Last week I was invited to speak on a panel at the European Public Affairs Action Day.  The topic of discussion was key trends in EU lobbying.  As the introductory speeches began, I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts and I tried to think of some key insights and messages that would at least get a discussion going.

The setting was a conventional hotel venue populated with people in ties.  So this was definitely not TEDxBrussels, but the turnout was good considering Brussels’ then arctic conditions.

I started by saying – rather dramatically – that we were living through a massive Black Swan epidemic (looked around to see if the word meant anything to the audience).  In other words, we lived through a series of highly improbable events which had a significance impact – from the financial crisis to the Arab Spring and the never ending Eurozone crisis.

Recently, we witnessed Wikipedia shutting down for an entire day out of protest against SOPA.  The effect: a new form of lobbying was unleashed and SOPA was dropped the following day by one of its main sponsors.  This is just the latest in a series of events demonstrating the growing power of NGOs.  A power which developed out of their innovative use of new technologies to campaign and perhaps underlying societal trends.

The key trend I want to emphasise is how incredibly slow the ‘Brussels Bubble’ has been at recognizing and adapting to these changes.  In my speech, I stated that around 90% of organisations in Brussels still campaign as if nothing had changed in the past 50 years (I can’t claim to have the hard data supporting this figure but no one challenged it).

In a less forward statement, I told the audience that the fear of change, lack of innovative spirit and courage deficit was shocking and that our community needed to change attitude and mindset.  I also suggested that corporate members were beginning to put increasing pressure on associations to see a change in approach – and not just to get ‘more for less’ as some suggested.  They want to see different outcomes and different campaigns, they wanted to see value for money and want to see something to change.

Many Brussels associations have embraced the mindset of the Brussels Institutions and only see the limitations on what they can do.  Thus they fear change even more than the institutions they are trying to influence.  Paradoxically, the more they resist change, the more frustrated their member companies become and the more critical the situation becomes.

Alfons Westgeest, from Kellen, built on my 90% stat to launch into a weather analogy describing the Brussels frozen paradigm – which I must say I rather liked.

The discussion that followed touched on a range of different subjects and some sceptics said this was a naive view of things.  I talked about how some industries, such pharmaceuticals, were experimenting with new approaches despite challenging legal constraints and a conservative past (see vaccinestoday.eu to see some of the work we did with them in action).

However, I was also reminded of how much Brussels needs more inspirational and ground breaking initiatives such as TEDxBrussels.eu or Solve for X, an initiative Google recently launched to solve some of the worlds seemingly insurmountable challenges (www.wesolveforx.com).

In the face of a cold wave, Brussels could do with a healthy dose of sunny optimism.

For communicators who want to see change in Brussels and in the EU,  the starting point is to be willing to do things differently and prepared to take a risk.  Once you are open to experimentation and innovation, the extraordinary tools and networks brought about by the internet can be incredible opportunities.  If you want to find out how to do that, just drop us a tweet

At last month’s TEDxBrussels, John Bohannon shared a brilliant thought with the audience.  Why use PowerPoint to make presentations when we can instead use dance to convey difficult scientific concepts, or any other story for that matter?  This refreshing and inspiring idea shows the value of crossing disciplines and generating new ways to understand complex questions. Steve Jobs was famous for his unique understanding of design and technology.  According to his biographer, Walter Isaascson, Jobs saw himself at the crossroads of the scientific and liberal arts world.  This ability to constantly shift from one mindset to another enabled him to imagine and produce revolutionary devices such as the ipod, iphone and the ipad.

If we want to see the world differently we need to be able to switch paradigms rather than be stuck with one mindset.  By crossing disciplines and frameworks we can revisit existing information with a fresh perspective.  This is what hyperthinking is about.  The ability to shift our vision of a problem in a very deliberate way and explore it from varied perspectives can create the ‘eureka’ moment needed to understand how a falling apple is key to planetary orbit or understand why the finger is the ultimate tool to experience a tablet.

Dance your PhD is a concept formed from the merger of two worlds, dance and science – two worlds rarely seen together.  It may simply be helping us (I mean the non-scientists) understand complex phenomena because we are entertained and open to the experience.  As opposed to jargon infested PowerPoint slides.  In addition, by creating the choreography for the presentation, scientists can explore their subject, develop new insights and express them.  Dance could lead to a monumental scientific breakthrough and curiously win someone a Nobel Prize with a choreography award.

