Content Bit(e)s

September 2011 was a time of big changes for me - new job, new school for the kids, and new blogs. I've abandoned my Posterous to move to WordPress with two separate sites:

• www.aurelievaltat.eu is my personal site and blog
• www.digitaldiplomacy.eu is a blog about EU digital diplomacy and best digital practices across the EU and beyond. 

I hope you'll enjoy my new sites!

Je réagis à un article du Monde daté du 4 juin 2011 et qui porte le titre suivant : "Sur les réseaux sociaux, difficile d'avoir plus de 200 amis". Dans cet article, l'hypothèse de Dunbar, selon laquelle les groupes sociaux de plus de 150 personnes ne seraient pas viables sans effort supplémentaire de socialisation, est appliqué aux réseaux sociaux, avec des constatations similaires.

Rapports sociaux physiques vs. virtuels

Ce qui m'embête dans cet article n'est pas tant le postulat des chercheurs qui comparent le monde des réseaux sociaux et celui de la société physique (je vous laisse le soin de lire l'article pour comprendre ce postulat), mais le fait que l'on assimile les rapports sociaux que l'on a sur ces réseaux avec ceux que l'on a dans la "vraie" vie.

Dans mon cas, car je n'ai pas fait d'études approfondies sur le sujet, la constance et la fréquence des relations sociales que j'entretiens sur Facebook, mais plus encore sur Twitter, ne sont absolument pas le reflet de mes relations sociales dans la vie physique. J'aurais même tendance à dire "au contraire". Au contraire, car j'entretiens avec mes amis proches mais habitant loin (étant une enfant d'expatriés) des relations peu fréquentes (également sur les réseaux sociaux) mais néanmoins très forts émotionnellement. Par contre, j'ai des conversations endiablées et fréquentes avec certaines personnes sur les réseaux sociaux avec lesquelles je n'entretiens que peu voire pas de rapports sociaux dans la vie physique.

Quid de l'intensité émotionnelle des relations sociales ?

Ce qui me fait dire qu'il manque un élément crucial et malheureusement subjectif à cette étude - l'intensité (émotionnelle) de ces relations sociales. Il serait alors intéressant de comparer les rapports d'une personne sur les réseaux sociaux avec des personnes qu'elles a classées différemment sur le spectre de l'intensité émotionnelle. Pour constater si oui ou non l'hypothèse de Dunbar tient la route dans des conditions de rapports sociaux effectifs et non plus théorisés.

Je reste convaincue que l'émergence et la possiblité d'amitiés virtuelles ne passant plus par le passage obligé de la rencontre physique bouleverse en effet nos rapports sociaux, malgré ce qui semble ressortir de cette étude imparfaite. On en revient au bon vieux problème de définition : "qu'est un ami sur Facebook ?"...

Quelle est votre expérience des relations sociales sur les réseaux sociaux par rapport à celles dans le monde physique ?

Everytime I come across a new brand or organisation, I'm tempted to first watch their corporate video. After all, despite being (shortly) over 30, I am very much in tune with generation Z on the assumption that a 3-minute video is necessarily more entertaining than a long text-heavy web page explaining what brand X or Y is all about.

However in recent months, I have become more and more aware of the intrinsic limitations of corporate video as a standardised format, not the least because I work in Corporate Communications myself and am regularly faced with the question of how to present corporate content in a video format.

Copyright jsawkins via Flickr (Creative Commons)

My personal experience of corporate videos from both companies and public institutions is that they are usually:

1. too long - anything "educational" or "promotional" of over 3 minutes doesn't catch my attention, and this is backed by Youtube statistics.
2. too boring - people (when there are people which in itself is not a guarantee) usually look like they've just buried their beloved grandmother
3. too serious - companies and organisations have a very difficult time seeing their own existence with an external, more neutral eye, despite often going through external companies to create their corporate videos. 

