Some conferences lean more to the politics (and the attendees to the political) while others are decidedly more techie. Though these conferences are billed as being about the conjunction between the two, there is nevertheless a tension. You can sense when the techies have had enough of politics (and, more so, of institutions) and want more geekery, and, conversely, when the politicos start literally and metaphorically to drift off when the alphabet soup thickens too much for them. The Dublin Web Summit (alias #dws) sat in the middle pretty well. The UN-sponsored World e-Parliament Conference in Washington, leaned radically to the political, full of parliamentary speakers, MPs and senior officials. If you want to know how far it leaned institutional, consider (gasp!) that it had no Twitter hashtag, nor indeed wifi in the conference hall!

The Personal Democracy Forum in Barcelona trended geeky, I would say. It was heavily twittered (hashtag #pdfeu), notwithstanding problems with the wifi (which the organisers clearly considered a major disaster – another indication), and was attended by a heavily macbook-using, sub-40, definitely not tie-wearing crowd. Yep, these were seriously online people whose connectivity was both a major theme and major concern of the conference. The odd dissenting voices (“it ain’t necessarily so“, c.f. #dws) were few and muted as compared with Dublin, and no-one questioned the world-changing importance of Web 2.0, with discussion limited to how far and how fast. The conference orthodoxy and underlying assumption was that we need more and better internet (web 2.0) in politics, that the world will be better and more democratic as that happens, and sad headshakes greeted tales of benighted politicians who weren’t on Twitter.  OK, I caricature, but I am just trying to give the sense.

Two more scene setting illustrations for those unaccustomed to such an environment. (That would have been me less than two years ago.) As I said, the whole thing was being twittered, so the organisers arranged that the flow of tweets would be projected onto the display screen behind the podium at times when it wasn’t being used for presentations. So this created a real-time commentary on what the speakers were saying, as they were saying it, appearing behind them. Says something about the web: people’s remarks, and remarks on remarks, both local and distant, were both part of the local bubble and out there in the whole world to see at all times. Am I alone in thinking there is something distinctly freaky, alienating and post-modern about this? The other thing which some might find remarkable was that the whole event was audio-streamed live on the internet, so that anyone interested could listen in. Soon, video footage will be on line too. Again, I ask myself, why be there at all? (The answer of course is that – pace hypothetical Facebook radicals – people still want to meet other people and talk to them. Still, something disrespectful within me can’t help wondering if a Web 2.0 conference isn’t at some level a total contradiction in terms, especially when you consider the cost in terms of dead polar bears of all those transatlantic and European flights…

But again I digress.

I hope I don’t sound negative. I am just trying to apply the quipping iconoclasm which is de rigueur at such events. Actually it was a great conference, which, for me at least, brought many insights and ideas. The speakers were on the whole top-notch, the questions intelligent and incisive, the thinking sharp, and the organisation very professional.

Did these Americans fully “get” Europe? had they really grasped the cultural diversity of the continent?

The venue for the event was Jean Nouvel’s remarkable Agbar Tower on the Avenida Diagonal. Very design. Inside this Barcelona icon, somewhat ironically for a conference placing such emphasis on openness and networking, the conference constituted an energetic English-speaking bubble, inside which one could almost forget where we were. This was English with a marked American accent, moreover. The conference was in fact the first European edition of an already quite venerable US event, the New York based Personal Democracy Forum, which is in its sixth year. The American dimension was significant. Many presenters were American, many examples were American, many lessons were American. There were slight stirrings in the European undergrowth about this: did these Americans fully “get” Europe? had they really grasped the cultural diversity of the continent? was the language barrier sufficiently understood and accommodated? The answer to these questions is probably “no”, at least to some extent. The American examples paraded before the conference – the Obama campaign, the Sunlight Foundation, the social media promotion of Congressman Joe Wilson (the one who told Obama “you lie!”) – would not necessarily translate to the European context, and, indeed, when things got around to the EU specifically, the Americans seemed rather lost and puzzled. “Being an American observing a discussion about whether the Internet will unify the EU is fascinating. Only could happen here”, tweeted one American presenter, David All.

One illustration of this disconnect which occurred to me was a rather inspiring video shown by a presenter on the Obama campaign, featuring diverse citizens from across the United States expressing their hopes and desire for change. I tried to imagine the same video in a European context, with each of those citizens speaking a different language. Where would that emotional impact be then? In America, the political, cultural and linguistic commonalities trump the diversity, from sea to shining sea; in Europe the picture between the Barents Sea and the Mediterranean encompasses cultural diversity of an altogether different order.

