MPs of other parties expressed their discontent through Twitter leading to hundreds of negative Tweets by the general public.

The end result: due to the ‘unexpected’ public scrutiny, the Minister will now be paying for the private jet trip herself.

Poetic justice…

Esther

We can’t promise we’ll get it absolutely right from the off and there’s no overly fancy jingle and voiceover introduction by an American with an inordinately deep voice, like most podcasts I hear. This time it’s just me talking, but we will be mixing up the format and substance in future. We’ll try recorded conversations, involving interesting people we know beyond the four walls of this office, and will certainly also be mixing up the themes, from broader political issues, to trends affecting organisations engaging in the policy arena, through to sector specific matters. As ever, we’d appreciate your thoughts too. What could we do better? What might you want to hear about?

In this first episode, I talk about thought leadership: what it is, how one might become a thought leader, or alternatives to thought leadership.

Why thought leadership? Many organisations we talk to aspire to be thought leaders, perhaps to raise awareness of an issue, to build a support base, or to enhance their reputation. It’s not easy though, especially in the age of digital, when getting heard through the throng of other voices on the web is difficult unless what you have to say is truly remarkable. However, digital also offers opportunities, be it the array of channels, the facility with which one can engage, and the ability to crowdsource. The latter in particular offers an exceptional opportunity: to become not just a thought leader, but also a knowledge leader; the one player who brings together the best and brightest and leads a ground-breaking conversation, not just a one-way stream of thoughts.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Nick

Paul Smith, a 34-year-old freelancer, returned from his honeymoon with the travel blues.

Yearning for another trip, he decided to try to get from the UK to Campbell Island, 200 miles off the coast of New Zealand in less than 30 days.

He posted his goal on Twitter and was eventually picked up by Stephen Fry (of Jeeves and Wooster & A Bit of Fry and Laurie fame), who tweeted it to his 1,646,433 followers.

Paul made it all the way to Stewart Island, off New Zealand, before getting stuck. (Stewart Island’s slogan, by the way, is “Island of Tranquility,” so it is actually not a bad place to be stranded…)

A recent Telegraph article explains how Paul did it:

• Ferry ticket from Newcastle to Amsterdam (tweeter named Leanne)
• Train to Paris (two French tweeters)
• Free bed at a hostel
• Train to Saarbrucken
• Lift in car to Frankfurt (German tweeter Andrea Juchem)
• One-way flight from Frankfurt to New York (tweeter called Owen, using Air Miles)
• Spare bed in hotel room (tweeter from Yorkshire named Mark)
• Then travel to and stays in Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco by plane, train and car (US tweeters)
• Flight to San Francisco (Zurich-based tweeter)
• Car to Los Angeles
• Free flight from LA to Auckland (Air New Zealand)
• Ferry to South Island
• Lift to tip of South Island (tweeter named Smiley)
• Sailed to Stewart Island.

Sweet.

Jess

What is different about this leak is that it is mainly happening online, and the debate around it currently spans from Washington DC to Berlin to Islamabad.

Since the Obama campaign’s groundbreaking use of social media, the US government has been coming to terms with what it has deemed “21^st century statecraft,” and this leak will put the new strategy to the test.

Two weeks ago, The New York Times Magazine ran a piece on Jared Cohen and Alec Ross, the “public faces” of “21^st century statecraft,” an effort by the State Department to magnify traditional methods of diplomacy, and the first to recognize that control of information will simply not be possible as it was in the past. (The strategy was originally outlined by State’s Policy & Planning Director, Anne-Marie Slaughter, in a 2009 article in Foreign Affairs.)

But do 21^st century technologies change everything? Or are they a new means to the same old communications challenges?

The hard reality is that the Internet does and doesn’t change everything.

The Web remains unfamiliar territory for traditional policymakers who are wrestling how to keep up in a world with instant online news breaks and social media. While leaks are not new, their mass publication is instantaneous, volumes of feedback are exponentially larger and it can be difficult to distinguish the experts from the amateurs. Crisis-communications take on new meaning.

A recent BBC analysis of recent online crisis-management efforts by the British government and BP asks Should we trust the wisdom of crowds? The US government has publicly denounced the publication of the classified documents. It will be interesting to gauge how the public reacts to this leak and – in turn – how the architects of 21^st century statecraft react to the public.

Jess

Inspired by previous attempts such as those of NoseMonkey, Jon Worth, the Bloggingportal and Lobby Planet, we’ve created Fleishman-Hillard’s own selection of Euroblogs in our brand new Netvibes page here, for anyone to follow with ease if you don’t do so already. Netvibes is a time-saving tool that allows you to see on one single web page the headlines of all your favourite websites.

