, though it was hardly avant-garde on the internet, it was still seriously radical for either an EU institution or any parliamentary institution. To this day, what we did – and are still doing – remains highly unusual in our institutional peer group.

Over a frenzied three months, March to May, we went from being purveyors of a single web platform – the headlines page – to maintaining seven or eight different platforms.  We did this knowing what we were getting into; we would never be forgiven if we barged into the social media only to fall silent once the elections were out of the way (as some suspected we would).

To this day, what we did – and are still doing – remains highly unusual in our institutional peer group

So here we are today, a year on and old hands at the social media game. And it’s true: once you’re in, that’s it, there’s no going back. The job now is to keep it going – constantly to ask what the next thing is, how to maintain the interest of those fearsome Facebook fans. And at the same time, we must not forget our core business – the website. Indeed, right now we are beginning the process of overhauling the whole thing – but I’ll leave it to Tibo to talk about that in the next post.

I could mention a whole lot of other things from this year, but let me stick to just three. First, it was the first year of this blog, our unofficial calling card in the euroblogging community (with especial thanks to avid readers and better-bloggers-than-us Julien, Jon, Kosmopolito, Cédric, Nosemonkey, Eurosocialiste, Ralf and all others who commented), and maybe beyond. Second, we also set up another special website, recently online, (Florent and Bárbara had the energy left for this one), which will cover the commissioners’ hearings next year. Third, we created a fun, embeddable widget – a Christmas eco-quiz – for MySpace (Raffaella’s baby, this), hopefully a pointer to something we will be doing more often in future.

So 2009 will be a tough act to follow: it was exciting, exhausting, genuinely creative and occasionally nerve-wracking. In the small world of WebCom it was the year of our online revolution. Now we live with the consequences. But, as they say: “you wanted the bike, now pedal”.

And now, on the last day at work before Christmas, it’s a good time to say this…

People think we fool around in videos and spend our days chatting on the web. Let them.

The team has been unbelievable this year. They have been asked to do more and more, to keep up the enthusiasm, to find new ideas every day, to work really hard. I won’t say no-one ever complained, but the team stuck together, kept up the spirit and did the biz. The outcome exceeded expectations. Most of all, the team kept its sense of fun, a feeling that even if it is tough, it is possible to enjoy your job if you’re doing something good. Maybe sometimes, from the outside, it looks like too much fun – people think we fool around in videos and spend our days chatting on the web. Let them. We know that we have something here which really works.

Thanks to everyone, and have a great Christmas. It was a year to be proud of.

And if you need reminder of all the things we do – here’s one!

In my last post, I regretted that agreements between the political groups on the distribution of positions in the European Parliament took most of the suspense and interest out of the consituent sitting of the Parliament, especially for those not party to the internal rumour mill. Yes indeed, the week, now ending, has essentially seen things go according to script in the vast majority of cases.

But it is the exceptions that count, and hardly had I pressed the “publish” button on the last post than the Parliament provided its big surprise of the week. While the process of electing vice-presidents to the Bureau of the EP may seem to most normal people of interest to hard core political geeks only, it actually provided the main excitement of the new parliament so far. Its consequences are sufficiently interesting to stimulate the interest of the mainstream press, and incidentally provide an insight into the interconnectedness of all the deals and agreements that are struck between politicians.

MEPs voting. Not always the expected result... (EP Flickr page)

The story, if I can sum it up very quickly, goes as follows. Parliament has 14 vice-presidents.  These people are important because, together with the President as the Bureau, they take decisions on organisational and budgetary matters in Parliament and oversee the activities of the administration. (Yes, that is important.) Like most such bodies, membership is shared out between the political groups on a roughly proportional basis.  Prior agreements are met as to who should be elected, and if all goes to plan 14 candidates stand for 14 posts, are duly elected and get on with it. But this time there were 15 candidates, thanks to the “rogue” candidacy of UK Conservative Edward McMillan-Scott, a long-standing MEP and outgoing vice-president, who was not however the approved candidate of his political group – the newly formed  ECR, which had put forward Polish Law and Justice MEP Michal Kaminski for the position.  The ECR group’s two largest component delegations, the UK conservatives and the Polish Law and Justice party, has essentially agreed the group leadership should go to the Brits and an EP vice-presidency to the Poles.

After several rounds of voting (a complicated way to decide which of 15 candidates not to elect, admittedly, but one which maintained the suspense nicely) it emerged that McMillan-Scott had made it. The unlucky victim of his candidacy was – indeed – none other than Kaminski.  Hmmm.

