At last, an opportunity to blog about gardening and EU comms in the same post.

On November 8, MEPs will discuss '10 concrete political proposals' for creating the European public sphere via digital media, developed by IHECS (Institut des Hautes Etudes des Communications Sociales) and their partners via Socialeuropeanjournalism.com.

Last year, in the runup to the first EuropCom conference, I gave it a bit of a hard time. My cynicism was confirmed by many I knew who went, describing it as a conference about Web2 and social media which allowed little or no participation. Oops.

The subject of Klout has come up a few times on Twitter, so I'm posting this so I can point people toward a few articles I've found useful. Something I can't do in 140 characters. Which proves my eventual point.

"The Filter Bubble", by MoveOn.org foreign policy director Eli Pariser, shows that the forces creating the Brussels Bubble are about to be reinforced by technology, operated invisibly - and with impunity - by a handful of companies.

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…

Yep, the auditor is in to check whether we still deserve our ISO certification.

I've finally gotten around to updating my avatars here and there to show my support to Benoit Poelevoorde's call earlier this year to stop shaving. Why? And why won't it help solve Belgium's political crisis? And what's this got to do with Europe? I don't tend to write much about Belgian affairs ...

A few weeks before the Hungarian media storm broke late last year, the BloggingPortal editors were contacted by the (then upcoming) Hungarian Presidency team, seeking ideas for how they could cooperate with the Euroblogosphere. Being a loosely-at-best organised gang of volunteers, it took us a while to respond. To their immense credit...

A while ago I posted the idea that EUROPA could suffer if the EU Institution's limited online communications resources were refocused on social media. While social media offers the EU a great deal, this could be a serious problem, particularly given EUROPA's importance to any EU social media strategy. Commenters seemed to both agree and disagree...

A longer version of an article I published recently in NewEurope

Next week will see yet another physical meeting in Brussels dedicated to exploring the European public space, an irony which appears permanently lost to the organisers of the neverending stream of conferences, seminars and workshops which can be only attended by Brussels Bubble Insiders, and have neither webstreaming nor any online community (Euro…

If I recall correctly, a lot of us in the euroblogosphere reacted to the announcement of the European Public Communication Conference and Network (EuropCom) with a mixture of scepticism, hope and amusement, particularly with the original launch video, which was so badly done I for one was actually charmed.

When I came to Brussels in 1991 it was as a science writer. It remained my profession for many years, so when scienceblogs.com was launched in 2006 I checked it out ... but never really had the time to follow it. Now via another (ex?)science writer, I hear news of scienceblog's sudden implosion following a tragic loss of ethical compass.

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

Any survey which lists my blog as a Top 20 'influential' blog (see Stuart's post and interview with the authors, and Jon's post) must be either very generous or not have more than 20 blogs to work with

That's right - curation. Now officially Web2.0-buzzword-of-the-month (not quite sure which one).

Every now and then I see a neat new ways for displaying complex information simply and my inner child comes out. It really delights me that there are software and design geniuses out there, working together to provide visualisation tools for mere plebs like me to use. If I ever get the time.

So the debate about the Euroblogosphere, or the Eurosphere, or the European Public Sphere, or web2eu, or the European online public space, of whatever-we-call-it-next-week, has sparked again into life, like a Frankensteinian monster with dodgy spark plugs screwed into the base of its neck.

One of the topics I've been developing on this blog for quite some time came up at last week's get-together organised by the Belgian IABC chapter: the need (or not) for social media guidelines for EU staff.

I started out as a science journalist before moving to Europe, so I've always loved explaining complex things. Unfortunately, although I love words, they're often not enough - nothing beats an infographic, or better a narrated animation, to really get complex things across. Unfortunately, I'm a rubbish artist...

A Twitter conversation betweentwo much-followed EU-oriented bloggers over the weekend caught my eye. I won't identify them as you need to follow them on Twitter to see their tweets.It started when one asked whether anyone out there"still thinks that blogging is in any way likely to have an impact ... why should anyone listen to us? We st…

PR firm interns posting fake reviews about iPhone apps for their clients. Ghost blogging and tweeting by just about everyone, including thought-leaders in social media.  Bloggers not disclosing sponsorship. It's just a matter of time before someone poisons the well for EU social media.

Over on Nosemonkey's blog, in yet another debate on the pros and cons of EU membership, Insideur is of the opinion that there is a real gap in the market, that Open Europe has sought but failed to fill, for serious, informed, and therefore constructive criticism of the EU

Over on the Belgian IABC's web2eu site, Philip Weiss embedded a TED video of Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, discussing the revolutionary impact of social media. It's really so good I thought I'd repost it here and add some observations

Julien Frisch blogged about a very thoughtful post on writing for (y)EU by Steve, a web editor from the EP, who sounds distressingly like me (white, British, 40s and sceptical about the Generation Y definition of 'friend' despite having many) and seems to be coming down from a post-holiday Web2.0 overdose. The key paragraph, highlighted …

Now and then the question arises: how can we get a transnational discourse on European topics underway, or create a European online public space? The two phrases in bold, above, both come from one of the latest posts on the topic, this time from Julien Frisch. They follow initiatives like Steffan's Bloggingportal.eu, which aggregates Euroblog…

Quite a few people look at me in quite a puzzled way when I mention how the techniques and approaches of online community management 'may have something to offer' the EU in terms of communications, but that this may require 'a change in mentality'. When they look like that, I say "You know, something along the lines of the…

Following rapid and significant expansion into new markets and sectors of governance and policy, innovative union of nation states ("European Union", or EU) seeks an experienced Online Community Manager to gain buy-in at all levels throughout our 27 Members, as well as with external stakeholders on a global level.

I stumbled upon a short video on the BBC of Tim Berners-Lee trying to explain the importance of the data web, aka semantic web, again. He himself says that he can't say where it will lead us, as it is paradigm changing. True - but I can think of a few applications that anyone interested in the EU should know about. I can't embed the vide…