But you can’t have commercials five minutes long, can you? In its “director’s cut” version, this was really for us (and for the Christmas party). No, for the web it’s gotta be short ‘n’ sweet.

Enter Tibo, editing scissors and iPod in hand. Now, we bring you not one, but six – yes, SIX! - Writing for (y)EU videos, each homing in on one thing we do and just a minute or so long. AND you get new music and some previously unseen footage. Cool.

Check them out. They’re all here. And tell us which one you like best. Personally I like #02 (the Twitter plane makes me laugh every time), but I see that in terms of early views, one is streets ahead of the rest: #03. So that’s the one you can watch below. Enjoy! (…them all)

Writing for y(EU) #03 from Web Com on Vimeo.

What if the entire world would have diverse superpowers and we would have the same super jobs in a super powered Parliament? Well, then it is time for super Lisbon to come along… But that is another issue which I will not deal with now. So, coming back to childish wishes, I made a small survey among my colleagues to find out about their own superpowers wanna-have.

“Power tends to corrupt let alone superpower. So thanks, but no thanks”

Anete would like to be able to teleport from her cosy office in Brussels directly in the middle of the plenary in Strasbourg, afterwards dinner on a beach in the Caribbeans while being back on time for the following working day.

Our photographer, Pietro, wants to be able to freeze time whenever or how long he feels like. To be honest, he is one of the visionary ones since he chose the right career that is getting him the closest possible to his desired superpower, or am I mistaken?

We do have one super-hero in our team

Steve on the other hand would travel in time so as to discover on his own and check the accuracy of all the historical details and EU facts over passing the subjective results the modern search engines might offer. In any case, it’s very likely that he will meet Cristina in his past or future journeys, since they are both looking for the same power.

Just when you think it cannot get stranger than this, Florent would be very eager to show off with his walking on water ability. However, I am wondering whether he was just slightly subtle , whilst he had a much more religiously related power in mind…

Tibo, well, this is another story… Tibo wishes to have the power of controlling the minds of the others. Imagine working together with somebody who can actually read your mind and then control it according to his own views and perspectives. Well, hopefully for our team, this isn’t going to happen!

We would have some super healers in the Unit as well, thanks to Josh and Petra, who will be safe in front of any ceiling fall that might occur in Strasbourg every now and then, and we wouldn’t have to worry either while having them around.

Given all this superpower madness, we would never know when Raffaella and Asta would be around since their power would be to become invisible whenever they want to. So? Who closed that window then?

Some of us would be greedy as well, as I was very surprised to find out about Kurt’s super power. He would like to have the ability to take the powers of all the others. Well, this is what I call too much super power series watching, right Sylar?

Personally, I would like to have kameleon abilities, and be able to cloak, change appearance and infiltrate everywhere I want, without people necessarily realizing it’s me. But what happens if I will enjoy too much being you?

Still, not everybody wants to have a superpower and I think it’s good to keep a balance here as well: “Power tends to corrupt let alone superpower. So thanks, but no thanks” said one of our editor.

But then again, it is Christmas and I think we can all make wishes, even if most likely we will not find them under the Christmas tree, wrapped in shiny paper and tied with red ribbon… Can’t we?

Merry Christmas everybody and may all your wishes come true!

Standstill...

This week started with a huge system failure. The first thing we noticed was that “Outlook” was not responding anymore. It left – for half a day as we discovered later – with no mention of when it would come back, and we couldn’t write e-mails to each other anymore.

It became a day of actual communication in the Web Communications unit. Our so loved synopses were brought around by helpful colleagues who had printed out several copies. Instructions were given orally and I must say – it was very pleasant to see a friendly face leaning on the doorframe of my office at regular intervals. Besides, this sudden movement was also a useful exercise for our stiff backs.  Conclusion – probably we should do this more often to change the routine.