After the success of his presentation at TEDxBrussels, John Bohannon was approached by people from different sectors to help them create a Dance Your PhD concept for entirely new subjects.  Maybe Europe’s leaders needs a “Dance your EURO” spectacle to get their heads around what is going.  Whatever it is, I am sure we’ll make a song and dance about it.

You can watch John Bohannon’s presentation below:

It's tough being smart

Last week I was reading an article from the Harvard Business Review by Heidi Grant Halvorson curiously entitled: The Trouble with Bright kids.

I enjoyed the ‘takeaway’ from the article, which I quickly shared with my own children Ivan (11) and Natasha (8).  The short of it is that kids who believe that their success is due to them being smart, tend to perform worse, when facing challenging problems, then kids who believe that they succeed because they work hard.  This was demonstrated through experiments with children in a classroom environment.

I can see the importance of this as I have often come across very intelligent people who are limited in their abilities because they fear being ‘caught out’.   They are either afraid of appearing less smart then they think they are or of damaging their public reputation.

Soft and hard paradigms

In the hyperthinking system, I further develop this notion as part of the problem adults encounter as they grow older.  Their preconceptions, prejudice and preconceived ideas become more entrenched.  I call this a ‘hard paradigm’, when the paradigm we use to understand the world becomes increasingly rigid and changing it can be a genuine problem.  Children, on the other hand, start off with ‘soft paradigms’, that only become harder as time passes and their confidence in their own abilities is strengthened.  This is particularly visible with languages and technology when comparing how adults face learning in contrast to children.

These fields are often perceived as incredibly challenging, and some adults form the conclusion that they are simply ‘not equipped or gifted’ to acquire these skills.  Children, on the other hand, have no such reservation and will always pick up new languages if sufficiently immersed in the environment it is spoken – the younger the easier it seems.  With technology (computers), children again have no fear or resistance when learning how to engage with these devices that sometimes have a deeply off putting quality for adults.  They play, they try, and the ‘thing’ responds.  This provides them with an endless source of entertainment and by playing, they learn.

The difference, in my mind, is that adults have ingrained preconceptions of what they ‘should’ know and what their abilities are.  Once they feel they are struggling with a new mental skill, there is a natural inclination to give up early.  Especially when the learning might reveal how little they know about their field of endeavour.  We don’t believe it is about hard work – or ‘hard play’ as some children see it.  When faced with a new language, children learn best when they simply try through repetition or trial and error.  Adults on the other hand tend to over analyze the language, try to fit it in an existing paradigm and struggle to make this work.  This is (in part) why learning things that seem to come effortlessly to kids are a massive struggle for us, grown-ups.

The lessons from the HBR article (and other articles by the same author) is that almost any mental skill can be learned.  Provided we allocate time, effort and practice to develop that skill.  Second, our own perceptions about our abilities can be a hindrance to our learning, thinking of ourselves as smart can limit our capacity to learn and embrace challenges.  Instead of thinking of ourselves as smart (even if we are), we need to believe in our ability to ‘work the problem’.  We should relish spending time and energy trying to solve problems and make it one of our core skills.

When discussing how best to share these thoughts and experiences with Jeremy from our team, I was trying to figure out which tools to use and how to best use them.  As you can see, a variety of media assets will be linked to this blog.  I use twitter though not regularly, am experimenting with podcasts with audioboo, putting together mobile videos and started a google+ page on hyperthinking in addition to my own.  At the moment, it isn’t getting much traction however I would like to use google+ as a discussion tool instead of twitter (I shared my frustration with twitter on last week’s podcast).

In todays world of never ending development cycles we have become used to the idea that a product, website or technology tool is in a state of ‘permanent beta’.  Meaning it is always work in progress and a new and better version will come along to improve on the previous version.  In this spirit, I see this conversation as a permanent learning process where I share some ‘draft’ thoughts with you, first to have an outlet for them and second to get some input from you to help me take them further.

