Posts tagged ‘Brussels’
FH Europe podcast: 20 years of Public Affairs in Brussels
In the latest instalment of the FH Europe podcast, we interview Caroline Wunnerlich, the Managing Director of Fleishman-Hillard in Brussels. FH Brussels celebrated 20 years in business last year, a landmark Caroline hits this year. In the interview she tells us about how PA in Brussels has changed over the last 20 years and looks ahead at the next 20.
Click here to listen to this edition of the podcast.*
Click here to subscribe to the FH Europe podcast on iTunes.
* If using Internet Explorer, you may have to right-click on the link and “save target as”, then play the saved file by double clicking it.
Steffen
FH Podcast: Journalists & Digital #4 – Ian Wishart of the European Voice
Continuing our occasional series on how Brussels journalists use social media, today we feature an interview with Ian Wishart of the European Voice. Ian talks about how – as a new arrival in Brussels – Twitter helped him navigate the Brussels maze. He also muses on the potential for better Twitter performances from the Brussels power brokers.
Click here to listen to this edition of the podcast.*
Click here to subscribe to the FH Europe podcast on iTunes.
* If using Internet Explorer, you may have to right-click on the link and save target as, then play the saved file by double clicking it.
In case you missed it, here’s the Storify page and the web page of the recent seminar held by the Council on “The Impact of Social Media on Journalism”. Outside of the Brussels bubble, here’s an interesting analysis in writing and film from the BBC of how social media had changed its newsroom.
Anita
FH Podcast: Reputation and Public Affairs
Public Affairs in Brussels has traditionally centred heavily on government relations, namely the practice of communicating with policy-makers. In a digitalised world, however, organisations and industries are increasingly finding that reputation issues that have little to do with the legislative, often very technical, debates that take place in Brussels, are having an impact on how they are perceived here.
For that reason, Public Affairs professionals are increasingly required to appreciate and incorporate elements of reputation management in their work.
In this interview, Dan Baxter, Senior Vice President and Partner at FH in Brussels, tells us more about why reputation management matters and provides some pointers on how to successfully conduct reputation management.
Click here to listen (if using Internet Explorer, you may have to save the file – right-click and save file as – and then play that file separately.)
Click here to subscribe to the FH Europe podcast on iTunes.
Steffen
An American in Brussels
It’s that time of year again. The time of year when the populace of the EU Quarter abandons Brussels like rats from a sinking ship and those few of us left on board are trying to wrap up all of the ‘admin’ tasks that we’ve put on hold for the several previous, hair-raisingly busy months.
It’s also the time of year when I, as an American, have to go through the annual bureaucratic rigmarole that is renewing my Belgian work permit. This is now my third time down the path of renewal and every year it’s the same somewhat maddening procedure (though the first time is always the worst!). This year, however, I’ve found myself pondering the question that I always find myself answering for curious Europeans who say something like ‘But, it’s normal for Europeans to want to go to the States, but you’re an American, how did you find yourself here, in Brussels?!’, and so I decided to take a little poll around the FH Brussels office to see why the other Americans (there are 5 of us in total!) are here.
Carey Evans, from Los Angeles, California
“I came for the weather… clearly.”
Jessica Henderson, from the Twin Cities area (Minneapolis/St. Paul), Minnesota
“Because I couldn’t afford London, Paris, or Geneva.”
Tatiana Hulko, from Evergreen, Colorado
“I blame the Brit in my life for trading in sunshine for rain.”