We have chosen to classify the blogs in the following categories: journalists, citizens -blogs whose authors write in their personal capacity-, EU officials, Commissioners, MEPs, corporate, and collectively written blogs – including NGOs, think tanks and political parties. As Steffen explained last week, in the current state of the EU blogosphere there are not yet quite enough EU political blogs to make a classification by policy sector, but hopefully this is changing and we’ll soon be able to develop a parallel policy dashboard.

Beyond the author categories we have selected 10 must-read Euroblogs. What are the must-read Euroblogs? The longest-standing? The most read? The most quoted? The most controversial? The most productive? The English-speaking ones? Well, there is no magic formula. Our selection is a combination of objective criteria and insider knowledge of the blogging community. It’s a selection of some of the most emblematic Euroblogs.

Finally, in our selection of top EU political blogs, we have added the feeds of Bloggingportal and Blogactiv. The Bloggingportal’s team of volunteer editors selects the best EU-related blog posts amongst over 600 blogs. You can also subscribe by email to Bloggingportal’s weekly digest here. Taking a look at the articles posted on the blogging platform Blogactiv can also give you an indication of what the trending topics in the EU blogosphere are.

This Euroblog selection will evolve with time for two main reasons:

• The current selection is mainly composed of blogs written in English, with a few additions in French, German and Spanish.
• As recent good-byes announced by Charlemagne’s author and Julien Frisch have shown, the EU blogging community is moving fast. Blogs disappear and emerge all the time.

In short, this is work in progress so feel free to suggest edits or additions! We hope you will find it useful and that it will help you get more familiar with the Euroblogging community.

Laurence

That’s the dividing line. An influential policy blogger is an authority on a policy area who has a professional interest in it. They represent an organisation – be it a single issue pressure group or a global corporation – that is one of many stakeholders on a set of policy areas and present that organisation’s positions in blog format. The level of expertise and relevance of the blog is such that it is read by all or at least most other relevant stakeholders including policy makers and key influencers. At this point, the blog can arguably be called an “influential policy blog” (although I’m not going to define influence scientifically.) How many are there in Brussels? Far fewer than I can count on one hand.

Why not? The old “policy makers don’t use the web” chestnut certainly won’t hold any longer. What’s more, it’s advocacy of the most open and transparent kind; and it allows organisations to move beyond purely focusing on key policy areas to engaging on broader issues and build relationships in the process. Plus the flexibility of the medium allows them to enhance their advocacy by producing an ongoing narrative in line with events rather than the “all your eggs in one basket” approach which face-to-face meetings or a one-off position paper demand.

So why the poor uptake? Three broad reasons, I’d say:

1. Sometimes, the sensitive nature of their industry may force PA professionals’ hand. Fair enough, although I suspect they won’t be able to keep quiet forever.
2. Other times, it’s just a question of sticking to what they know best – and frankly, who can blame them? It’s worked for years and blogging is both time-consuming and a little frightening. Presenting your views to the world rather than a narrow set of key stakeholders: why bother unless someone is twisting your arm?
3. Communicators (internal and agency) haven’t done enough to help organisations make the shift. The basic sell is: this is not a fancy add-on but a basic publication tool which, used well, has the potential to improve your reach and influence. Too often, the sell has been tactical i.e. selling “blogging” per se as something near-revolutionary rather than what it can do. We for one are doing our best to change that, but it won’t happen overnight.

Over to you. Do you agree with the premise: are influential policy bloggers indeed far and few between in Brussels? Is that perhaps a good thing?! And the reasons I cite for the scarcity? Keen to hear your thoughts.

Steffen

With only 2 weeks before the start of the Belgian EU Presidency (starting July 1), it will be interesting to see which direction the government formation process now takes and how this will impact Belgium’s six month tenure at the helm the EU Council of Minsters.

Winners

In Flanders, the NV-A secured a sweeping victory, with 27 seats in the Belgian Federal Parliament, an increase of 19 seats. This is nothing short of historical. This is the first time a non-traditional party –in other words neither the Christian Democrats, nor the Liberals nor the Social Democrats – has been elected as the largest party in Flanders. In Wallonia, the PS emerged as the strongest party, with 26 seats.

Losers

In Wallonia, Didier Reynders’ Liberal party, MR, lost 5 seats. The big loser of these elections in Flanders is former Prime Minister Yves Leterme’s Flemish Christian Democrats party, the CD&V. For the first time in history, the party’s result was below 20% (17.5%). The huge gains made by the Flemish nationalists make the losses all the more painful, as the CD&V and the NV-A went to the federal elections on a joint list during the previous federal elections in 2007. Together they secured a victory with 29%. In 2003 the newly formed NV-A was still struggling to achieve results higher than the electoral threshold. In 2009 the Flemish nationalists have won without the support of a traditional party.

