eCommunications for global organisations

Recently, many of us in Europe felt the effects of Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption. During this, social media proved itself to be useful outside of letting people send information home. It saved weddings from disaster, sent news stories around the world, and got a selection of stranded passengers a free breakfast in Bangkok.

Aurelie Valtat of Eurocontrol maintains that social media’s “human touch” is essential in a crisis. “People are happy to know that you’re listening to them. Be human: it doesn’t hurt to be a normal person. Be in tune… show that you care. ” She dealt information out to stranded passengers every two minutes, watching the organisation’s number of followers grow from 300 to 7,000 in a few days.

ZN’s Phil Weiss, who used Facebook to rally passengers stranded with him in Bangkok to demand treatment according to their rights, agrees with Aurelie.

“The key is to know who you’re talking to, and give them the information that they need. Eurocontrol’s efforts placed them in comparison with other organisations, like some airlines and the European Commission, which face big challenges in forming similar strategies for similarly effective communication.”

Both were speaking at an event hosted by ZN, which took place on 22nd June 2010 in the striking surroundings of the Brussels Air Museum. They discussed how the eruption had an impact on social media, with Simon McDermott, co-founder of Attentio, and the European Commission’s Gilles Gantelet.

The emphasis of Eurocontrol’s Tweeting was on crisis management rather than a communications revolution: “normal”, pre-volcano service has since resumed, in case the organisation is seen as a “super travel agency… there is a detailed plan in place, but every ash cloud is different.” Simon McDermott’s advice for organisations yet to embrace social media was simple: “Use it: learn it!”

Gilles Gantelet said that “[the Commission] has been impressed by Eurocontrol… we are also aware that there were some things that we were unable to organise in terms of communication.”

Photos, videos (of the event and of interviews with the speakers) and discussions will shortly be added to the IABC community. In the spirit of social media, questions and comments were Tweeted live into the event: you can find them under #ashcloudbxl on Twitter.

A few weeks ago, for the third time a group of individuals met in Brussels in a small snack place (Le Break de l’Abbaye) to discuss how the EU institutions could and should approach social media and internet communication.

Web2EU in action

The starting point for the event was an open letter written by EU Commission webmasters to try to shape the approach the new Commission was taking to Web 2.0. Tony Lockett and Dick Niewenhuis gave an overview of the origin of the letter, inspired by a similar US initiative, and talked about how this was being viewed by officials. The response to the letter was broadly positive but the key issues facing the institutions remained. Much of the discussion that followed revolved around what the Commission really is (not a government said Dick) and its role in communicating to the public.

From the US initiative I shared some comments made by Beth Noveck in an interview with Tim O’Reilly. The main point of their efforts was to use the web to bring more transparency and openness to the process of policy making in Washington. There was also talk of ‘closing the revolving door to lobbyists’.

An MEP, Wim van de Camp, joined the discussion and announced he was using twitter as his personal PR tool as had just launched his new website.

What seemed to emerge from the discussion is that there is a clear opportunity for the Commission to use the internet as a tool to communicate and share knowledge in more effective ways. The problem however is that they still need to clarify what the communication should be about. The objection made by Wim was that the Commission should not be sharing opinions but should be executing the will of its political masters. However no one objected to the fact that getting ideas on improving policy implementation and communication on its activities was a good thing.

So the discussion continues. Here’s a short video of the event.

After the event organised by IABC last week on Web2Eu, an exciting conversation started:  people shared ideas and content on the ning platform that was set-up by Hugh Barton Smith while several emails, tweets and other discussions took off.

Seeing as people clearly seem to want to continue the discussions that had started, we thought of a simple way to do it: let’s meet again!  In order to make this simple and cheerful we went round the corner from the ZN office to a place Le Break de l’Abbaye (they have a facebook group so you can even check pictures) and asked if we could use the room they had upstairs for people to get together to discuss how the internet was changing communication in Europe.  He said ok - as long as you pay for your drinks!

So there goes.  For those who want to continue the conversation or join it, pencil this date into your agenda:

Thursday 18th June at 16.30.  The address is rue saint Georges 2A (coin rue de l’Abbaye); 1050 Bruxelles (maps and satellite information will be provided shortly).

The format will be simple:

People can first introduce themselves and tell us what they are interested in.

3 or 4 speakers will make a five to ten minute speech (no powerpoint slides allowed) and share some thought provoking experiences with the others.  The rest will be an open discussion, followed by networking.  Nice and easy.

No charge to come, as long as you register (to make sure we know who is coming).  Casual, friendly, basically a social network but offline.

We will focus on how you as an association or communication professional can get your head round key concepts and tools, how you can address objections, what works and what doesn’t.

Helen Dunnett will be back by popular demand, followed by my colleague Steffen (aka blogger steffen78) and myself.

Any suggestions for the format and topics are welcome.  If you want to come or bring a friend register on the hyperthinker ning or on the IABC ning - feel free to invite guests, just keep us posted on the numbers.

See you there.

Phil

Today I will be speaking at an event organized by IABC (www.iabc.be) on the subject of the impact the internet is having on the political world. In this post I will share a few links that the participants might want to visit:

The hyperthinker ning community: (http://hyperthinker.ning.com/) - it’s free to join and is a great place to get an experience of a small network. Ning has the added advantage of enable you to sign-up to several communities with the same login and password and consult them all from one place if you want to.

If you are a member of IABC, Hugh Barton Smith has just started a another ning community (http://be-iabc.ning.com/), which I strongly suggest you join, as it will be a good place to continue the discussions started at the forum.

You might also want to set-your own personal dashboard by going to netvibes.  In order to select interesting blogs you might want to check some selections we have made on a range of topics:

Environmental topics: http://www.netvibes.com/environmentdashboard

Food related issues: http://www.netvibes.com/fooddashboard

Energy related issues: http://www.netvibes.com/energydashboard

I also wanted to list some of the blogs of the participants:

Helen has made a great start at a very interesting blog that has the advantage of coming from the perspective of someone who worked in a Brussels association and is sharing her ‘learning experience’ with people who are eager to learn. She also is very active on twitter so if you want to follow her trial and tribulations sign-up with her:
http://hdunnett.wordpress.com/

Check out the blog/site she helped set-up at ECPA (www.ecpa.be): www.persticideinformation.eu

Mathew blog’s at blogactiv (which he helped to create): http://mathew.blogactiv.eu/

Neville is an established authority on all things new media and has a great podcast that can be checked here.
http://www.nevillehobson.com/

I also recommend checking out Steffen’s blog (http://steffen78.wordpress.com) (who works at ZN with me) which gives you some penetrating thoughts on political communication and the internet.

Looking forward to continuing our conversation.