Counting the number of MEPs that use online tools to communicate is not a bad way to start your company’s blog and attract traffic. We should know as our post that claimed that 11% of MEPs blog is still one of our most visited posts to this day. E-marketing newcomers Digimahti have followed our lead and list 115 157 tweeting MEPs. Not an insignificant number I am sure you’ll agree.

At 21% of the total members of Parliament,  it’s exactly the same percentage that our MEP digital survey suggested used Twitter when we polled them in May this year! Digimahti of course notes that ‘using’ Twitter and having a Twitter account are very different. Our digital survey suggested that only 13% use it ‘regularly’, while 8% use it ‘occasionally’.

We’ll be looking to run our digital survey again next year with the new Parliament to see if that number improves.

James

It’s been amazing fun watching the UK media ruminate on the now seemingly receeding chances of Tony Blair being the first President of the European Council.

Firstly, there is some pleasure to be had in counting the number of times some hack in London gets all mixed up over what the job is. Will he be President of Europe, President of the European Council, President of the Council or President of the Council of Europe? Who knows? Does the UK media care? As an aside, all this confusion could form the basis for some bizarre studentesque drinking game. Every time a UK daily gets it wrong some kind of alcoholic forfeit would be administered. In any case all those reporting on this (or wishing to avoid alcohol abuse through sheer frustration) would be well advised to check out this post from NoseMonkey.

Secondly, is it me or did the UK media become obsessed with Tony Blair as President of the European Council? Even if they didn’t understand what it meant, that he hadn’t yet actually got the job or that with the exception of his successor (Gordon) no-one in the UK gets a vote on it. It was almost like the rest of Europe didn’t exist in this debate. The Brits seemed to take no account of the fact that many pretty well informed Europeans were wandering around Brussels saying ‘not on your life’ to Tony for a whole host of very valid reasons. No doubt whoever does get the job will be painted as an unknown and unelected bureaucrat – even if he happens to be the former Prime Minister of a European country who were founding members of the organisation the British begrudingly joined a couple of decades later.

Thirdly, even in Brussels one gets the sense that everyone is guessing. Ok, there’s some commonly accepted wisdom flying around the place. Front runners never get it. Small states prefer smaller men etc. etc. But really, other than a close cabral of PMs, Presidents and Chancellors, does anyone really know what’s going to happen? However, if your name is Angela and you do know, well, you could always leave a comment.

Finally, I know you’re going to tell me not to spoil everyone’s fun. The analysis of the runners and riders is likely to be far more interesting than what the new man/woman at the top will actually do at the end of the day. To show we’re not all spoilsports here at FH, here’s Nick Williams our MD of Public Affairs in London giving his thoughts on Tony Blair’s ‘covert’ campaign in PR Week this morning.

James

Related articles by Zemanta

• ‘Nul Points’ for Tony Blair as EU president but David Miliband sounds like a winner (telegraph.co.uk)

There’s a scene in the second of the Lethal Weapon series of films where Murtagh (Danny Glover) and Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) create a fracas in the apartheid era South African consulate in Los Angeles so that Riggs (Mel Gibson) can gain entrance through another door. Joe Pesci asks the South African consular official to talk his friend (Danny Glover) out of  emigrating to the most beautiful country in the world. The official is confused. That is until Murtagh is introduced; at which point the official utters in disbelief “But…but…you’re blek”. Mayhem ensues as Glover’s character starts protesting against apartheid.

I was reminded of this scene this morning upon reading an Observer piece on whether Tony Blair should become the first President of the European Council. There are some good arguments in the article both for and against. (For the record I am for). However, it was the only non-British European quoted in the piece that caught my attention.   Pier Luigi Bersani, an Italian opposition politician, states the following against Tony Blair’s candidature:

“Tony Blair is a personality with a formidable reputation on the European stage who has always enjoyed a very good relationship with Italy. I have always admired him, despite differences over the war in Iraq. However, when it comes to considering him as a candidate for the European presidency, it needs to be underlined that the UK is not in the Schengen Agreement, nor part of the Euro zone and is therefore not central to the process of European integration. Blair is a splendid man but possibly not the right candidate for this job.”

For Bersani at least it would appear that Tony’s actions in the Iraq war, or indeed his stature as an undeniable political heavyweight, matter not a jot. Much as we all might want to debate them. To state the obvious, he’s simply the wrong nationality. It’s a bit like a Danny Glover’s character wanting to emigrate to 1980s South Africa. Until our relationship with Europe is sorted out once and for all, Britain is unlikely to get the top job.

Which leaves us with one question. While Tony is causing all this mayhem, who and where is Riggs?

James

An interesting piece on the impact of polling on public policy in the US from my colleague Jeff Weintraub on our Public Affairs blog that is worth checking out here.