The ECR Poles were reportedly – and understandably – furious and, at the group meeting later the same day already scheduled to elect the group leader, the only way to placate them appears to have been for the Tory leadership contenders to withdraw from the race, leaving the way open for Kaminski to ascend to the group leadership and thus to membership of the institution’s most exalted political body, the Conference of Presidents, which sets Parliament’s political agenda.

McMillan-Scott who, for the record, has been very publicly opposed to the decision of the UK conservatives to leave the EPP group to form a new, much smaller group in alliance with Law and Justice and others, was punished by expulsion from the group and saw the Conservative party whip withrawn.  He thus becomes that rarest of EP animals, a non-attached vice president. (Has there ever been one? Some-one may know)

The events of the week demonstrate that – just sometimes – things do not go strictly according to plan

The political repercussions are significant and need no elucidation from me. It is however worthy of note that the UK’s largest political delegation in the European Parliament, is now represented in neither the Conference of Presidents nor the Bureau, an unusual situation.

But this is not about political analysis, but about political interest and excitement. This episode has undoubtedly provided that, as intense press interest has testified. (Another story here)

A little coda to the tale the next day was the election of another rogue candidate to the position of quaestor (though quaestors’ elections have proven unpredictable in the past also), thanks to the election of UK LibDem, Bill Newton-Dunn (what is it with these Brits?), who was one of three MEPs who challenged the official group candidates.

Anyway, the events of the week demonstrate that – just sometimes – things do not go strictly according to plan. And that’s why I have to eat my words: it was an interesting week, one indisputably more interesting than the less interesting week I predicted!

It's difficult to find new challenges after the elections... Photo by Koshyk on Flickr

And now? What’s next? After the tension of the election night (“Here are the first results! Tweeeeeeeeeeeet please! Asap!”), we’re coming in what I call a “post-electoral depression”. Nothing matters any more. Day-to-day work seems quite boring. What’s the aim of the articles we write, if not to increase the turnout in the elections?

On top of that, after having been in the “centre of the world” – or the “centre of Europe”, with hundreds of thousands of visits (i.e. readers) each day, nobody cares about us now. The stats are going down. We will become anonymous again on the web. No banner campaign, no Google adwords. Well, is that strange to be a normal citizen, waking up each morning for going to work instead of changing the world!

Retrospectively, overmotivation is probably dangerous. We should now wait five years until we can experience again an electoral campaign. For the time being, I will go on holidays. Just to forget a little bit the work, just to remind me that there are some wonderful things in the world which have nothing to do with my job. And when I will come back, I will be highly motivated for the next challenges. Because fortunately, we will find new goals, new projects, new deadlines … La vie est un éternel recommencement, en somme…

This minstrel has seen some changes himself

Writing in Prospect magazine this month Steven Johnson and Paul Starr debate the question of whether the changes brought to the media by the internet herald “a golden age of serious journalism” or whether it will bring down standards.

As someone whose job is to write on the web, I naturally hope it will be the latter – especially in regard to political reporting and content. The European elections are just a few weeks away and we are beavering away at all manner of things for the website, YouTube, Facebook – you name it – trying to persuade people to vote. We even have some viral stuff – and I’m not talking about swine flu either.

A recent gift by my Polish colleague, Leszek, got me thinking about how different methods of political communication have changed over the last 200 years.

It was of a reprint of “The Times” after the Battle of Waterloo providing a fascinating insight into news back in 1815. The front page is filled with adverts for lodgings, meetings, Governesses and tutors. The inside pages have a full account of the battle itself by the Duke of Wellington and an “official bulletin” from Downing Street which celebrated the end of “a long and sanguinary conflict”.

This was political communication 1815 style. The date is 22 June, 4 days after the battle – a period of time that would be unthinkable now in the modern news cycle.

This was of course the newspaper age – something that is perhaps still with us – but which faces a serious challenge for its survival from the internet and global recession. It survived the telegram, the radio, cinema and the TV, which have all indelibly shaped politics. Above all TV has shaped modern politics. Famously in the 1960 TV presidential debate between Richard Nixon and John F Kennedy those who listened to it on radio thought Nixon had won, whilst the TV audience gave victory to Kennedy due to hid healthier pallor and Nixon’s perspiration.