If PDF is to prosper in Europe, it will have to carve out a more distinctive identity

All this is not a criticism of the conference, though I suspect that if PDF is to prosper in Europe, it will have to carve out a more distinctive identity. Europeans have an enormous amount to learn from Americans, especially in areas like this, so there is no question of the value of exercises such as this, it’s just that I suspect that what we learn, and how we apply it, will be rather different from what our American friends thought they were passing on to us.

One nice touch during the conference was the screening of well-known online videos to accompany transition periods between sessions. The conference opened, before a word had been uttered, with the Sick Puppies’ “Free Hugs” video (53 million views), just to get us into a bonding mood, and concluded with the wonderful “Where the hell is Matt” video (25 million). Along the way, friends in the Commission will be pleased to note that their famous “porno” film (7.7 million) put in an appearance too (which, incidentally, I am intrigued to see is now guarded by YouTube’s “possibly inappropriate content” barrier, demanding to know that you’re 18 before you can watch). This tone setting was a nice move, and heralded a conference during which many presenters would show videos.

I attended a session on the use of online videos in the propagation of political messages. Two presenters, making quite a contrast, stick in my mind. One was Kate Allbright-Hanna, Obama ’08 video director, who described that what matters in political video is making a connection with your audience, not necessarily trying to “go viral” all the time. Her team made and – significant, this – collected thousands of videos during the campaign. As she pointed out, the ones that stick in people’s minds are not necessarily the high-production-value ones, but often quite easy-to-make, semi-amateur efforts. Some of these can just end up taking you by surprise. An example she used was this one, designed to counter complacency among supporters resulting from positive polls.

The contrast with Allbright-Hanna came from Italian video blogger and political activist, Diego Bianchi, alias “Zoro”, who breaks all the rules with his long, rambling videos, but which clearly touch a chord with like-minded people in Italy. This is a guy who has 2.3 million views for a slow-paced 23 minute video on YouTube. In the session, he was especially proud of his underwater reaction to Silvio Berlusconi’s party congress, which, to be honest, I think left the American moderator somewhat perplexed. Yep, it’s those cultural differences again…

Just for the record, I also myself showed a video, a home-made résumé (by Tibo) of our 2009 online communications campaign on the European elections.  I find people like it.

Online Communication Campaign for European Elections 2009 from Web Com on Vimeo.

There were too many interesting sessions to do justice to them all, and frustratingly, but probably inevitably, excellent breakout sessions were scheduled against each other (ha! – a reason for all that twittering and streaming, even for people at the conference!), so I will quickly pick out a few tidbits which caught my eye or ear.

An early highlight was Joe Rospars, the Obama campaign’s New Media Director, who gave a really interesting presentation on the techniques used in the campaign, but who, I am sorry to report, was memorable for me principally because of his excellent Keynote slides (I’m so shallow sometimes), which almost persuaded me to drop my principled position against handing out slides to all attendees (I still want his!).

In a breakout session about using the social media for political campaigning, David All was provocative (especially to US Democrats in the room) and interesting.  He told us about how his company had used social media to leverage the 15 minutes of fame achieved by Representative Joe Wilson by calling out “You lie!” whilst President Obama was in the House presenting his Health Care policy. A breach of House etiquette, doubtless, and the kind of thing we West Wing fans know you wouldn’t say to Jed Bartlett even when you disagree with him, but also, dixit All, true. (This is the bit which cased a local political flurry in the room, hurried calmed by the moderator.) Apart from the interest of the tale All had to tell, the delightful and shameless opportunism with which he had built on a faux pas and the glee with which he breached the de facto Obama-as-demi-god consensus in the conference, an interesting question came up in questions and answers later. Someone asked about platforms, and raised (to most ears in the room) the oh-so-American question of whether Facebook was for whites and MySpace for blacks and other “people of colour” and how this factor would affect strategies for their use. Europeans stirred uneasily at this question, and a European panelist pointed out that “things don’t quite work like that here”, but the question provoked an interesting set of responses about the need to be where the people are, and whether some audiences are more worth trying to reach via social networks than others. Facebook seems, particularly in the US, to have retained some of the white, college, middle-class aura of its Harvard origins, while other networks contrast with that. From All’s perspective, and possibly “unless you’re a rock band”, “MySpace is dead”, a verdict he later extended to LinkedIn.

