What happened when I was invited to “do a Rápido” at the IABC’s conference in Rotterdam earlier this week.

I’ve just spent a few days running the Discovery phase of a new project to further develop the communication strategy of an EU Institution, with a particular focus on retooling its online, social media and publications tactics. Apart from focusing on developing a new information architecture, I’m running the overall project. This means not only en…

I’m now at to the point where I can spend a few days interviewing key people in an organisation to develop a complete communication strategy.

With independent journalism increasingly looking like an endangered species, a EU communication strategy that helped European media build the European Public Sphere would be a smarter longterm move than propaganda and brochureware

blogs and Twitter drive two-thirds of content flow. Mainstream media has become a catalyst that blogs and Twitter drive. Responsive Experience Tops Responsive Design: ... preparing for 10 types of customers ... you know who they are via their search terms ... content changes to meet their needs. We must know who they are and start building…

Over 40 new resources ... some great longreads to enjoy as the nights grow long, the productivity tips you’ll need to find the time to read them, and a free set of steak knives. The Christmas season, after all, is almost upon us.

The number and diversity of communications skills needed to implement a communications strategy never stops growing. How are you organising them?

the human communications equivalent of Murphy’s Laws. - If communication can fail, it will. - If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which does the most harm. - There is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message. - The more communication there is, the more difficu…

In this week’s edition, a months’ reading - some 30 posts - on social media, digital transformation, content/system design and EuroPCom2015. But first some news from me

Two-way communication, engagement, dialogue, conversations, collaboration, and participation are buzzwords in contemporary public communication practices... how well do organizations ... listen — the essential corollary of speaking in communication? An international research study ... organizations overwhelmingly create an ‘architecture of s…

ontent from my EuroPCom session on online communities, plus some takeaways and extra links.

I recently had a great live Hangout with Ezri Carlebach and Charlelie Jourdan to discuss visual communications, taking risks and creating energy in conferences.

Do people really want to have a conversation with brands, or their government?

Any decent Communication Strategy will integrate offline, online, internal and external communications. But what about your organisation's Innovation Strategy?

"When starting a new [internal] communication project, asking the right questions of your customer sounds like a no-brainer. But are your questions right? ... Richard shares his method of developing the right questions to deliver the best results –  to start your IC projects right." - The power of critical thinking: How asking the right questio…

How do we want to communicate with each other? ... what kind of communicator would we actually want to use?... How do you signal that you're available to talk about movies, but not to talk about work? As we talk to more people more of the time, we'll also need smarter status indicators and smarter ways to break down conversations. The closest t…

"We couldn't understand why people without technical knowledge had to tell programmers "what" to do and, furthermore, they had to supervise "how" programmers did it." At last. Someone said it. And also quite a bit more about the timesucks that are meetings, email and commuting. These guys avoid all of them, work 4 days/week and are growing …

"the biggest impact on competitive advantage comes not from products, processes or technology, but empowered employees. And with the lines between Internal and External Communication becoming increasingly blurred, ensuring your people are engaged and empowered has never been more critical.... Leading Internal Communication teams are already bla…

Place all your content eggs in someone else's basket, you'll get what you deserve. Facebook it, after all, a business. Some basic advice here, but it amounts to the same thing: monitor, optimise & diversify: "Facebook organic reach was around 6% in February, 2014 — a decline of 49% from October. For brands with more than 500,000 likes, the fall-o…

Researchers show that the fatter the annual report, the shakier the company: "they compared the file size ... to various measures of market volatility ... the size of a report a better predictor of subsequent market volatility ... The less material investors and analysts must digest to get valuation-relevant information from company managers, the…

Applies equally to projects, where for step 1 (quoted below) the focus should be the project's USP: "Define what exactly your company is, its motto and the sole purpose of its existence. Write down everything that you think your company/website is about. Is it about marketing tips, social media, mobile apps, etc.? Define the existence of your com…

Great idea for explaining EU affairs or just wishful thinking? "A new game called Fantasy Geopolitics (think Fantasy Football meets Model United Nations) is radically changing the way high school students in Minnesota are interacting with the news." - How a High School Teacher Is 'Gamifying' World News

"The winners and other leading entries in the annual Intranet Innovation Awards show that WordPress and other open-source technologies can provide an intranet platform to meet both organisational and user needs. One of the aims of the Awards is to showcase examples of successful approaches and practices which can be applied by intranet team wit…

These questions are worth asking whether you're thinking of Influencer Outreach or not. "There are all sorts of tools you can use to reach your marketing goals, but before even getting into the discussion of goals and influence marketing, you need to ask yourself these questions: - Who are you targeting? - What are your objectives? What does…

"Barack Obama, Jerry Seinfeld, a line cook at Applebee's, and a guy with two penises walk into a bar. Actually, no, they would never do that. No venue could bring these people together. And yet, each of these people has stood before the IamA subcommunity on the social network Reddit, and typed those immortal letters, "AMA." Ask. Me. Anything. "…

How nice to see the Brussels Bubble meme continue to spread ... ;) "In a damning indictment of efforts in Brussels to promote stronger public attachment to the EU through the European Year of Citizens 2013, Emily O’Reilly said the campaign was “not succeeding”. ... the new office holders needed to be courageous enough to address the union’s demo…

" Engaging employees internally has a direct impact on how the company is perceived externally. While the term employee engagement (or any of its variations) don't appear in the report, it's clear that combining social media with good management practices produces more engaged employees who have a direct impact on how the outside world views the o…

"Constellation's Connected Enterprise is the intimate innovation summit for senior business leaders successfully using disruptive technologies such as social business, cloud computing, mobile enterprise, big data and analytics, gamification, and unified communications/video to drive business value and transform business models."

This is the sort of post which could get me into trouble for a number of reasons. Particularly as I'm going to comment on the celebrations to be enjoyed next month at the Festival of Europe, where one can do everything from "seeing the political groups at work inside the European Parliament" to "experiencing a fest…

The lack of specialists in EU-oriented blogs is impeding the development of the European online public space.