A flickr of genius

Traditionally the best way to convince the voters is by making speeches to large numbers of voters. Many tended to be long-winded affairs with the oratorical giant like William Gladstone holding his listeners spellbound for hours as he denounced the policies of his old foe Disraeli.

Recently a lawyer from Illinois has been in the news for getting elected as US President in part due to his speaking skills. It was another lawyer from that State, Abraham Lincoln, who in November 1863 combined oratory and brevity in equal measure with a speech at the site of the Gettysburg battlefield.

Renowned orator Edward Everett delivered a two hour oration before Lincoln – but who remembers that now? After he had finished Lincoln stood up and spoke for perhaps 2 to 3 minutes summarizing the Union’s aims in the Civil War in 10 sentences, which have rightly gone down in history.

Whatever the format I think well chosen words and an effective delivery always have impact. Recently a certain British MEP delivered a pretty blistering assault on Prime Minister Gordon Brown after his speech to the European Parliament. With the help of the old media – namely the right-wing newspapers extolling its brilliance – it has now been viewed over 2.2 million times. Whether or not one shares his views, he has demonstrated is that the YouTube format does work when carrying effective speeches from Brussels and Strasbourg.

Face to Face book

One of the most tried and trusted way to persuade the voters is by meeting them – although as any candidate will tell you this can are a nerve wracking affair.

Being “on the stump” is a good way for aspiring candidates to meet their electorate. My sister, who lives in London, recently told me that a nice old lady from the Conservative party had knocked on her door the other day and asked whether she would be voting for them. Something about this quaint British tradition of canvassing door to door I find really appealing. It gives you a chance to see your candidates and get a measure of them.

Naturally, if they are the party you have no intention of voting for the trick is to keep them talking at length on the doorstep so they have less time to go to other people…

Here in Belgium they have this nice habit of coming round markets and asking if you intend to vote for them – this weekend I accumulated several leaflets from the Green party as I sat having a coffee. The slight irony of the greens giving out leaflets has always struck me but I’m sure it’s recycled paper!

Poster child

The Belgians also erect billboards around the town so that parties and candidates can paste up their pictures it can be quite amusing and parochial, but it’s faintly reassuring.  Election posters are a whole genre in themselves. It also seems the worse the regime – the better the posters. I defy anyone not to be impressed by the visual splendour Soviet posters depicting all manner of Communist “triumphs”.

Politics online

In the 2004 European Parliamentary elections the internet played a part but it is in the last 5 years that it has really come of age with YouTube, Facebook and Twitter entering the lexicon. Given the amount of people who use them I doubt they will fade easily.

Here in the Web Communication Unit of the Parliament’s Communication Department have not only developed a website in the EU’s 22 languages that gets over 100,00 visits a day but have embraced them along with Facebook, MySpace and flickr to try and get the message across.

The good thing about this is that it allows people to communicate with us and get their own message across.

“When men say they cannot find a suitable women, I would say: you should have your eyes checked.”

With the elections for Parliament only one month away, this is the time to finally achieve a 50/50 representation in the hemicycle. In order to achieve this, it would help if more women would vote and that they would vote for a woman. But would that do the trick? To start, we would also need a good representation of women on the voting lists.  A glance at the lists of the seven Dutch parties that are currently represented in the European Parliament, however, does not lead to much optimism: only two parties have a woman as a frontrunner….

Support the 50/50 campaign

Dutch Commission Kroes is equally pessimistic. She would like to see two of the six top positions that will or have been opened this year on EU (President of the European Commission, EP-President, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and in case the Lisbon Treaty enters into force, President of the European Council) and NATO-level occupied by a woman but said this week: “You need to have about eternal life before half of the politicians is a woman”. Assuming the 67-years old Commissioner does not have eternal life, wouldn’t it not be nice she would actually be able to witness equal representation in her lifetime? Kroes said to find it strange that there are not even women in the picture for the position of EP President: “When men say they cannot find suitable women, I would say: you should have your eyes checked”. The link to the interview is here for those who read Dutch.

If you want to support this cause, sign the “Females in Front” petition that is about the four different leaders of the European Union that will be appointed during the next 12 months only (not about NATO). The humble aim of this campaign is that one of them should at least be a woman.

You can also sign the 50/50 petition that aims at getting women on those high EU-posts as well but is also about “putting  pressure right now on all national political parties and require them to ensure the equal representation and ranking of women and men on their electoral lists and to include gender equality as a priority in their programmes.”