For connoisseurs of larger than life characters, this session also featured the irrepressible and instantly-recognisable Ravi Singh, for whom a turban is both trade mark and religious apparel, and who, for me, earns almost unique respect at the conference for telling us about how he had “failed totally” to transfer a great US online concept to Europe, “because Europe is different”, something he said had taught him useful lessons about knowing your audience.

“Love your geeks!” was his clarion call

Another provocative speaker earlier in the conference in a far more downbeat style was Tom Steinberg, London-based founder of MySociety.org and thus behind such “practical democracy” sites as fixmystreet.com and theyworkforyou.com. He had two memorable messages: first, that online “democracy” projects didn’t have to be about grand principles, big policies and charismatic personalities, they could be about “just getting things done, openly“. Second, and probably to the most energetic spontaneous applause in the whole event, he called for recognition for the programmers, the people who really do the work. “Love your geeks!” was his clarion call. “Don’t tell me about managers who have great ideas and hire in some programmers to implement them – it’s the geeks who have the ideas and make the breakthroughs” (my memory of his quote).

Finally, and I’d better wrap up before this becomes the longest post in living memory, I must mention probably the most oft-requoted statement in the conference. Dare I say, this came from the slightly unlikely source of French internet activist Jérémie Zimmermann (La Quadrature du Net), who presented his (successful) advocacy of web freedom in the European Parliament, winning an important victory in the Telecoms Package legislation through creating an effective online lobby. The theme of the session was whether a European body politic can be created online. One questioner asked for a straight answer, yes or no. I heard Zimmermann’s response quoted repeated through the rest of the conference: “Yes, but it will be in English”

Just not with an American accent, right, Jérémie?

GUEST BLOGGER: Today is a big day in the life of the ep-webeditors blog. Nay, a rite of passage, a coming of age, an arrival in the sunlit uplands of Parliament bloggerdom. Today, our big boss, Jaume, Director and EP official spokesman, no less, appears for the first time on this blog. What’s more, he wants to talk about us! I read words like: “mischievious”, “smurfs”, “irresponsible” – but I’m reading nothing into it! Anyway, as they say, we are honoured to welcome onto our humble stage… The Director.

Keeping up without being killed in the attempt

One of the scariest moments in the professional life of the European Parliament’s Media Director comes when the people in charge of the Web Communication team storm in his office with the faces of mischievous children and a folder marked “new project” under their arms. It could be anything ranging from some doubtless vital overhaul of the website’s on line archives to the appearance on his desk of a group of strange blue-and-yellow little dolls resembling overweight smurfs that answer to the cryptic name of “YaBs”.

When the Director is introduced to a new internet project is a double test for him. Firstly, in relation to his capability or incapability to understand what the topic is. The Director is aware that he needs to understand at least one out of every three concepts and avoid letting his facial expression unmask his enormous ongoing neuronal effort.

Nevertheless the Director soon developed the conviction that a poor knowledge of the topic in question is often an advantage when it comes to proposing solutions which are acceptable for all the parties involved.

Secondly, because he will feel obliged to decide where to set the limits when it comes to accepting undoubtedly attractive proposals that however do not always reflect the degree of seriousness required of institutions such as the European Parliament.

The famous T-Shirts for the new website's launch

With regard to the first challenge, the Director is already the lucky survivor of a similar experience when, some years ago, he supervised the construction of a new press room full of electronic gizmos, hardware and software. Sounding intelligent in permanent discussion with audiovisual technicians, IT experts, architects and representatives of the press is not something you generally learn in any prestigious European Academy, nor would this ability be requested in a European Personnel selection competition.

Nevertheless the Director soon developed the conviction that a poor knowledge of the topic in question is often an advantage when it comes to proposing solutions which are acceptable for all the parties involved.

The second challenge is much more complicated because web teams, following their instinct and their duty, are continuously proposing tools that in most cases have “just arrived from the other side of the Atlantic” and which haven’t quite been used yet in institutional communication, let alone in Parliamentary communication. The Director will find himself quickly trapped between a rock and a hard place. The rock being those who rightly think that we have to adapt to new times – “Boss, Obama is doing this” – and the hard place being our hierarchy in the Parliament who do not necessarily accept ipso facto,the use of tools that don’t seem to correspond, a priori, to the solemnity of the Parliament.