So here is my plea for future corporate videos and some of the feedback I collected on what makes online video successful and how this could be applied to corporate video:

• make it short - 3 minutes is a maximum. Alternatively you can also cut it in several episodes (in addition to a full length version) that you distill over several days to create an ongoing interest for the platform hosting your video content.
• make it interactive - the era of one-way video is over and web documentaries (in which news outlets excel) have proven an amazingly entertaining way of getting more information across on about any topic.
• make it educational - you can add questionnaires at critical moments in the video to make sure people understood your point.
• make it fun - get a subliminal image inside the video (in relation to your area of work) and ask people to identify the exact time where this image appears and what it is, and transform this into a game on your social networks.
• know who your audience is and what your objectives are - don't spend money on a corporate video if you cannot measure the return on investment on it. Link it to concrete objectives you have with regard to a specific area of work or a particularly difficult audience. 
• make it multichannel but have only one source - publish your video on one single online repository (with preference for Youtube or Vimeo, and make sure any link to your video or embed from your other sites or social media channels refers to this unique source).

And by the way, this is one of my old-time favourites in corporate videos: it's the 1984 Flashdance-like Apple corporate video, produced the same year as the amazing and contrastingly good 1984 Apple TV commercial. Of course, not an example to follow, but did you notice? Today Apple doesn't have a corporate video, only product videos... Now you don't wonder why! :-)

What would be your piece of advice to corporate comms people in improving their corporate videos? And do you have good and bad examples of corporate videos you'd like to share? The floor is yours...

Last week I attended Social Media World Forum in London on 29-30 March, or #SMWF for the tweeps among my readers.

Here are some thoughts on the evolving landscape of social media, and my experience of a "social" conference.

Social media gurus are dead - except for Brian Solis :-)

The new hype in social media is that there are no more social media gurus, wizards, jedis or ninjas anymore. It's absolutely uncool to pretend you're an expert in social media nowadays, but what is valued is to hear about hands-on social media experiences and to listen to social media practitioners present case studies. 

This was confirmed to me while listening to speakers, and in particular those talking about social media measurement, reputation, ranking and branding. None of them made clear statements about the future of the industry, and what was even more surprising, none of the social media monitoring tools I was introduced to in the exhibition pretended to be the panacea for all my tracking and measurement issues.

While I welcome this move towards a more professional and down-to-earth approach to social media, I feel a bit irritated by the lack of vision I experienced during the conference from many speakers. Apart from Brian Solis (@briansolis), who was as usual absolutely brilliant and inspiring despite being there virtually through Skype conferencing, and Joanne Jacobs (@joannejacobs), who gave interesting insights into how social networks are transforming our lives as individuals.

To tweet or to socialise, that's the question

Twitter clearly came out as the forum's big winner (fully agreeing with @timlad, a forum participant, on this one), with some 8 tweets per second on average (yes, I counted ;-)). It was just a real pity that the Internet connexion was so bad, especially on the first day, which doesn't bode well when you're attending THE social media industry event of the year on your continent.

But while everyone was tweeting away, there was more limited interaction between attendees, especially during the breaks. The impression I got is maybe biased by my own self being much more active on Twitter than chasing to engage in a human-to-human interaction. But I recall other events where the Twitter "noise" was significantly lower and where I made great encounters, and also ON Twitter (at the European Communication Summit of last year, not to name it).

Even the networking shindig organised by Euro RSCG on the evening of the first conference day wasn't really made to get to share and talk with other like-minded people - that is if you're not a jelly or ice luge fanatic like me :-)

I agree with several of the speakers and participants I heard that there is no unique recipe for success in social media, and in fact only your brand or organisation knows what's best for them when it comes to social networking. But does this mean we have nothing to learn anymore from eachother?

Social media (r)evolution - my definition

I left #SMWF on this relatively depressing note, confirmed to me by the forum's strong focus on measurement and monitoring tools (obvious not so much from the conference programme but rather from looking at the exhibitors list). Indeed, if you can't learn from eachother to improve what you're doing today, at least you can better measure it!

I guess I'll just go about my usual unorthodox way, asking fans and followers for what THEY want, in a very demagogical move, and making sure that their needs are acurately conveyed to my bosses :-) Because this is what the social media revolution is for me: it's not about how a company reaches out to its audience, it's about how individuals (many of them) manage to change a company from the outside. Welcome to my world!

Hommage to @EUGirlGeeks at #SMWF

I used to never really ask myself why I use both Twitter and Facebook for leisure and work, but now that I'm more and more asked to lecture and advise on the use of these social media, it dawned on me that these two media had very different profiles, and were being used quite differently by online actors.

