social media
Making a hash of hashtags
There were more than a few distraught Cher fans on Twitter last Monday. Stumbling across the hashtag #nowthatchersdead, they assumed it referred to the popular singer of If I Could Turn Back Time instead of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher who died that day following a stroke. It's not the first time either that [...]
Bye bye Webcom – for a while
After 3,5 years, 1,417 stories written on La Une, 4,200 tweets, about 1,000 Facebook posts , 23 blogs and one Newshub, time has come for me to move on and see what beyond the wonderful, challenging and sexy world of Webcom. Am I going far away? No, not really. But still, it does feel strange to leave, even for a temporary replacement…
How I became Giulio’s hero
“Florent is my hero”. This exclamation, published on 2 July by my colleague Giulio on Facebook, went straight to my heart. What a professional and personal achievement for me… You’re jealous? I understand. But I’m not selfish, so here is how I became Giulio’s hero. May it inspire you!
When the chat is AFK, the mice dance on the TBL
Due to my last two posts having been rather lengthy, I'll try to keep this brief. And in light of the subject of the video, I'll make it even briefer by using as many geeky chat acronyms as my limited knowledge – and Google – allows: CTC? FYI: Geek, "CMG", hired by PTB to D [...]
The Creation (of a new paradigm for EP communication)
In the beginning was a word, and this word was from our Secretary General, and this word was the Secretary General. And the word was: “let there be light on the political side of the Parliament”.
Go viral or go home
A short summary for the pressed reader: Based upon research and experience, we have concluded that only young, cute, hairy MEPs will allow for successful viral communication campaigns. Besides editing the German website, I worked on two projects last year. One was a comic strip that should explain the Euro crisis in simple terms. The [...]
E-leap forward
It’s a simple story about now and then. Then it was early 2009 and I was doing my traineeship at the very same unit where I now, almost three years later, started to work in full position. During this period of time Web Comm has enlarged its grip of using online mediums and I feel [...]
Four gurus and six ideas to improve our web presence
With some other colleagues dealing with social media and the Parliament web presence, we went for a two-days trip to Paris to meet some geeks. Or, to be more precise, to meet web experts, public institutions webteams and web-journalists. A highly valuable school trip which gave some ideas about how we could further improve the [...]
Who’s afraid of social media?
Ancuta has been with us here in WebCom for a month on a study visit. She says she’s learning from us, but we all know that, not long from now, we will be learning from her… Sadly, today is her last day before returning to serious study in Denmark. It’s been great for all of us to have her around, and she leaves us, appropriately, with a blog post on social media.
A speaker, a video, a strategy
Like most of the EU Communicating Brussels Bubble, I watched the excellent speech given by Simon Anholt. I wasn’t at the EuropComm 2011 opening session, I only showed up at the workshops where I started to hear about how this speech was great, witty and inspiring. The following weekend saw the video being shared on my teammates’ facebook [...]
Tunisia 2.0: reporting back from refugee camps at the Tunisian-Libyan border
I went to Tunisia this summer and this experience may be worth a blog… You may think I just went there for nice, relaxed holidays on the seaside in a 5-stars resort. You may also wonder about the choice of this destination provided the recent events and the instability in the region…
Lessons from the Danish suburbs: Après Aarhus
Do Danish journalists get jobs? Why are Danish trainees so hard to find? Why do students still want to work for newspapers? Are media and journalism the same thing? Are Danes really the happiest people in the world? All this and more in these brief post-Aarhus thoughts.
Yes, Facebook matters. Bahrainis show the way
It’s been a big week on Facebook for WebCom. You know how we’ve been obsessing about what happens to all those comments we get on our Facebook page? Well, this week provided one answer.
Lessons from America 5: Living in 1996
Professor Sreenivasan has a sense of the passage of internet time. The first thing you find on entering his office in Colombia School of Journalism, on the right as you come through the door, is a small mortuary of defunct gadgets, physical testimony to the faddishness and rapid progress of communications technology.
Lessons from America 4: Why America loves a failure
America is of course famously, notoriously even, the country which loves a winner. So why is everyone so keen on failure?
Lessons from America 3: Life beyond Facebook
Mid-life, it turns out that some of our obsessions are shared. One of these is worrying continually about What It All Means. Facebook, I mean.
FB chats : and now ?
It is obvious that you cannot run FB as « business as usual ». You have to experiment, be new, fresh and come up with some good stuff all the time, if you want your audience to “react”. We, “the FB team” of the European Parliament, have always tried to keep it in mind. But…
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 [...]
Banking 1.999999999
Even though « Finance » was my second major, back in Business School, I am not keen on talking with my banker. Somehow, the discussion always ends up about the way I (mis)use my money, with a loth of sighing and frowning in the process. I was not thrilled, then, when Steve asked me to fly to Frankfurt to meet 40 bankers from European and National Central banks.
Strikes everywhere – also on our Facebook page?
What’s going on? France is on strike, Belgium was on strike, but also Facebook was on strike during this plenary week. Was there a way to predict that in advance? And do you have any explanations for that?
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