In contrast, I am not sure we need an online poll to establish whether polling has a big impact on the outcomes of public policy decisions at an EU level. I’ve discussed the fact it isn’t used more in previous posts.

In any case, it is an interesting debate in an EU context. Should advocates and policymakers in this town be making more use of polling both in advocacy and in making their policy decisions?

I’d be interested in your views and indeed examples of where it has proved valuable/not valuable.

James

Conference season is upon us once again. And boy does our workshop at last year’s Public Affairs Agenda two day extravaganza seem like an age ago. This year we’re partnering with the good folks at Dods on their European Public Affairs Action Day to be held on the 30 November at the Renaissance Hotel (it is a day rather than a summit this year, but the hotel remains the same).

We shall be hosting one of the workshop sessions, which will be structured in the form of a panel discussion complete with Q&A. Our panel is entitled “To Twitter or not to Twitter: the use of digital tools in public affairs” and will run in the second morning slot from approximately 11.30 until lunch. Appearing on our panel will be:

• Alexander Alvaro MEP talking about the use of the internet by Members of the European Parliament in and after the election campaign earlier this year.
• Pat Cleary our SVP of digital public affairs from our Washington DC office talking about the use of twitter in advocacy campaigns on the basis of a recent piece of work he did for the Fix Housing First coalition.
• Mark Redgrove. Mark heads up communication at manufacturing industry association Orgalime. He shall speak about how his organisation is using the internet to support advocacy in a Brussels based context

Registrations are not yet open, but should be soon here. We hope you can join us.

James

During our European digital ambassadors meeting in Milan last week we spent two days exchanging notes on some of the cool new trends in the online space. These included augmented reality (digital car races on a pizza box anyone?) and Google Wave (collaborative computing that could be very useful indeed for all of us) among others. However, amongst the delights of the internet future to come one new tool stuck out that could prove to be a pain for both politicians and companies. It’s called Sidewiki and its brought to us – as with most cool things on the internet these days – by Google.

If you, like me, are new to Sidewiki here’s a brief overview that summises my understanding. It’s a tool you can add to your Google Toolbar on either Firefox or Internet Explorer, but strangely not Google’s Chrome. Users of the Sidewiki with a gmail account can choose to add commentary to webpages they are visiting. Commentary from individuals is pushed up to the top of the list depending on relevance and popularity (users can like or dislike). Despite the label ‘wiki’ it does not appear to have a group editing function to moderate spurious content.  Google acts as moderator for the comments and will take down comments that are flagges as inappropriate (fingers crossed). The commentary is held with Google, not on the website you’re visiting. Sounds neat. But think about it. Anyone with a Google account can tip up to your website and leave a comment for the world to see, over which you as the owner of the site have no control.

Back in our ultra modern hotel meeting room we were seeking to find an analogy for what this is like. Was it like parking your car on someone else’s front lawn? Perhaps not. After all users of Sidewiki don’t get to post their comments on your website as such. They are all on Google. Our thinking is that it is more akin to a stranger standing in front of your real estate holding a big sign that says that your house has dry rot and there are rats in the basement. Users of Sidewiki have the opportunity to picket any site they fancy.

A quick surf round some familiar sites underlines that, as yet, the use of Sidewiki is yet to catch on a big way. There are a few comments on http://www.number10.gov.uk but by no means a flood. But if it does, what could it mean?

Primarily, you can now challenge others on their turf.  Whichever side of an argument you’re on, now you have the opportunity to go to get your messages/facts directly placed next to the site of those whose argument you are seeking to challenge. And they can do pretty much nothing about it. Imagine an NGO challenging a company’s record on child labour. Now NGO activists can go straight to the website and point out where the corporate spin surpasses fact. Equally NGO group questions the safety of a company’s product? The company can go on the NGO site and directly challenge the science. Clearly tit for tat could ensue. This works both ways after all. But who has the most supporters and the guts to take this to its illogical extreme?

Of course, one could take an optimistic view. These Google folks have just come up with something that will allow us all to read what the community believes to be the truth on any website. Your MP has fiddled his expenses?  Post a link on Sidewiki so even if his party leader forgives him his constituents won’t forget about it. Has your MEP not showed up for months? A running commentary of his attendance record could be added to his sparkling new website. This could be a positive thing! Alas, those with the most extreme views tend to be the most persistent. What if all we get is the popular but wrong view? Nothing would seem to prevent this.

So what to do? Well for me at least, it would appear the only sensible thing to do would be to get in first and then manage the fall out as other join up. For example, others have commented that you can occupy your Sidewiki comments as the owner of the website. This would appear to be soon to become a must for any site. Finally, as Sidewiki commentary would appear to have an impact on search results, managing Sidewiki may become as important as managing Wikipedia. This is likely to be an ongoing process for anyone who cares about their online reputation.