We also couldn’t publish any articles for long time that day. Our impressive publishing machine, alias IM-Press (what an IM-Posing and IM-Portant name!), had taken an extra holiday… He – I somehow assume IM-Press is a “he” although you could draw parallels with “empress” and “princess”- obviously thought: “if “Outlook” can do it, I can as well”, although his working regime is actually much lighter.

IM-Press is one of those friends you can’t really rely on. Like a cat. Sometimes it decides to play little games with us during the plenary session – the busiest time for the Parliament and its communication teams. Of course, there’s a lot of work on his shoulders during the peak hours – everybody wants to publish something and that in 22 languages… but then IM-Press just says: “Nope, not with me…” and goes for a cigarette – or wherever, nobody really knows. This behaviour makes us incandescent.

That day he was in a particularly funny mood. He came back together with “Outlook” and then, sometime later, I realized that there were no articles at all on my page anymore. Yes, of course, then I had to play with him a little bit, talk softly, and… yes, finally it worked out.

We should have somebody here with the job description: “IM-Press whisperer”. Or we should be clear enough and express to IM-Press that he needs to impress, or he will be EX-Press!

Well, this is just for you to know. If you sometimes don’t find the long awaited articles on our website for some time and in none of the offered languages – think of our “enfant terrible” and have compassion with us.

Back to normality… until next time?

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.

At one point Belgians and other friends appeared but lion’s share of my friends were still about to pass by in my work corridors.

Coming to Brussels I knew no one, except someone I studied with and who was also working in the parliament. I started going out with very nice colleagues: easy-going, intelligent and open-minded. Lots to talk about. But you don’t really socialise with your colleagues, do you? Maybe in a coffee break but not after work?

At least that I used to think in Estonia where I found it too private to ask a colleague if she had a partner or not, not talking about asking how she spent her summer holiday! I was used to having a very clear line between work and life. There is work, there is life, not much in-between.

Here everything is different. In the first months I found myself mingling max 1 km from the European Parliament, sometimes even worse, inside the building! And of course, with my colleagues who introduced me to more colleagues and more colleagues. Even if they were from some other EU institution, I still felt they were my colleagues. It’s all one EU crowd working together in the adopted city.

At one point Belgians and other friends appeared but lion’s share of my friends were still about to pass by in my work corridors.

I must admit it was a bit scary to mix “business interests” with private life. Why should I challenge my friendships like that?! What comes if there is a conflict? Or maybe there will be a conflict only because of that – we are friends and we are colleagues?

I don’t know how you deal with it but at one point I just gave up “the Estonian thing” and talked openly with colleagues about my family back home and even introduced them my boyfriend at the time. Today, after few years working here, some of my very best friends are sitting just few meters of me in the neighbouring offices and it feels just alright.

Two days of training – is it enough to change your view on the team you have been working with every day in the last year? Better communication in teams – what could this imply? Why should anybody ‘waste’ two days on it? These are probably everybody’s first questions when opening the invitation for such a training, and to be perfectly honest, that was my own reaction in the very beginning as well. However, by the end of the training, I ought to think I had made a very good choice.

Teamwork is seen as crucial for the success of any project, this having been perfectly exemplified for us during our election campaign. During my training, I have encountered some team roles each of us has within the team we work in, very well described and divided according to our contributions, attitudes and abilities. 

I learned it at school

We have proved ourselves to be a solid team, hardworking and focused on our main goals. Throughout the election campaign, our unit was divided in smaller teams according to our projects – spreading team, social media team, etc. But did everything go perfectly smooth within the team? Have we succeeded in fully understanding our team and its members in every moment?  Despite our good results and great work, I cannot help wondering how it would have been provided we took these roles into consideration.

In details…

Plants, shapers, coordinators, finishers are just a few among the roles that can shape a team…

I shall present a part of the roles in a few lines, leaving the rest for you to discover here.

In the beginning, allow me to explain the term plant comes from French and refers to innovateur, just to avoid any confusion. A plant is creative and gives brilliant ideas, communicates easily but has considerable troubles in accepting criticism. Having this all said, who is a plant among our team?