So here are the two points I'd like to make and on which I'd be happy to have your opinion:

• corporate brands are better on Facebook than on Twitter, with the exception of news broadcasters.
• the more useful your service, the more likely you are to use Twitter - sounds provocative, doesn't it? :)

Facebook is for brands and communities

Actually, I realised that the traditional scheme for a brand is generally to have lots of fans on Facebook, and far less on Twitter. One recent example of that is Austrian Airlines with a staggering 30,000 fans on Facebook but merely 1,678 followers on Twitter.

You would say this is because there are 5 times more people on Facebook then on Twitter. Personally I think that's only partially the explanation to this situation. What is however of interest is that when you befriend a brand's page on Facebook, this brand's updates get to sit in your home feed next to that of your ex-boyfriend or high school Math teacher.

This gives Facebook users the impression that they are more familiar with this brand, that they can get a glimpse of that brand's inside story.

Of all the Facebook pages I administer, this has proven very true. The sense of community or belonging is very strong and the posts that usually work best are of two kinds:

• those in which you engage your audience around your brand's industry/area
• those that let fans see what it's really like to work at your brand's HQ or get to meet the real people behind your brand. 

Twitter is for real, "useful" information

Now I have one clear example in mind here, backed by several arguments. When I'm not developing online communication strategies or convincing senior management of the benefits of moving to a paperless environment, I manage the social media accounts of a European public organisation (Eurocontrol), including on Twitter and Facebook.

On Twitter this organisation has almost 15,000 followers, while it "only" has 6,000+ fans on Facebook. Now if I take the European Parliament or NATO, both organisations have far more fans on Facebook than on Twitter. So why is it that it's the other way round with Eurocontrol?

Twitter has made such a big difference to Eurocontrol's online presence for two main reasons:

1. It is all about real-time or almost real-time information, which comes in very handy when reporting about the European air traffic situation in the case of a volcanic ash crisis or a snow onslaught.
2. People tend to check their Twitter account more often than they do with their Facebook account.

If you combine those two factors, you end up with a simple equation: Twitter is better if you are looking for concrete, useful information that you can use to take action immediately.

While Facebook remains the domain of PR and marketing, Twitter is in my opinion for 'hard-core' communication experts, who value information and client-focus above all.

The other reason why Twitter is gaining momentum for brand communication is because of Facebook technical limitations. Yesterday I read a Facebook update from KLM saying that they could not answer individual questions anymore in private and that they advised fans to move to Twitter (see screenshot below).

No surprise then if Twitter is being more and more used to replace traditional customer support services (eg. Bestbuy and their Twelpforce, Jet Blue, etc.)

Having said that, I'd be curious to hear about your experiences of both Twitter and Facebook as a follower/fan of brands.

Last Sunday 22 November, the Flemish public TV (VRT) hosted a show called "Plan B", whose objective was to confront views on the possible split-up of Belgium into two or even more entities.

I have been following the debate indirectly via Twitter and the hashtag #planB, and just wanted to point out how odd it is in my view to split up this country which gets its specificities precisely from being a melting pot of cultures. And the main reason for splitting is economic from what I understand (not only, but mainly if you listen to Flemish politicians).

What makes me laugh today is that a lot of non-Belgian websites I have visited recently consider Belgium to be so small that they don't even bother adding it as a single country in their country dropdowns (see screenshots below). Most of the time it is coupled with Luxembourg.

Which is really odd and even annoying because the same site editors believe Bosnia Herzegovina to be worth an entry on its own. But then again, maybe Belgium and Bosnia-Herzegovina share more than we think... Let's just hope the ending is different :-)

(download)

Click here to download:

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Saturday 20 November was a special day for me, my daughter, over 200 girls aged 11-15, and the organisers/volunters of the event.On that day, the Greenlight for Girls international NGO organised a Science Day at the International School of Brussels. The aim of the day was to encourage young girls to pursue a scientific education/career and to see math, physics, engineering, IT as fun activities.

I was invited to open the event together with Lorena Boix Alonso, the Deputy Head of Cabinet of Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission. Interestingly, we both came with our kids (in my case, only my daughter), and the tone of our presentations was quite personal, despite the topic - in my case "Beauty and maths" (see slideshow). It was, by the way, the first time I did a presentation with my 2 year-old daughter around, and believe me, it's a challenge, especially when you have to hold the microphone in one hand, the remote control in another hand, and try to fit your little toddler somewhere in between!