“The reason why women have not yet achieved equality, despite the fact that they have been trying for decades, is the idea that they can do it by themselves, that they do not need men.”

Women’s Rights Committee Chair Anna Záborská recently gave us an explanation for this male-domination: “The reason why women have not yet achieved equality, despite the fact that they have been trying for decades, is the idea that they can do it by themselves, that they do not need men.”

In order to achieve the 50/50 representation we indeed need the help of men. They are certainly not unwilling or unintersted as a Eurobarometer poll showed in February that 83% of women and 76% of men agree that women can bring a different perspective to politics. So we can gently ask them to vote for a woman but will it be enough?
Perhaps men do need an incentive and we can learn something from the women’s rights movement in Kenya who announced on 1 May to boycot sex for a week in order to enforce better rights (today they will be able to take stock). The sad situation of women in Kenya cannot be compared to the situation of women in the European Union, but we may copy some of their good action practices and… improve them on the way…..

So, tell your bed partner as a little reminder that if on election night it seems there will be no equal representation of women in the European Parliament, there will be no sex during the whole summer (until the next elections would be better but that may have devastating consequences for Europe’s gloomy demographic crunch) .

And finally a plea to the 368 male MEPs that will be elected for the next term: follow in the footsteps of MEPs Raül Romeva i Rueda , Giovanni Rivera and Konrad Szymański : elect twenty lucky devils among yourselves to join the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality committee. They have plenty of work!

With thanks to Lena and Raffaella for their suggestions.

P.S. Still have not read enough about this topic. Go here, even if it were only to check out the great illustration

The latter happened to me last week. In an interesting coffee break with some hard working colleagues who are totally devoted to the communication campaign, I learnt that in some countries, like Spain, the chicken of the installation is bilingual. It means that its messages are delivered not only in Spanish, but also in Catalan, Basque and Galician.  

Maybe this ability with languages is one of the reasons why this motive has become one of the most popular among the citizens. Even if cat lover Thibault thought everyone would fall in love with the cat and the lion, the truth is that the “beauty queen” of the campaign is the chicken. By popular request. One of them even got a love letter in the form of graffiti: “Je t’aime, poulet” (I love you, chicken). A public love declaration many women and men would dream of. Well, the chicken got it in just a week: it was love at first sight.  

In other cities passion towards the giant chicken has reached a point I could have never imagined. Like a pop idol, one of them was “assaulted” by fans that took away the labels dressing it. As the campaign invites voters to do, someone in Madrid made a choice: they wanted a naked chicken.

The naked chicken in Madrid (photo from the EP Flickr account)

Some said it was vandalism (“the chicken was vandalised in Madrid”). I prefer to understand it as another love declaration. A passionate one: you know what they say about Mediterranean people and Latin Lovers.

I must confess that at the beginning I could not understand why so much noise for a chicken. But now I have to admit that a giant chicken that travels all around the European Union, doing stripteases if the fans so require, and speaking so many languages (more than 25!) to get closer to the citizens, has a kind of a charm.

I say the “happy position”, because it is great (and easy) to be the cool guys constantly bidding for an idea and able to moan virtuously when the ol’ fuddy-duddies didn’t get it. Trouble is, they did! 

We are on MySpace!

What changed? For us, three factors. First, the world changed (not just for us, but for us too). The internet became what it is, technology moved on and we entered an era where NOBODY could ignore strange phenomena like MEPs’ speeches getting a million views in two days on YouTube or improbable Scottish singers becoming 50-million-view sensations…

Second, Obama happened. Politicians everywhere saw tangibly, and in the highest-stakes democratic contest in the world, how clever use of the modern internet for political communication can mobilise and motivate in ways hitherto unsuspected. Rightly enough, suddenly all politicians want a piece of that particular action.

How many times have we girded our loins, prepared our pitch, convinced that our latest scheme for something dangerously hip on the internet would be a tough sell to our flinty-eyed superiors, only to find the door wide open and be told to get a move on?

Third, the European elections loomed. Let’s not beat around the bush, EU people are worried that turnout could decline once more and the elections fail to receive the attention they are due. So the moment is propitious for trying new ideas, heading in new directions. Turnout is not determined by EU communications campaigns, but the cry went up nonetheless “we have to do whatever it takes!”