James

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Sidewiki Is a Universal Commenting System for the Web [Downloads] (lifehacker.com)
• Google’s Sidewiki lets people post comments about Web pages (macworld.com)

The devil, they say, is in the detail and it is interesting how the debate on e-government is developing in the UK. This article from the BBC website talks about the move on from a starry-eyed reaction to Obama-esque digi-campaigning (or Election 2.0) to a practical, cost-driven desire to drive all access to government and government services online. It is this, they argue, more than anything which is driving Government pressure on suppliers to push broadband out to everyone. It may be exciting to exercise one’s democratic rights online, but it may be more useful to be able to get the bins emptied too.

Nick A

A new event announcement that is of interest lands in our inbox. Personal Democracy is holding a European conference in Barcelona on 20/21 November. Speakers include representatives from the US but also Europe and of course the Brussels bubble. Jon Worth and Susan Pointer of Google among them.

Topics to be addressed include:

• Pan-European politics: Can the internet connect the dots?
• New possibilities for collaborative government
• Using the internet to open up politics outside the parties
• Transparency and participation: What is real e-government?
• What should European politicians and parties learn from the Obama victory?
• Using social media to transform the relationship between voters and their representatives
• State of the art politech: how to use mobile, video and social networking to advance your cause
• New media vs traditional media: how to navigate the new environment

There are many conference on digital communications, but it strikes us that us that this conference is more appealing that most given its focus on the interesting nexus of politics and digital communications. Right up our street.

James

The European Parliament’s convincing vote for Jose Manuel Barroso’s second term as European Commission president puts him in a stronger position than any candidate since Jacques Delors in the 1980s. To have secured the votes of the European Conservatives and their allies and an estimated 25 Socialists in addition to his centre right supporters in a secret ballot was a considerable achievement, at 382 delivering 13 more votes than an absolute majority.

Cometh the hour cometh the man. Barroso is no Delors, but can deliver the continuity which will be needed in a highly unpredictable period, where I see that the latest threat is from the Czech constitutional court which could delay Lisbon ratification for another six months even if the Irish vote “yes” on October 2.

Whatever the result of the referendum, Europe must get its act together for the Copenhagen conference on climate change, much as it did more than 20 years ago when the Vienna Convention on the ozone layer and the Montreal Protocol were negotiated.

I mention this because just 80 days before the opening of the Copenhagen conference the United Nations designated September 16 2009 as Ozone Day. The UN sees action on the ozone layer as a curtain raiser for Copenhagen, a model for what can be achieved through concerted international action in the face of a major environmental challenge.

It’s 24 years since the Vienna Convention for protecting the ozone layer was signed and 22 years since the Montreal Protocol, which set the timetables for phasing out of the man-made chemicals responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer. It is proving a remarkable success, although the task is by no means complete. A UN note gives more detail.

What does surprise me is the contribution that the ozone-depleting chemicals, and particularly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were making to global warming. CFCs have now been virtually phased out (January 1 2010 is the phase-out deadline of CFCs for the poorest countries) and scientists argue that this co-ordinated action has given the world up to 12 years of extra breathing space for arresting the process of climate change. They reckon its impact to be five or six times the impact of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol.

The late 1980s were years when environment policy came of age. The Vienna Convention was first based on a scientific thesis of ozone depletion caused by man-made chemicals, and only proven as fact in 1988 when US spy planes confirmed the existence of a vast hole in the ozone layer above the Antarctic caused by man-made chemicals.  It will be many decades before the ozone layer is fully restored, but things are no longer getting worse and should progressively improve.

Of course tackling climate change is a vastly more complex challenge than reversing ozone layer depletion. Every country and every industry is involved, as is the whole human population, but there are some fundamental principles which have been established through the Vienna process which are relevant to Copenhagen:

A template was negotiated to assist developing countries through a combination of financial assistance and phasing to allow further time for adaptation, plus special help for the countries of central and eastern Europe.

The last twenty years have demonstrated industry’s remarkable capacity to adapt and innovate once faced with obligatory targets. Firms which at first resisted the proposed Montreal measures, arguing that there were no alternatives, have developed new products and new technologies – a process which must continue.

The international community found the political courage and the mutual trust to accept the scientific consensus and build a global policy in the face of inertia and downright opposition.

The European Community (as it then was) was a major driver in formulating an international agreement and seeing it through to completion. It’s a good precedent for the European Union to follow.

Colleagues in the US point to this article over the weekend in the Washington Post about the use of the internet in the current elections in Germany. Interesting, if somewhat depressing.

German MEP staff members I have come across this week seem to largely concur with the views expressed. What do you think?

James