Katie Wolicki, from Asheville, North Carolina
“Belgian chocolate, frites, waffles, and the little boy peeing….what more could you ask for? ”
That leaves me. So why am I here? Well, I can’t say I came for the weather and I, too, am probably unable to afford the luxury of life in London, Paris, or Geneva. Nor can I claim that it was the infamous beer, waffles, or chocolate that lured me here – though they didn’t hurt. And although my colleagues have all provided (what I like to assume are) tongue-in-cheek responses to my query, I have to say that I originally landed in Brussels sort of through happenstance and, like most Europeans here who are not natives to this fair(ish) city, I guess I got sucked in. It started innocently enough, with an internship here during my undergrad studies, but living in Brussels piqued my interest in EU affairs and the policy making scene. I returned after graduating to do a Masters’ in Leuven, got a job in a public affairs consulting firm in Brussels, then another job, et voila, little by little, before I really realized, the exciting world of the EU had gripped me and the slightly more laid-back lifestyle of the Brussels-scene kept me close. Despite the rain and the endless red tape, the lack of friendly service, and the inconvenience of much of everyday life (I’m sorry, but it makes NO sense that all of the shops and stores close on bank holidays when people actually have time to spend their money!) I find myself willfully going through this renewal process that keeps me here for at least another year.
And so, as much as this writer likes to complain about the above mentioned issues (and more!) I have to accept that actually, we do have it pretty good here. The international work environment that I’m lucky enough to be a part of is a unique one. The friends I’ve made who live here and who depart to the far reaches of the globe are largely friends and contacts I’ve made in Brussels. The proximity to the heart of European policy making and the opportunity to have interesting interactions with policymakers means that my job is interesting every day – not something that can necessarily be said even for my counterparts who live and work in America’s version of Brussels, Washington DC. These are the things that brought me here and which keep me here still.
That said, for now I’ve had about as much of Brussels as I can take for 7 months at a time without ‘escaping’ and I’m off on hols back to New England as of Monday. So ‘bonnes vacances’ everyone! See you in a few weeks when I’m back – refreshed by the warm weather, sunny, blue skies, and ocean breezes of the Maine and Massachusetts coasts and ready to face the gray skies and Bruxellois lifestyle that we have all come to, err, know and love.
Lindsay Hammes, from Augusta, Maine
1st Worldwide Personal Democracy Meetup Day – 12 July – We’re in! What about you?
Last year we blogged about our cooperation with the Personal Democracy Forum folks. As you might know, the Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) is an online community and annual conference about the impact of technology on politics, government, and democracy. Next week our PdF friends are taking things to a whole new level. This time the conference is going global. On 12 July, PdF is organising the first Worldwide Personal Democracy Meetup Day. About 50 cities all around the world will have their own PdF meetup. All will tweet throughout the day using the hashtag #PdFmeetup. Exciting, isn’t it?
Meetups are informal gatherings in essence. That’s the beauty of it. It’s about getting strangers, who don’t know each other but share common interests, to meet in real life… thanks to the Internet. Created in 2001, meetup.com was a simple but revolutionary idea. It had a key role in the unprecedented grassroots mobilisation around the 2004 Howard Dean campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination -I highly recommend Joe Trippi’s inspiring The Revolution Will Not Be Televised- as it also did in Barack Obama’s campaign.
We are of course taking part and can’t wait for D-Day! One of the spokespeople of the Hungarian Presidency of the EU will join us to discuss how they used social media during their mandate. They tweeted, blogged, reached out to bloggers, and even gave accreditations to some of them to attend EU Council meetings. How did they manage to get their hierarchy on board? What are the lessons learnt? Will this show the way to other EU institutions?
You’re welcome to join us at our offices from 6.30pm. Just register on our meetup page so we know how many people would be attending. Our Brussels meetup is now ranked 3rd place in terms of attendees, just after New York City and Washington D.C.
Washington D.C. is just a couple of attendees away… do you think you could help us reach 2nd place? How cool would that be? 
Laurence
Brussels traffic worse than Beijing
As you may know we work from the Brussels Bubble but our firm is global. As such, we’re lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with and meet colleagues and friends from around our company’s 80 odd offices on a pretty regular basis. Our recent 20th anniversary celebrations of our Brussels saw representatives from pretty much every continent (except Antarctica) visit us. One of them was our esteemed colleague Wang Lei from FH Beijing. A former MOFCOM official, Lei has been with us for over 2 years and provides a world of value with his insights on China from our Beijing office. Upon his return to his home country we asked him to answer a few not too cutting quickfire questions about his visit.