I did not get to talk to the girls, but I would have loved to have their views on why days like these are important. They're important to me for two reasons:

1. Women of my generation and even more so of the next one are very lucky to be able to choose any education and career path they like. Not so long ago, it was still not possible, and I remember my mother telling me about how she would have loved to study biology when she was in her teens, and how it just didn't happen for several reasons.
2. However, people still have misconceptions about women in scientific careers. Just think about an astronaut, an engineer, a code developer... I'm sure this brings up mental images of men (even to me).

I'm really looking forward to the time when my daughter will be of the age where I can just drop her at a Science Day like this one - still 10 years to go :). Let's hope that by that time, Science Days like these won't need to be limited to girls and that both boys and girls can enjoy the thrills of creating their own movie, designing their dream house or programming a robot.

I took a few pictures (below) but you'll find many more of the event at the Greenlight for Girls Flickr photostream.

(download)

Click here to download:

you-ll-be-a-man-my-daughter-hCyuewhCwFhFpqqjxhlH.zip (248 KB)

Ca y est, j'ai enfin visité l'Atomium, après cinq ans de vie bruxelloise ! Il paraît que l'Atomium est à Bruxelles ce que la tour Eiffel est à Paris, alors je pouvais difficilement faire l'impasse sur ce monument belge par excellence.

Mais ce qui est extraordinaire, c'est que cette simple visite à l'Atomium résume pour moi l'expérience que je fais de la Belgique au quotidien en tant qu'expatriée française. Restez avec moi, c'est cocasse...

L'Atomium, c'est du lourd

(pour la petite histoire, ceci est une pipe, non l'Atomium, non même pas, c'est une reproduction de l'Atomium en Autriche, car l'image de ce dernier étant protégée de manière encore plus radicale que celle de Tintin, je ne peux même pas vous régaler de visuels alléchants)

Bon, pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas l'Atomium, en gros, c'est un édifice construit pour l'Exposition universelle de 1958 et qui représente la trame d'un cristal de fer agrandi 165 milliards de fois, pour une hauteur totale de 102 mètres. Si vous voulez en savoir plus, je vous invite soit à visiter le site de l'Atomium, soit celui de Wikipedia.

D'emblée, nous sommes refroidis par le prix : 11 euros par adulte. Quand on sait que la visite de la tour Eiffel (qui est quand même 3 fois plus haute que l'Atomium) est à 4,50 euros pour ceux qui veulent bien se donner la peine de monter par les escaliers, cela laisse rêveur.

Bref, nous payons (en famille avec des enfants en bas âge et des amis venus de Suisse), puis nous entrons dans le hall d'entrée qui contient en gros l'ascenseur et une volée d'escaliers menant à la première boule. Prenant notre courage à deux mains, malgré la présence des deux pitchounes, nous décidons de monter par les escaliers, histoire de mourir en meilleure santé. Nous visitons deux boules, avec deux inoubliables expositions (lire pathétiques), l'une sur l'expo de 1958, l'autre de plusieurs jeunes designers belges sur des objets plus ou moins détournés du quotidien.

Bon, en soi, pas de quoi fouetter un chat. Ce qui me fait beaucoup rire dans cette histoire, ce n'est pas la qualité banale des expos, mais ce que l'Atomium dit de lui-même sur son site et dans sa brochure. Attention:

"Un demi-siècle plus tard, l’Atomium continue d’ailleurs d’incarner ces idées de futur et d’universalité et perpétue, notamment au travers de sa programmation culturelle, la réflexion amorcée en 1958 : de quelle sorte de futur voulons-nous pour demain? à quoi tient notre bonheur?"

Alors, si vous voyez à quoi tient notre bonheur dans une paire de sabots en plastique et un porte-serviette en carton (deux objets de l'expo sus-mentionnée), faites-moi signe, ça m'intéresse de savoir ce que vous fumez :-).

L'Atomium, c'est du sérieux

Là où les choses se corsent, c'est quand, après n'avoir vu que deux boules sur les quatre à visiter (les deux autres n'étant pas accessibles pour tous les publics, on se demande bien pourquoi), nous arrivons à une boule-café qui marque la fin de notre progression sportive. Ah oui, j'ai oublié de vous dire que nous avons troqué l'escalier du départ contre des escalators un peu moins hard-core par la suite.