So, in a short space of time, we have an environment where suddenly the seemingly impossible, or, better, unimaginable, became urgent, where ideas which had hitherto been pushed in vain sailed through with barely a squeak. It was disconcerting: how many times have we girded our loins, prepared our pitch, convinced that our latest scheme for something dangerously hip on the internet would be a tough sell to our flinty-eyed superiors, only to find the door wide open and be told to get a move on? Will it last? Maybe not, but these are good times for innovation and it is hard to imagine how the internet genie can now be persuaded back into the bottle.

So why a hint of nostalgia for those sunny days when we banged our heads against a wall of seemingly implacable web-scepticism? Well, we’ve gotta do it now, haven’t we! 

Someone once said be careful what you wish for… I sympathise. Once upon a time, the web team of the EP spent its days researching and writing articles for the headlines page of the EP website. It was a full time job, done well. It still is.  (A full-time job, done well). But today your friendly web editors have one or two other things to keep them out of mischief:

+ moderating comments for our interactive features on the elections website

+ administering a MySpace profile, blogging, posting videos and photos, making friends, moderating comments

+ from today, very much the same for a Facebook page

+ managing a Flickr account, uploading photos, responding to users (and a separate “Guest photographer” photstream)

+ blogging on this blog (no, that’s a pleasure!)

+ getting out there, spreading the word, linking, commenting, posting, networking

+ and (soon) managing a new YouTube channel (part of EUTube)

Meanwhile, we’re not out of ideas yet. More projects are in the pipeline, but  a degree of suspense about those for the moment.

It’s great, of course, and there is SO much more to be done (as a rather intimidating encounter with a man from the UK Central Office of Information recently brought home to me), but it’s also rather a lot of work in the meantime. It’s all very well to set up cool new social networking sites, to finally “get it” (thanks Nosemonkey), but once you’ve started there’s no going back. Social networks, by definition, need daily input, a truth the EP web team  is discovering by doing.

So sooner or later, recognising a reality that public administrations traditionally feel hard to deal with, our strategy will have to be as much about what we are going to stop doing as about all the new things we can find to keep us busy. Just for now though, those elections continue to loom, all hands are on deck and there are seven weeks to go (it says so on MySpace) and, dammit, we’re enjoying it!

Former Presidents of the EP with Hans-Gert Pöttering in Brussels

Just a quick one today, based on an observation about something we have just published on the site. We pounced on a lunch held in honour of former EP Presidents held last week to ask them why they think people should vote in European elections. (Perhaps they could improve on our ten reasons, which have given rise to some small controversy here and there)

It was a remarkable occasion, in that every surviving former president of the European Parliament since direct elections was present, including the first, Simone Veil, plus her predecessor, the last president from the pre-1979 era, Emilio Colombo. All were generous enough to give us a moment of their time to ask our perhaps rather unsophisticated question.

I won’t repeat their answers here, but what I will mention is that there was a clear evolution in the kinds of answers they gave, which may provide a nice little illustration of the way the EU and the European Parliament are going. The “earlier” presidents’ reasons tend to revolve around the notion of voting as an endorsement of the European “project”, of the Parliament itself as a manifestation of European democracy and of a broad European ideal. More recent presidents emphasised the choice to be made by voters between different parties and political philosophies in order to deal with difficult world issues. So more about who you want in the Parliament than about wanting the Parliament itself, as it were.

An unscientific sample, maybe, but might the differences between these answers be a symptom of the maturity of the European system and the firmly established powers of the Parliament? Do we see a shift towards Europe as politics-as-usual, as opposed to the pioneer days when the political drive was about ”building” Europe? Just a thought…

You can read the president’s reasons by clicking on ”meet the presidents” in the central column here.

Nice work, and the bar set suitably high for future satirists…

The emails were flying around the office this morning, with everyone selecting their favourite from Cédric’s versions of the “It’s your choice” theme.

I liked the one below, not least because it provides – a posteriori – the perfect illustration for last week’s poll on the elections website about the internet*. In the spontaneous office survey this morning, others were however preferred, but for reasons of impartiality, I shall not reveal which.

Nice work, and the bar set suitably high for future satirists…

* Our poll asked whether the internet was out of control and whether it needed more regulation (yes, it needs better regulation; yes, leave it alone; no, it’s fine as it is).  The results were evenly split three ways. We will be publishing all the archived results of our polls soon.

Since we’re on the subject, why not answer this week’s tough question about whether you want more holiday!

http://www.puisney.eu/la-campagne-de-pub-que-vous-ne-verrez-jamais