So stay tuned and watch this space for more ‘beta thoughts’…

The most moving presentation came from a parent who had lost his child to the whooping cough (pertussis), reminding us why vaccines matter so profoundly to the health of our society and our children.  The challenge we face however is an increasing level of scepticism from the public and intensification of rumours and scare stories spread through the web.  Brian Deer, a journalist writing for the Sunday Times and the BMJ, shared his experience in investigating the case of Andrew Wakefield. Brian spoke about how he had done a long and deep investigation into the science and methodology that had gone into Andrew Wakefield’s claims and was able to dismantle his case by carefully reading a large collection of documents.  He showed us that rigorous work and challenge can help to expose fraudulent claims.

The Wellcome Trust on the other hand reminded the participants that science and vaccines are still highly trusted by the public – and that a range of initiatives had helped reinforce this understanding – but a great deal of work still needs to be done.  I had the opportunity to share my experience in exploring this space online, as well as the dramatic change that the internet has brought to the way we experience information.  My own conclusion from this intense discussion was that there is a need for rethink of how the health community (public and private) communicates around vaccination.  The internet needs to become a core tool of communication activities and the various players need to acknowledge that the public has legitimate concerns and fears and wants to get a better understanding of what is behind the recommendations and research of the experts.  A much more transparent and open discussion is needed where rather than dismissing those with concerns a real conversation begins that addresses the questions and helps to understand what choices we all need to make.  In many ways this conference was a step in that direction.
There was some interesting engagement on twitter during the conference (#vaxpolicy).  I was particularly pleased when zdoggmd (check out his clip below) retweeted something about the conference – a great way to get the message out!

Check out my storyfication of #vaxpolicy

Cross-posted to http://blog.zn.be/2011/hyperthinkers/shifting-the-vaccine-policy-discussion/

Whilst at the event, I asked fellow speakers what they thought was the best way to tackle a social media crisis. Caroline Sapriel said ‘to put out a social media fire, you need social media water’. In other words, you cannot hope to handle, let alone manage a crisis in social media if you have no understanding, presence or engagement in social media. Aurelie (of ash cloud fame) talked about her personal experience at Eurocontrol and her recent experience with the European Council – where crisis management is a daily occurrence without using the word crisis. She believes the ability to adapt during a crisis is the key to success. Philippe Borremans shared some tools to cope with an online crisis and said he believes every communication team needs to be prepared and ready to act. Incidentally, one of his favorites tools is the use of wikis to collaborate and share information as well as blikis, a blog that is also a wiki. I confess I had not heard about blikis before.

I want to take this opportunity to step back and look at the wider context. Recent revolutions in the Middle East and riots in London have shown that social media can both accelerate and amplify popular movements. Despite the discussions online about the true role played by social media in these separate events, it is clear that they contributed to change.

I believe communicators need to learn to adapt their thinking and their behaviour if they are to successfully mitigate these crises. They need to be open to on-going learning and take charge of their ‘permanent education’. They need to become comfortable experimenting with new technology and make creative thinking a permanent skill. This is why my company and I created the concept of hyperthinking (download the eBook here). We believe the right mindset is the single most important factor in being able to face permanent change.

In practice this is also a team effort. Communicators need to convince their colleagues and senior managers of the importance of embracing new communication channels. This also means letting go of old dogmas or preconceptions and embracing the possibility that what we learned has not equipped us to face the changes of today’s world.

While working on your social media strategy and drafting your policy (also read the 5 myths of building a social media policy) it is important to keep the bigger picture in mind. You need to make social media fit in the wider communication and online strategy. (check Mission possible: 7 steps to building an effecting online strategy)

A good exercise is to test a new technology on a weekly basis. Even with a limited engagement you can create a Twitter profile for example, follow a few people and start engaging with them. You might choose to do this more or less depending on your personal inclinations, but the key is to spend enough time to get an understanding of the tool and be able to see it’s potential.

To help our clients with this we run a series of workshops called ‘Discovering and mastering social media’. We begin with the basics, then move to the exploration of relevant tools, how they fit the communication mix and how they can be applied to your needs and the organisation.

Drop us a line or a tweet, if you want to find out more.

Cross-posted from http://blog.zn.be/2011/hyperthinkers/crisis-in-a-social-media-world/