The thing that most surprised me about Brussels was…
The traffic. I thought Beijing was the worst city in the world for too many traffic jams and cars but Brussels seems to be even worse.
If there was one thing I’d change about the EU it would be…
To streamline the EU bureaucracy and make it simpler, quicker and more effective.
If I were a European I’d want to be a….
Belgian. They enjoy the freedom of having no government.
If you want to understand China…
Please learn some Chinese, stay in China for a number of years and spend time communicating with locals. If you do not understand what they are saying, and that’s not because of the language issue, please resort to some history books for the answer.
The next big thing to come out of China will be…
A big hug. China is embracing the world with goodwill and money.
If you ever go on a business trip to Beijing don’t forget to…
Climb the Great Wall, for only by doing that will you become a true man! And you will not be surprised to see that the Wall can’t be seen for true men.
FH Podcast: Journalists & Digital #3
This is the third in our series of podcasts about Journalists and Digital (see the first and second) and as the interview is between two French speakers (apologies non French speakers), we will continue en français…
Dans la série de nos podcasts sur le thème de l’utilisation d’Internet par les journalistes, voici notre première interview en français ! Dans le podcast ci-dessous, Laurence discute avec Jean-Sébastien Lefebvre, journaliste spécialisé Europe à Euractiv.fr (NB : au moment de l’interview il ne travaillait pas encore pour Euractiv). Il nous parle d’abord des raisons pour lesquelles il blogue, de l’espace de liberté que ça lui apporte et de comment, en tant que journaliste, il traite le contenu d’autres blogs. Il nous parle aussi de la manière dont il utilise Twitter dans son travail. S’il hésite encore à citer des tweets (ou des blogs) dans ses articles journalistiques, il utilise Twitter pour être tenu au courant au plus vite des dernières nouvelles et poser des questions aux spécialistes qui se trouvent sur ce réseau.
Allez voir son excellent (et distrayant) blog, L’expérience européene et suivez le ici sur Twitter.
Cliquez ici pour écouter ce nouvel épisode de notre série de podcasts.
Cliquez ici pour vous abonner au FH Europe podcast sur iTunes.
Rosalyn
(If using Internet Explorer, you may have to right-click on the link and save target as then play that file by double clicking it)
Brussels blogs green
Ronny Patz’s blog response to our podcast with the FT’s Stanley Pignal generated some on-line debate about why there aren’t many active bloggers on EU Affairs. Opinions on the scarcity are magnificently articulated here but I wonder if they are the same reasons that there are no blogs honing in on EU policies which have a huge impact on “Joe Public”. Take EU environmental policy for example. It has pretty much reached every one of the 500 million EU citizens. A more obscure element of it helped a maverick candidate to top the poll in Ireland’s general election this Spring. So you can’t say it isn’t relevant. There’s definitely space for an informative, entertaining, sometimes critical – sometimes supportive blog on how the Europe is being changed by environmental policy from Brussels. Any takers?
In the meantime, our next podcast on “Journalists & Digital” will be here very soon….
Anita
A tale of two cities
Since my return to Brussels I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the differences between public affairs in Washington D.C. and how it is practiced here in Europe’s capital. My not so groundbreaking conclusion is that while the objective of public affairs may remain the same, the practice of public affairs is shaped by the market’s conditions.
As such, to kick us off in what I intend (at this stage) to be a series of posts reflecting on my time in the U.S. below you’ll find some contrasts between the two markets that I came up. I’ll take a look at my views on the impacts of some of these pairs in the coming weeks.
Elections v Selections
Politics v Policy
Confrontation v Consensus
Fast v Slow
Closed v Open
Money v Insights
Emotion v Facts
Public v Elite
Many v Few
Periphery v Center
No prizes for guessing which side is Brussels and which is Washington.
James