Back in time it all started with something as innocent as overseeing the redesign of the main website so that it paid more attention to the ordinary citizen and less to European experts. But then it was about launching the new website surrounded by people in black t-shirts with surreal messages on them such as “A hemicycle is not half a bike”, or as militant as “Who cares for Europe? I do”.

In less than five years the way the European Parliament communicates has dramatically changed. It has become more modern, more accessible and more plural. Probably more coherent as well. But there is still a lot to be done and to be improved, especially if we don’t want to miss the train of the internet – one that resembles a Japanese bullet train.

Next came the production of audiovisual content (“Why should a Parliament be able to send press releases but not videos?”), or organising chats with the Parliament’s President. Later, taking advantage of the everything-is-possible principle of the European elections, a (partial) transition to full Web 2.0 interactivity took place. The Parliament explored social networks, blogs, wikipedia, online questions and debates. It also had viral campaigns with hysterical girls and gregarious cyclists and the use of all kinds of multimedia platforms. The majority of these instruments have demonstrated that they are valid and, after the elections, have been integrated with almost no discussion in the spectrum of the communication services of the Parliament.

In less than five years the way the European Parliament communicates has dramatically changed. It has become more modern, more accessible and more plural. Probably more coherent as well. But there is still a lot to be done and to be improved, especially if we don’t want to miss the train of the internet – one that resembles a Japanese bullet train.

Don’t worry. One of these days the Director’s desk will be filled once more with strange projects and his screen with intriguing slideshows. All the while, several expectant eyes in his office will try to guess from his face if he understands anything of what he sees, if he likes what he sees – and if he will be irresponsible enough to accept it.

But next time I will tell them the truth, I promise.

Sometimes you have to look at the world as it is

This is probably exactly the wrong place, indeed a self-contradictory place, to hint at heretically relativising thoughts, but being away far from Brussels for a few weeks has made me reflect on digital divides of various sorts.

There is the usual one of course, between people with access to the internet and those without, but it is probably fair to say that, at least in the developed world, no-one need be cut off from the internet, any more than anyone need be cut off from TV or a telephone. No, the important digital divides now lie between the different ways in which people experience the internet. That’s why I mention my own difficult “reintegration” after the break – it made me think about what kind of internet user I am and how that is quite different from other people, including many I work with.

Disclosure: I am white, male, British, university-educated, mid-forties.  So now you know. I am not “generation Y“, I don’t think I ever used a computer at school, and at university I wrote all my essays longhand.  However, when I watch the television (which is not that often, but apparently more often than Generation Y’ers) I notice from the current crop of ”nostalgia” programming (70s and 80s) that my generation is in charge of the (mainstream) media. I further note that Obama is not that much older than me. So perhaps my generation is in charge of the world too. Closer to home, I work daily with computers and the internet, I like gadgets. So how do I use the internet?

The important digital divides now lie between the different ways in which people experience the internet

Email is integral to everyday life also outside work, but most non-professional messages are dross (i.e. advertising). Just a small minority actually get any attention, but these are mostly unimportant and/or unofficial.  I still want my electricity bill in the post. On paper.

I check news sites, often provoked to do so by the two or three automatic newsletters I have signed up for. But, if I’m honest, it’s always the same two or three sites and I still want the “proper” news regularly (meaning the BBC, TV or radio). I still subscribe to paper magazines – which I actually read, but almost never buy newspapers.

The only news where the web really dominates for me is tech news.  That seems appropriate.

I buy things online – books, music, travel tickets, car hire – but only from big, well-known companies. I research offline purchases too, but most real things I want to touch before I buy.  I can’t bring myself to feel comfortable about eBay.

And of course, I find things out from the internet: weather, location, addresses and phone numbers, missing facts, quotes, dates… “Look it up” is something which now basically means “google it”.

