ZN

As always, the ZN’s team of Hyperthinkers have been hard at work. Their heads becoming so hot with ideas that it would blind an infrared camera and boil the kettle from a distance. Here’s a look at some of the things they’ve been up to:

Animal Testing Perspectives – Animal testing is a controversial issue and one that is difficult for the general public to fully grasp.

That’s why the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), together with ZN, created a space that could help people understand the nuances surrounding the issues – including the link between research and health/healthcare benefits – and where an honest and balanced debate could take place.

The website has two sub campaigns. The first relates to new EU rules that will require scientists to publish research summaries online. It aims to bring more transparency by asking what information people want to see. Have a look at research studies in plain words.

The second has to do with the increasing pressure to end animal research in Europe. If no more animals would be tested on in Europe, what would the ramifications of this policy be? Would animal testing become a major industry elsewhere? For this reason, Animal Testing Perspectives is launching a page to discuss all the potential side effects. To find out more, visit Shall it stay or shall it go?

James Elles – James Elles is a member of the European Parliament. He is a member of the Parliament’s Budget committee and substitutes for many others. He is also the founder and chair of the Transatlantic Policy Network and co-founder of the European Internet Foundation. Now that you’ve seen his resume, we can agree that “government elite” is a pretty accurate description. So why is ZN involved with an EU politician?

In addition to providing communication strategies for companies and associations, we also provide services for… people! We recently gave Mr. Elles’ site a makeover and made him more accessible to the people. Take a look at  http://www.jameselles.com.

IABC – If you are in the business of communications, you will be familiar with the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). No? Well, it is really big network that helps “practitioners” (people in the biz) connect and share knowledge.

It currently has 16,000 members, and guess who chairs the Europe and Middle East region? Our very own Chief Hyperthinker, Philip Weiss! In an effort to give IABC Europe a facelift, we gave its website a good do-over too! You can see the result on europe.iabc.com.

If you would like to know more about IABC, Phil wrote about his experiences and the benefits of joining the association on his hyperthinker.eu blog.

ZN is currently working on many other exciting projects, so stay tuned for more news!

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

Tomorrow I will be heading to London to attend a conference organised by IABC Europe.  I will be making a presentation on how the Belgian chapter of IABC launched it’s own ning over one year ago and can provide a model of how such organisations can use online network to help members network and share ideas.

This is the first time I attend an IABC Europe event, and will do so in my capacity of President of IABC Belgium (yes – you can now call me ‘Mr President’) something I was appointed to over the summer.  It’s an exciting challenge as I have been involved with IABC for several years now and have seen it as a strong network of global communicators based in and around Brussels, and have also started to better understand the potential of IABC as a global organisation (it has over 15 000 members worldwide).

Also at the event John Smythe, author of the the CEO as Chief Engagement Officer will be sharing his thoughts and I plan to ask him a couple of questions from the discussion that started on the IABC ning.  The key question is how to approach employee engagement and motivation in the post(?) recession age – check the discussion and tell us what you think.

I will be keeping you posted next week on how this went.

Also think of joining IABC at a networking cocktail that will be organised on the 5th October. You don’t need to be a member to join but it is a good way to get to know the people involved and share your ideas of what we should be doing in the coming year.

I’ve heard of twitter for quite some time now, and towards the end of last year, twitter seemed to be in all the ‘big things for 2009′ predictions. Although I liked the idea of the ability to communicate instantly to a group of ‘followers’, it seemed to me no more than a status update similar to the one you could use (and that I enjoy a great deal) on facebook. So I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about.

Then I came across this blogpost in mashable.com on whether European companies should or actually do twitter. I thought the question was a good way to start exploring the subject. I then posted the question on a forum on linkedin.com (something I am finding increasingly interesting) and got a number of comments (I think you might need to be a group member to follow the discussion) on the subject, as well as very interesting information.

The long and short of it is that it is a subject of great interest, and an increasing number of individuals and companies are starting to use twitter. What makes it so interesting is, like most things that make it big online, that it is simple. In fact, to a certain degree, it is a simple form of blog, or sometimes called ‘microblog’, and it enables you to update people on your thoughts and movements in less than 140 caracters.  The FT.com wrote a story about it (registration needed) called “ Twitter uses 140 characters to change the world”, which gives you a good idea of where they are heading.

There is also an article in the BBC online entitled “Why celebrities love Twittering “ which is pointing to a new phenomenon. Stars and celebrities are starting to use twitter, it gives you a real feel of ‘intimacy’ as you can track there movements. Some of the ones mentioned in the article include Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross

Steffen (occasional contributor to this blog and team member of ZN) also wrote about this only few days ago discussing why he thought twitter was worthwhile. 

Clearly a topic worth following. In the meantime, you can check me out on twitter (http://twitter.com/pweiss) although I make no promise of being interesting or relevant (that will come later).