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…

OK, so sue me - I haven't posted in months. But I will post again soon, because the twittering is driving me nuts. I've been on twitter for around 18 months (since 7:24 AM Oct 18th, 2007, to be precise), and hardly ever used it. Didn't get the badge, didn't buy the t-shirt. Hell, if I can't find the time to blog on the blo…

[Note: this has been republished after it was lost during a software upgrade. Unfortunately, comments were lost. ;-( ] ReadWriteWeb published at the end of last year a thoughtful look at how the financial crisis may impact innovation in the online world:... we're clearly now at a point where the financial problems of the world will have a big…

I was discussing online communities and the EU with some friends before Christmas, when a few interlinked thoughts and ideas popped up, stemming from an earlier post about "trust2". I thought I'd commit them to screen while they were fresh in my mind, and ask for some ideas.Trust and (election) turnoutGiven that election turnout is …

I was reading Laurent's post What does it mean to become human?, but it was so long that I skipped to the end, illustrating exactly the point I wanted to make in this post. Laurent writes, amongst other things, about interiority:the capacity to reflect upon ourselves, others and the world, the whole of realityIt put a name to something I'…

So I thought it would be interesting, as the hysteria fades, to take a short, unrepresentative tour of how EU-oriented bloggers greeted Barak Obama's victory.This is by no means a scientific or exhaustive survey - just a few quotes and links - and it's highly unrepresentative because, of the acres of blogprint dedicated to the man, I…

Over on iBlog, Claus used a term that caught my attention:Networks such as ERRIN, which is funded by membership contributions and invests in what I would call “TRUST 2.0.”, help to establish that collective understanding and culture of cooperation and facilitate successful involvement in EU projects.While he freely admitted that "Trust 2.0 do…

By my reckoning, Blogactiv had its first birthday today... what really sticks in my memory was the eurosceptics. It led to an interesting experiment in handling certain types of online debate... The Pyjama People's immediate assumption was that Blogactiv was an EU-funded front company... CIA-style