So far, so Web 1.0… So what about the much-vaunted social media, Web 2.0 and all that? I share photos and the odd video online, but for me this is an operation, not a spontaneous  everyday mobile experience (like in the adverts). Yes, Facebook and Twitter are on my every day must-check list, but I realise that I am largely a spectator. I want my “friends” to be people I know, and at least feel friendly towards. I like to see what they are up too and, because I know them, don’t see this as voyeurism. I love checking out the cool online videos and websites (here’s one from this week) people link to – this is the greatest use of social networks for me.  Increasingly, though, I realise that 95% of the tweets I follow are just boring (I could cut down to following about five people with few regrets, those who (as we used to say back home) “only say something if they’ve got something to say”). So I consume social media, but it occurs to me more and more that I struggle for inspiration as to what to post myself.  This just doesn’t seem to be an issue for many others, but for me it just doesn’t come naturally to tell people about the trivia of my life, and I so want my updates and tweets to be interesting and pertinent that I self-censor almost anything I might put for fear of wasting people’s time.  That leaves “professional” updates and tweets, but even there I feel the need to moderate the volume for fear of inundating friends and/or spoiling the personal nature of Facebook (no such qualms with Twitter).

So, you might say, if I’m so reticent about talking about myself online, why am I telling you all of this?

Because I need an example.  I do not claim to represent my generation, but I also suspect that I am not untypical: a web-consumer, but not usually a huge web-explorer; a frequent user, but cautious about getting stung; attracted by social media, but not instinctive or natural about opening up my life to all online. The internet is an extra dimension, but not a natural habitat. I am not clueless, but I am not as clued up as many who surround me (thank goodness). I am a digital immigrant (like Svetla’s mother-in-law).

The pressure is always to be cutting edge, to be doing the latest thing, surfing the latest trend.  We need to do that, but we cannot do ONLY that.

None of this is how it’s supposed to be.  Breathless opinionistas and bloggers imply that all web users are spontaneous and opinionated online, smart, faddy, creative, uninhibited, keen to interact, desperate to be heard. They are supposed to be citizens of the world, talking to the world and listening to the world. They flock to the latest hit online video or cool website, aggregate content with their RSS browsers, and share their every move with their friends (whom in their case they probably do not actually know) in real time, tweeting on their mobile phones.

Of course, many, many people are doing exactly that, and more.

But many more aren’t.  The internet is like society in general, made up of people with very different online lifestyles.  People have their groups and their habitual haunts, their comfort zones and their downtime, their professional worlds and their private lives. Some people are young, energetic, adventurous, maybe also gullible, impulsive and fickle, others are more staid, constant, cautious, but perhaps also more stable and committed.

Where am I going with all this?  I suppose it’s no more than a question of trying to stand back for a moment, relativising and remembering that even online the European Parliament has to talk to everyone.  Catering to one world (good thing), must not exclude catering to others (also good thing). The pressure is always to be cutting edge, to be doing the latest thing, surfing the latest trend.  We need to do that, but we cannot do only that.  If our notion of digital democracy is to focus ALL our efforts on Facebook and Twitter (or whatever’s next), we win plaudits from the in-crowd online, but we arguably open up a digital divide of our own, cutting off an otherwise completely sentient crowd of people (I know many of them) who may have heard of Facebook and Twitter, but still think it’s a bit of a waste of time. They exist, yes, they use the internet, and they vote…

This is a huge simplification of course. As we found during the election campaign, different online and traditional media are not sealed off from each other, but feed off each other constantly. Nevertheless, we should not forget that in the great big world of the internet, people still organise themselves into their own little worlds. One of our jobs is not to limit ourselves to yet another little world of our own.

Do I overstate my case?

The cyberspace is also a home to crime, starting with hate speech and ending with paedophilia. But there’s also a grey zone in between that is cluttered with petabytes of irrelevant publicly available private content. Is social media making us waste our time, loose identity and in reality become anti-social?

Increasingly polluted internet

The consumers’ mankind has increasingly polluted the soil, water, air and the space. No surprise that the cyberspace – a copy of real life – is not immune. A huge part of the content the mankind is uploading and consuming is a digital trash.

The cyberspace is clogged with sex, porn and Britney Spears, we are flooded with meaningless Wats up? Hit/poke Me back; Check out my profile And Let me know Do you like me; Good morning twitterland, angry comment entries and in some cases misleading information. Is internet becoming a cyber junkyard with tiny islands of real content here and there?

What do we want?

We want fun, easy money and overnight fame. We need faster, more powerful and bigger capacity gizmos. We are buying more equipment than we need: just as our wardrobes with all those clothes our terabyte hard drives are packed with data we would never use.

