Posts tagged ‘public affairs’
The Highlights – “Social media: what works & and what doesn’t?” from the European Public Affairs Action Day
So Thursday was the long awaited European Public Affairs Action Day, organised by the Parliament Magazine, and of course it was every bit as good as it promised to be. We hosted a workshop entitled ‘Social Media: what works what doesn’t’? We aimed at having a range of perspectives in our panel to get a good picture of how social media is being developed in different areas, from industry to national and then European politics.
Michael Adolph from FH started off with some of the inspiring work they do in Washington and highlighted that good quality content which shows real personal enthusiasm for the subject matter is most likely to resonate with audiences. He showcased a video for Johns Hopkins University’s Malaria Free Future campaign, which demonstrates how a fresh approach to traditional funding applications with creative visuals and a proactive online outreach can make a practical difference to malaria sufferers.
He was then followed by Samuel Coates from the UK Conservative Party. He gave very straightforward advice: don’t just believe the hype but find out who your audience is and reach out to them. Try to build a relationship rather than just following the latest social media trend and using those media channels like you would a foghorn.
Finally, we rounded off with another perspective, that of Ryan Heath who, as a member of Neelie Kroes’ social media team, has the opportunity to experience firsthand the way social media is shaping the government/citizen conversation. Definitely the most eye opening quote of the day comes from our dynamic Australian who said that on Neelie Kroes’ website ‘a single average blog post gets as many views as all of her 2010 press releases combined’ – a clear sign that the more immediate and personal nature of a blog post resonates with audiences.
Yes a good time was had and it was great to see so many industry leaders there. We videoed the panel and have a few snippets from the audience coming soon so watch this space…
Rosalyn
We’re tickled pink by Julien’s fish and mash-ups
An interesting post over on Julien Frisch’s blog who shows yet again how online tools out there for free can help all of us seeking to understand and explain the EU’s legislative processes – whether to clients or just because we are tickled pink by fishing regulations like Julien.
It’s a pity that the Council’s website doesn’t allow one to follow the discussions from WP to COREPER to Council with links to documents attached as Julien has done. Alas, we’ve complained about the Council’s website before and no doubt will do so again. We also had a go at thinking on this blog about how these kind of tools can be put to use in public affairs to bring the local to Brussels. Worth a read if you’ve not already.
James
Posts I’ve enjoyed on this blog
After nearly eight years in our Brussels office and coming up to three years posting on this blog I’m off to our Washington D.C. office for a couple of years at the end of the month.
Before I leave I thought it not a bad idea to indulge myself just a tad, forgive me folks, and point to some of the blog posts I’ve enjoyed writing or reading on this blog. I say enjoyed because, as my wife (sorry, my luv) will testify, relaxation of an evening has become me on the laptop tinkering with this blog, the twitter feed or various other websites that are in some way work related.
Which MEPs use Twitter?
Part of our hypothesis when we started the blog was that digital communications was changing how policy-makers were interacting with voters and stakeholders. To support our view we created a long list of MEPs, the good folks at Europatweets aggregated them a couple of months later on their nice website, Digimahti had another go at listing them and finally we’ve now created our own Twitter lists to categorise them by Committee on our twitterfeed in recent weeks.
65% of MEPs use Wikipedia at least twice a week
Spotting MEPs that tweet was one thing, but we wanted to go a little deeper in understanding how they use the internet and how we may be able to use it to communicate to them. Our EP Digital Trends study sought to do this in 2009. The results led to three conclusions on how our results influence our thinking on public affairs here. It also turned out that MEPs aren’t the only ones who rely on Wikipedia – seemingly the Commission services have a penchant for it too…
Grayling’s EU office starts it’s own blog
We are known to say that to be a thoughtleader one has to have thoughts and they have to be leading ones. Well one measure of thoughtleadership may well be that others follow where you have gone. Grayling’s team has a super blog. We wish more agencies in town would join them (and us).
Helen Dunnett explains the value of blogging for trade associations
Helen’s views on how ECPA was using its blog in Brussels was enlightening and uplifting. It underlined that there are organisations out there who do recognise the value of using digital tools in Brussels.
Scoop: European Parliament talks about European Parliament
Wordle is a great tool. Never more so than when reminding us of the fact that the Bubble likes to talk about the Bubble. The outgoing EP President’s speech was a classic.
Parallels between a Mel Gibson film and the President of the European Council
Sometimes it’s just been fun writing. No more so than one Sunday morning over coffee when I delighted in the fact that the nomination of the President of the European Council was like a seen from a 1980s US action film.