The new government

If all goes well, a new government will be in place by September. According to analysts, one of the most likely coalitions for a new Belgian federal government is one that would comprise:

The Flemish Nationalists (NV-A)

The Flemish and Francophone Social Democrats (sp.a and PS)

The Flemish and Francophone Christian democrats (CD&V and cdH)

The Flemish and Francophone Greens (Groen! and Ecolo)

This type of coalition government would reflect the composition of Belgium’s regional governments. From a policy perspective such a new government would likely facilitate institutional reform and at the same time face tough decisions on socio-economic issues.

The person who is most likely to become the next Belgian Prime Minister is Elio Di Rupo, leader of the PS. He would become the first Francophone Prime Minister in more than 30 years.

Filip Dewinter: “Di Rupo Prime Minister! No way! Then I’ll move to Namibia…”

That Di Rupo, Francophone, the son of  Italian immigrants and openly gay would become the new Belgian Prime Minister is clearly not to the liking of the Flemish far right party Vlaams Belang, which sustained significant losses in these elections. On May 22, Filip Dewinter, leading member of Vlaams Belang, posted the following on his Twitter account: “Di Rupo Prime Minister! No way! Then I’ll move to Namibia…”. As it seems ever more likely that Di Rupo will indeed become Prime Minister, some people have taken up the task of reminding him of his promise. At this moment already, around 11 000 members of the Facebook group ‘Philip Dewinter should keep his promise’ agree that Mr. Dewinter should, indeed, move to Namibia.

Clearly, the impact of the Belgian elections will be far-reaching.

For further analysis of the Belgian elections, also on the possible impact the election results will have on the EU Presidency, we can refer you to our analysis of the Belgian elections on the FH Brussels website.

Yesterday it was election day in the Netherlands, and a long one at that, as initial results showed such a thin difference between the centre-right VVD and the centre-left PvdA that neither side could claim victory until very late into the night. In the end, Kroes’s party emerged as the winner of the elections. So when I went this morning to a conference where Neelie Kroes was supposed to be speaking at 9:30, I thought she might not show up at all.

But she did. And she started her speech clearing out any doubt about her future. She said that although she could get any job she wanted at the moment, she would stay at the Digital Agenda portfolio as this is, according to her, the best job she could ever get. She looked sincere, but you never know with politics. Government coalition building can take months in the Netherlands, and politicians are known for easily changing their minds. Surprises might still happen.

Laurence

Election night in the Netherlands was quite ‘hot’; at some point the NOS television program  ‘election night’ announced that Twitter was overloaded and inaccessible due to the vast interest of the people in the probable results.

The Dutch parliamentary elections on 9 June in all probability resulted in a victory for the liberal VVD in terms of the most seats and a victory for Geert Wilder’s party PVV in terms of the most seats gained compared to the last elections. Former Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende immediately resigned as leader of the Christian-democratic party CDA as his party almost lost half of its seats.

Coalition and compromise have always been at the heart of Dutch politics and governance. This time around, the political parties really have to live up to these Dutch principles as the amount of seats per party are quite evenly spread. The labour party PvdA for instance, only has one seat less than the VVD, so getting a credible majority is a bit of a challenge. One option now speculated upon in the Dutch media is a combination of the VVD, CDA and PVV leading to a small majority of 76 seats out of 150 (the absolute minimum). Formally speaking, the results are still to be reviewed by the election control council (the ‘Kiesraad’) and final results will be announced in parliament on 15 June.

So for the moment, the winner is democracy. Now let’s see how civil this democracy is in forming a government. VVD leader Mark Rutte wants to have a new government by 1 July, which is 21 days from now. FYI,  since 1946 the average coalition process in the Netherlands takes about 87 days… 

Esther

A great race was had by all, with some of the more seasoned runners breaking personal bests and the newbies simply surprised they had survived the ordeal. A massive round of applause goes out to ‘FH Marathon Man’ Donald Ricketts who ran a stonking time of 1:19:07 – just over 17 mins behind the race winner!

Aside from self glorification/deprecation, there is an interesting (not to mention entertaining) technological element to this piece. During the race, all participants’ times are tracked by an RFID chip attached the runner’s foot. This chip allows accurate timekeeping from when the runner crosses the starting line, at 10km, and at the finish line, providing an accurate time readout and… video footage of them crossing the finish line.

If you want to check any of the FH team crossing the finish line simply visit www.20km.be, click on ‘results’, and enter their name or number to see their time and the video. See results and numbers below.

• Donald Ricketts – 1:19:07 – #21814
• Simone Mancini (on loan) – 1:42:13 – #23184
• Ed Ratcliffe – 1:46:13 – #8946
• Malin Raman Delin – 1:46:20 – #22199
• Roeland van der Stappen – 1:54:44 – #21813
• Nick Andrews – 2:15:39 – #4298

The team’s motto of “If I can do it, anyone can” still stands, so we hope to see you there on 29 May 2011.

Ed