We are snapping auto-mode shots with DSLRs, uploading billions of photos and constantly updating our “statuses” online. Yes, there already are kids who feel nervous if they’d spend 30 minutes without updating their “I had my breakfast” messages across multiple social networks.

We want easy digestible information that is prêt à consommer. We like to quickly copy paste, not to create. We need to shout louder than others and use dirty tricks to “optimize” our ability to be heard and seen, thus depreciating the value of digital content and reducing possibilities to find relevant information. As you are only accountable if you breach law, content doesn’t really matter, what matters is the number of views and the traffic you get.

Twitter became the voice of Iranian resistance, but what were you getting among the top entries after clicking the #iranelection couple of weeks ago? Many irrelevant posts decorated with bodies in swimming suits.

Pollution of the virtual world pollutes the real world too. We clog information highways, slow down the internet and yes, we produce CO2, as servers, PCs and networks eat up electricity. We produce 0.2 to 7g of CO2 per Google search, they say.

 We have no more free time, because most of it is spent swallowing information or producing it. You can’t enjoy the moment, because you have to document it and publicise it on the net. That’s the essence of our affluent digital consumer society.

Mass production of information

Let’s face it, much of the information (should we just call it “data”?) we produce is a junk. And the bubble is inflating with exponential speeds.

We have no more free time, because most of it is spent swallowing information or producing it. You can’t enjoy the moment, because you have to document it and publicise it on the net. That’s the essence of our affluent digital consumer society.

We are exhibiting the perfect ourselves rather than spreading ideas we have. It seems that everybody’s shouting, but no one’s listening, because we just can’t keep our attention focused. We keep posting infinite information and are busy running our own reality shows.

We are prosumers of digital content adding “friends”, “fans” and “followers”, but how many of them are genuine ones, not just wanting to increase their own visibility (thanks for the add, who cares)? Are there many people on your list of friends that you’ve never seen after graduating and will probably never see again?

(Anti-)social and (anti-)private media?

If you are not in the cyberspace, you do not exist. Couple of years ago one of my friends was seriously preoccupied that she was “not found by the Google search”. Is person’s value suddenly judged by the number of “friends” on social networks, tags, “likes” and the rating they get? Is it a real life or just a compensation of it?

“It is strange to use my private Facebook account for work purposes”, I said to my German colleague during the election communication campaign. “Private Facebook profile is … a misnomer, like clean coal, or natural plastic”, he said, and that is so true :).

Getting the identity back

Is there a way to separate private from public, but also stop the erosion of privacy online? How can we control our digital shadow and protect ourselves from identity theft? Is leaving a digital footprint good or bad, how can we control it or wipe it off completely? Do we need social networking luddites that would clean up the cyberspace and delete our accounts to protect us from surprises of being tagged? I don’t know, you tell me ;)

P.S. As this entry wasn’t elaborated well enough, I hope its digital footprint won’t be too big and it will be duly recycled into something useful.

Oh well, as hardships go, it’s not as bad as some, let’s be honest.

The emerging consensus is that the elections awareness campaign went well. Speaking parochially, we believe the online part of it particularly so. Several members of the team report approaches from journalists eager to find out about our ventures into the social media. Students of communication visit us to find out more, and I personally find myself invited here and there to present the online campaign to a surprising array of audiences. I was most amused by one inquiry, which reached me via a colleague, asking who was the “web guru” in charge of the campaign. I’ve been called many things, but never that. If only he knew…

What will be on their screens this autumn?

Of course, indulging in a feelgood factor for a while is fine, but the time is coming now for some serious evaluation. What worked, what didn’t, what did but wasn’t worth it… We need some number-crunching and bean-counting. At the end, we’ll have to decide, in the first instance, whether we stick with all the platforms we have opened or not.

However, it’s a bit more complicated than that. First, while we’re busy thinking, the internet is moving on. As I write, Twitter is turning out to be one of the major collateral stories of the unrest in Iran. The US State Department reportedly intervened to reschedule routine Twitter maintenance to avoid critical downtime in Tehran. This is the same Twitter that plenty of normal people, in my experience, hadn’t even heard of two or three weeks ago. So who knows what’ll be hot when the European Parliament gets down to work in earnest after the summer break?

Parliament will be working, going about its business, legislating, doing politics… Whither our  social web tools in this context?