James
FixHousingFirst: Public Affairs Campaign of Year at PR Week awards
News from the US late last week that our Washington D.C. colleagues have picked up a gong at the US PR Week awards for FixHousingFirst campaign. Congratulations to Pat Cleary, Bill Black, Ben Clark and everyone else involved. We don’t do the work for the awards, but receiving one is pretty special anyway.
In summary, the team helped a bunch of home builders build a broad-based coalition to advocate for federal funding for home-buyers as part of the economic recovery package. The novelty? Much of the coalition building and advocating made use of those digital tools we’ve been banging on about over here for some time. The results? Everywhere you go in the US you can’t move for talk of the federal tax credit for home-buyers.
You can read the Fix Housing First Case Study here. And below is Pat speaking about the programme late last year at the European Public Affairs Day here in Brussels.
A further article from the UK’s Communicate Magazine talking about the campaign with a wider view of what we do here in Europe, can be found here.
James
To Twitter or not to Twitter: use of digital tools in public affairs
Last week saw Fleishman-Hillard host a panel debate on the use of digital tools in public affairs and politics at the European Public Affairs Action Day. The videos of the contribution of our three speakers (Alexander Alvaro MEP, Pat Cleary of FH DC and Mark Redgrove of Orgalime) are now available on our YouTube channel here.
Here is the contribution of Alexander Alvaro MEP in two parts. The Q&A session of the panel discussion will be uploaded in coming days.
James
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Public Affairs Action Day – 30 November
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.
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JamesGlobal votes, local perspectives
- Image via Wikipedia
The great thing about being a bit of a political junkie is there is always an election going on somewhere. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia there are 123 democracies in the world. They may not all be perfectly formed, but as Churchill said…
Happily we have people on the ground in an increasing number of them. In an effort to harness this network in one place our Public Affairs website has now grown to include “Global Vote”. It seeks to list forthcoming elections, provide some key background and most importantly some local insight from our people on the ground. Currently, we’ve contributions on everywhere from Germany, Czech republic and Portugal to the Virginian governor’s race.
It’s still developing, but is worth a look even at this infant stage. Comments on how it could grow are most welcome on this blog.
James
P.S. A blog post is somewhat overdue on how to keep a blog going in the summer period when two thirds of the office is not in the office and the other third is experiencing one of the busiest Augusts in living memory. Who says Brussels shuts in August. Apologies for those readers who await our every meandering with baited breath.
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Public affairs views from around the world
As part of our recent global public affairs practice meeting here at Fleishman-Hillard, we managed to catch a minute or two to camera from some of our colleagues from around the world. Struggling for a place to put the clips, we created a YouTube channel all of our own here.
Amongst those contributing to our discussions on the challenges facing companies around the world was former European Commissioner and current member of our International Advisory Board David Byrne.
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What is Public Affairs? Some thoughts from a global perspective
Image via Wikipedia
This last week saw our latest Global Public Affairs Leadership meeting here in Brussels. In attendance were public affairs practitioners from global centres like Beijing and DC, major European capitals such as London, Berlin and Paris and a host of other places from Latin America to Canada. It just goes to show that wherever you are, the public policy agenda is likely to have an impact on your business.
It was great to participate in some informed debate on hot issues; the regulation of financial service markets, energy security and climate change and consumer product safety amongst them. It would appear that increasingly issues are global and markets interconnected, even if the issues play out locally.
Much the same observation can be said for public affairs itself. While the objective may be the same the world over, the tactics used may change depending on the market, the regulation in place (in terms of direct contact between stakeholders and government) and the issue and its lifecycle. The discussions led me to the observation that it was worth putting down somewhere my own understanding of some of the terms discussed – from communications to public affairs and finally government relations.
I’ve tried to do so in the attached file below.
Public affairs and government relations diagram
I’d be interested in people’s reaction especially in Brussels where the terms government relations and public affairs tend to be used interchangeably. At the same time communications tends to be looked down upon by those who only do the strict lobbying piece, as if decision-makers are only informed by views expressed in one-on-one meetings. Our recent digital MEP survey suggest otherwise.
One final thought. Our session on this subject matter appeared to me to suggest that the conditioning of the environment in which decisions are taken (i.e. the public affairs as opposed to government relations piece) is increasingly important for actors irrespective of the market they are in. It is in this context of course that digital tools fit in…
James
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