ZN

My name is Gary and I have a MySpace account. There, I’ve said it.

In my defence, I haven’t used it for five years and I now forget the password.

However, for dozens of our esteemed Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), wandering alone in the social media wilderness we call MySpace is a regular pursuit.

According to the EU Digital Pulse 2012 report, 3% of the 102 MEPs surveyed byComRes say that they frequently – that’s ‘daily or weekly’, ladies and gentlemen – log on to MySpace. And they say politicians are losing touch with youth vote… Read more

In the run up to our event EU Digital Pulse this Thursday May 10th, I caught up with ComRes’s executive chairman, Andrew Hawkins, to get some background on MEP & Commission research on how they use social media in their jobs.

In true online comms style, we ran the interview on Skype, so it’s a wee bit blurred, but it does the job.

If your organisation is trying to influence European policymakers, then we have an amazing event coming up for you!

Join ZN and ComRes on 10 May to hear the latest findings on how MEPs and EU legislators use social media and the web. Facebook and the European Commission will join our panel discussion to explore and assess the research.

Social Media in EU Institutions will take place Thursday 10 May 2012 at 17:00 in the European Commission’s 10 Rue Guimard, Room 1.

Quick, save yourself a seat! As they are going fast.

Being a European Commission venue, all attendees must first undertake a security check, so please register before Monday 7 May 2012 and have your passport number to hand.

And of course, there will be drinks and an opportunity to catch up with familiar faces after the discussion.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Let it not be said that we don’t work darn hard at ZN!

Check out ZN’s hyper-fun ZeN session last week in our ongoing pursuit to increase our talent and efficiency as a team, as a leading communication agency in Belgium and as individuals.

Thanks to Thomas for the videoing all day.

This post is the first in a series of Communication and Sustainability insights that I will be posting on the ZN blog.  Since I am interested in this topic and am starting to explore best practices, I thought they would be worth sharing.

Let’s start from the basics: What does living sustainably mean and why is it important?

Living sustainably is about living within the means of our natural systems (environment) and ensuring that our lifestyle as well as work operations don’t harm other people (society and culture). It is really about thinking where our food, clothes, energy and other products come from and deciding whether we should buy them. Read more

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. Read more

and the story continues…

At ZN, we want to participate as individuals and as a company in this digital revolution.  We want to drive change and share our experience. It is part of our DNA.  We want to help you or your company to make the most of these changes, not only as evangelist but also as your guide and partner.  Many organisations are currently in the process of changing the way they communicate and are having difficulty adapting.  Change is frequently forced upon them and they resist rather than embrace it. Our job is to switch this around. Read more

The effects of the digital revolution are no longer constrained by the boundaries of the internet. Whether it be social, political or economic, its effects can be witnessed at all levels of society. It has fundamentally altered the behaviours of individuals, governments and companies in how they communicate and interact with one another.

The tribes are taking on the giants

Think back to the recent revolutions in Iran and North Africa. Read more

The European Commission today launched a tourism initiative to facilitate SME’s digital integration, see the official press release from the European Commission. The initiative will ease connectivity and encourage collaboration between small hospitality tourism and leisure service providers such as travel agents, tour operators and distributors. Read more

How do you manage and monitor your all up social presence on the web? Are you struggling to keep up with real time conversations and content flow across platforms?

At ZN we’ve been working with Campaign Commander (formally known as Objective Marketer). It’s a content management and statistics gathering tool. We use it on a daily basis to manage the delivery of online communication strategies for various clients. It helps us not only be effective with time management but churns out some great statistics. As with any new web technology, it keeps evolving with new features being added every few months.

Read more