Second, we have to consider the purpose of what we are doing. All of the really new things we have done – interactivity on the website, social networking, viral tools – have been launched in the context of a pre-electoral communications campaign. We were people with a message: “Parliament matters to you, so vote!” From now on, we’re in a new context; Parliament will be working, going about its business, legislating, doing politics… Whither our  social web tools in this context? Is it still about communicating a message, or, by its  very nature, more about participation and interaction in the political process? (“e-democracy”?) What does that imply about how MEPs are associated with what we do? And what does the answer to that question imply about our all-important institutional ethic and status: communicating for the Institution, not its component parts?

Third, entry barriers have tumbled. Suddenly everyone wants to be in on the act. It is safe to predict that, before long, most Members, all political groups and many others in the EU political-institutional world will be venturing forth on the social networks. What will this mean for us? How will this ecosystem develop? What will be our place in it? How will the expectations of users be affected?

So much to think about. Moreover, as politicians often say in a different context: never forget your base! All the flash-harry social stuff is all very well, but we have a day-job too, maintaining an online information and news service worthy of the name. This has to mean a serious upgrade to our flagship website, in the direction of the kind of multimedia, multichannel, interactive service users now expect. All this in the full range of languages and, of course, with top quality content.

“Now what?” is therefore a pretty big question. To answer it, we need some serious thinking. I hope we are granted the time and the space to do it.  I also think we need help. We may like to see ourselves as trailblazers – in our perhaps undemanding peer group we probably are – but others have been in similar enough situations to have a thing or two to teach us. So we need to strike a balance between following our instincts and some good old fashioned professionalism. We need feedback. (Some on our Facebook page here – 18 June). We maybe need to go and find a real web guru to talk to.

Yes, maybe only 10% of projects make it, but that doesn’t mean the other 90% fail.

Talking of which… Guess who was in Parliament yesterday. No lesser figure than Google co-founder and ubergeek Larry Page. He had many fascinating things to say. I was most impressed by his remarks on how you foster innovation and come up with the Next Big Idea. In part, his message was about money: it has to be freely available and available to be lost (as in Silicon Valley), but it was the other half of his answer which caught my ear in the context of what we do. It’s about the attitude to risk taking. Yes, maybe only 10% of projects (or start-ups) make it, but that doesn’t mean the other 90% fail. Most of the 90% don’t get where they intended, but lay the foundations for Another Big Idea, create networks which end up creating unexpected results, or simply teach their protagonists how to get it right next time.

In our modest way, perhaps we need most of all to heed that message. Just try; if it doesn’t work out, there are plenty of other ideas that will. We just need the investors who are prepared to lose their (in our case) metaphorical “million bucks” in the process as an investment for the long term gains.

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…

Majority of MEP´s unfamiliar with social media

According to a survey (carried for euobserver.com), the European elections have not resulted in a boost in the MEP´s use of social media tools. Only 33 % of all MEP´s use social media networks extensively, while 29 % do not use them at all. Furthermore 62 % have never heard of Twitter and have no plans to use it, and only 25 % are blogging extensively.

These numbers are quite surprising, since average Europeans spend more than 9 hours a week on the internet and 66, 8 % are connected to social networks.  The survey concludes that the large majority of MEP´s “do not take full advantage” of social media tools as a mean to engage with voters and “drive them to their websites”.

From “digital immigrants” to “digital natives”

In our unit we have worked intensively with social media up to the European elections. We have tried to engage and inform voters and “drive them to our website”. Our social media campaign has been centred around a total of 8 online platforms: The European Parliament website, the special election website, EuroparlTV, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter.

Like my Bulgarian colleague, I’ve never been an IT-nerd (!), at best a “digital asylum-seeker”. Ok, I have a Facebook profile, but before the election campaign started I mainly used it to check my emails. It has therefore been an educational experience to participate in the online election campaign, where we have tried to act like “digital natives” – meaning twitting, uploading videos on YouTube, moderating comments on the election website, post election updates on Facebook…

And the best thing about it all is that our campaign seems to have been very successful! In less than seven weeks we have gotten more than 50.000 friends on our Facebook page, over 105.000 visits on our MySpace page, 283.000 views on our most popular election video on our YouTube channel and hundreds of comments on our interactive election website.

All in all a very exciting experience. We are in contact with “real people” who can comment and react directly on what’s going on in the Parliament. We’re trying to make the Parliament more visible, especially for younger people. Looking forward to become a “digital native”.