Shaper is the one that challenges the team and seeks for the best solutions to the problems – he wants to shake things up and keep on eye on each alternative.

The resource investigator is the one in charge with the “spirit’, extremely enthusiastic and adaptive in building contacts. On the other hand, he easily loses interest once the first enthusiasm has passed away.

The finisher is the anxious one that searches for mistakes and forgotten parts, and although very stressed and worried, delivers projects on time.

Coordinators are very good goals settlers, in charge with the ‘big picture’. They easily recognize the others’ abilities and delegate tasks, but can tend to be very manipulative in the same time.

According to Dr Belbin, who introduced this concept, if a team is composed on the basis of these carefully selected roles, the needs of the project and thus, the team in itself can be best achieved. Have we ever tried to define our own selves and analyse ourselves as individuals and members of one team? It proved useful so many times, so why not applying it now as well? In what concerns me, if I were to choose a ‘perfect’ team, I already know which one would have which role…and the results are therefore…easy to anticipate.

DNA of the team - (c) Mr Jamespeake on Flickr

The only causes worth fighting for are lost causes

At average we are 33 ¼ years young. This youthly figure is without the trainees but includes the boss! Still a large number of us were too old to be at the meeting between Hillary Clinton and young Europeans recently in the Parliament, although some of the editors managed.

If something bothers you: confront it. If it does not work: leave it

We have a gender-balanced team with seventeen women and twelve men though the boss and editorial coordinator are both men……

Always try to get better

Interestingly, six among us have previously worked for an MEP or a group, covering the political spectrum from the left to the right.

What is worth doing, is worth doing well

Since we are working for a multilingual website, we master together all official EU-languages of course, but there is more. You can also address us in Bosnian, Catalan, Croatian, Faroese, Frisian, Galician, Hebrew, Yiddish, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, even in Calabrian and Milanese dialect and of course in American English. Moreover, one of us has plans to learn Arab and we have also an editor who can imitate Swiss German on request.

Always do what your mother recommends not to do

Are we law-obeying citizens? Well, together we have had during our collective adult lives 438 parking or speeding fines. Quite a lot for such a young unit and bearing in mind that seven among us do not use a car! We see a clear distinction here since 346 of the fines are collected by people who have sun, wine and good food in common: they are all from below the garlic frontier.

Try to get the best out of everything

One of us even stopped driving because she figured out paying taxis would be cheaper than paying the fines….

When it is worth having, it is worth working for

We studied communication science, cultural studies, economy, European studies, film art, finance, history, law, public relations, journalism, marketing, photo journalism, political science, many languages and translation, sociology and international relations. Almost everybody did more than one study, the real die-hards up to five!

Don’t let money or gadgets take you hostage

Together we have ten domestic animals and eighteen domestic kids. Here we witness another frontier: the men in the unit tend to like animals, the women don’t. The men together possess 3 cats, 1 part-time dog and 4 gold-fish. One of the fish-owners, however, wants “to get rid of his two goldfish” so if you would be able to give those two a loving, caring home, please leave your contact details below.

The glass is half-full

The women together possess 2 cats. In addition, one recently caught a mouse and one has two potential rabbits.

Do not worry about something until it becomes a problem

The kiddos most likely will continue to outnumber the animals since three more are on their way …

Don’t regret the things you have done but the ones you haven’t done

Finally, what do we do when we are not at work? We like sports! So off we go: climbing, diving, horse-riding, orienteering, wind- or kite surfing, playing rugby and paragliding.

To live and let live or only you can make you happy

Some of us really relax while playing the birbynė, archiving, ship spotting, deciphering hand-writing, filling in crosswords and flying radio-controlled airplanes.

From the evil you fear or the good you expect, you will always only get half

Still want to know more: read here how we describe ourselves or post your curiosity below. As long as your questions do not involve sex, porn and Britney Spears we may be happy to answer.

I am nothing if not a nihilist

Finally, tried to make sense of the titles? They actually reflect the life-philosophy of the team members!