Design by our friends in the EP StudioWeb.

I heard that in the modern virtual world they call people like my mother in law “digital immigrants”. This is the opposite of “digital natives” – for whom digital technologies already existed in the time they were born. In this sense I am maybe a sort of “digital non-citizen”, or better “digital asylum-seeker”. Let us take the social media. By the time our team started using them in the election campaign I was the last person among my colleagues without Facebook account and who thought that Twitter is a sort of Belgian beer.

And look at me now, two months later! I am administrating widgets on MySpace, publishing posts on Facebook and cannot imagine a day without Twittering. With the same enthusiasm my Danish colleague uploads videos on Youtube every day. It is a special flame! That flame you can also see in the eyes of my Portuguese colleague, when she is inviting friends on MySpace. But nothing can compare with the flame in the eyes of our coordinator announcing almost daily new records of visits on our web pages.

It is amazing how quick it happens – our diving in the social media, and at the same time the change in the European Parliament – from web scepticism to web enthusiasm. (Please, see also the post by Steve). Yes, our work became more, (does Steve see that also?), but I think we enjoy this very much. We’re on YouTube and thousands are our friends in Facebook and MySpace. Yes, we dared to start direct communication with the citizens of Europe and it makes us feel satisfied, it makes us feel real. (See also Tibo’s and Kristiina’s posts.)

And look at me now, two months later! I am administrating widgets on MySpace, publishing posts on Facebook and cannot imagine a day without Twittering.

The best thing is that we really got in touch with our readers. We see how many people react and comment on our articles and are interested in European issues. It is satisfactory to see hundred thousands have watched the viral videos online.

Therefore I tried to answer the question of my mother in law about the blog in a way that makes her like it. I wanted to translate it in her language. “To blog is to write in the Internet about things you have experienced, about things you are interested in. It is something like an online diary“, I said. “Oh really?” she replied. Didn’t I see that flame in her eyes?

Another orange envelope on its way to the Netherlands (Pietro Naj-Oleari, 20-05-2009)

Each member of our team will be voting since there is always time to vote. Here at the EP headquarters we will on election night be as much waiting for the results to know how the “camembert“  will be divided as we will be waiting for the turn-out figures.

As an incentive for candidates to continue campaigning: one third of our staff has not made up their mind yet less than two weeks before the elections. What everybody does know, is whether they will be voting for a candidate in their home country or for a Belgian candidate. Remember, for European elections it is possible to vote in the EU-country of residence. Only three people are saving the honour of our unit by making a true European choice: they will be voting in Belgium. Well, actually only two people are saving our honour since one is voting in Belgium because his own government took away his voting rights!

In case you did not make up your mind yet, continue reading to find some tips and tricks to make your choice.

Firstly, if you still barely know what the European Parliament is made of, watch this video explaining the groups with a chocolate cake. It seems the British conservatives taste deliciously! Bear in mind that many parties running for election are not represented in the current Parliament. You can check out the voting lists in your country  to know all participating parties in these elections. You will find the lists on the right site on your county page, once they’ve become available.

You may have a cross-party issue on your mind you want to fulfil. You may want to vote for a candidate that will look after gay rights, or you may want to vote for a MEP with special attention for disabled people. Just contact the spokesperson of the party of your choice and ask if there is a candidate on their list looking after your specific interests.

Finally, many candidates are using this year the social media for their campaign. The candidate you want to know more about may have put a video on YouTube, a page on Facebook or keep a blog and in any case (s)he will have a website. If you were able to find this blog, you certainly will be able to find more info online to make up your mind! 

Most citizens will be mainly interested in knowing how their party did. But what if in the next elections turn-out figures would be as exciting to them as they are to us…. Suppose we would slightly change the rules for the elections in 2014 and let the citizens of each EU-country really get the politicians they deserve…. by number.

We could link the number of MEPs per country to the turn-out in the country (we would need to find a solution for Belgium where voting is compulsory). If citizens would know they could be poorly represented – not necessarily by ideology but by nationality - in case they would not show up, they may be very keen on voting to gain an extra MEP or two for their country. How exciting the elections would be in that case ……

No, I am not only dreaming and actually did last week a down-to-earth thing and casted my vote. So one more orange envelope is on its way to The Hague… And no, I will not tell here what lady I voted for.

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!