Et là, nous sommes coincés ! Eh oui, si on voulait monter jusqu'à la boule du haut, celle qui permet de profiter d'un beau panorama, il fallait prendre l'ascenceur au rez-de-chausée (et la queue de touristes qui va avec, of course). Déçue, passablement énervée, je repère alors un ascenseur au centre de cette boule. Je vois bien que c'est le même ascenseur que celui qui mène à la boule du haut, mais quand je demande pourquoi on ne peut pas l'utiliser, une gardienne postée là me répond : "Ah non, cet ascenseur est réservée aux personnes handicapées et aux femmes enceintes."

Bon, alors, il faut m'expliquer parce que si les handicapés et les femmes enceintes belges arrivent à monter une centaine de marches et à prendre trois très longs escalators, alors là je ne suis plus !!

Bref, devant tant de bonne volonté, nous déclarons forfait et retournons faire la queue comme des moutons devant l'ascenseur, avec une "vision optimiste dans l'avenir d'un monde neuf, moderne et hyper-technologique qui devrait permettre aux hommes de vivre mieux." (toujours le site de l'Atomium).

L'Atomium, c'est du belge

Et enfin, le clou du spectacle, après tant d'efforts, le panorama. Et bien, croyez-le ou non, difficile d'être ému devant un panorama qui s'étale sur des petits bouts de fenêtre permettant à peine de capturer dans sa vision un huitième de la circonférence totale de la boule (je vous laisse calculer...). Ben oui, c'est quand même pas la tour Eiffel, pas de frisson garanti en s'approchant du bord, pas de vision 360° ou presque sur un Paris tout riquiqui. Bref, encore une fois, grosse déception alors qu'on nous promettait monts et merveilles.

Je vais encore passer pour une ronchonne (heu...), une plume à la critique facile, mais c'est vrai, quoi, y en a assez de se faire promettre la Lune, les étoiles et les petits hommes qui vont avec à chacune de mes sorties culturelles en Belgique. En trois mots comme en 100, j'y retrouve un condensé d'une certaine Belgique : absurde, surréaliste, mettant des termes ampoulés sur des choses simples, culturellement pauvre et à la signalétique pathétique.

Non mais franchement, c'était comment vous, la première fois (pour l'Atomium, je veux dire...) ?

It's funny how simple sentences you hear can stick with you and clutter your brains even at ungodly hours of the day (or night, as a matter of fact). The conversation that triggered this reaction of mine is the following:

(friend) - Hey you're famous now!
(me) - Yes, kind of. *stupid grin*
(friend) - Well, you can't just sit here like that. You need to capitalise on this fame. Why don't you write a book?

That last sentence made me really laugh (of course I didn't show it, I'm a well-educated lady). My relative fame is linked to the fact that I pushed a European public organisation into the limelight by heavily investing in the social media sphere and using it for the benefit of European citizens (that's what the media say at least). And now I should write a book - you know those objects which you can take with you to the toilet, on the train, in a queue, that smell like ehhh "books" precisely.

Now don't get me wrong: I love books, I have a few thousand at home, and I always have one in my bag, wherever I go (and probably mostly on the toilet :)). But I just find it very odd that:

1. a person needs to "capitalise on fame". What does that mean exactly? Can anyone help with this one?
2. a person needs to write a book when s/he is famous. I thought it was the other way round :)

You must think I should be grateful for having such a thoughtful friend. After all that friend could have suggested I sell T-shirts with my face on it, play in a TV series or even go into politics (I'm not sure which proposal is the least appealing)!

In fact, I might just take that advice... although I haven't been waiting for this friend's conversation to want to write a book.

So what should it be about? YOU tell me...

(c) Courtesy of http://stephenslighthouse.com/category/multimedia-internetschools/

I'll be co-moderating a workshop at the European Parliament on 10 November called "MEP 2.0 Workshops", whose objective will be to present Twitter and its benefits to members of the European Parliament.

While doing some research to prepare this workshop, a friend of mine and co-founder of the "EU Girl Geeks" group, Caroline De Cock, mentioned a book she had just published, called iLobby.EU: A Survival Guide to EU Lobbying, Including the Use of Social Media.

I'd like to share with you my impressions of the book and some of its lessons I will in return share with MEPs.

The best of two worlds

Now I've had my fair share of EU community law readings and institutional decision-making processes when studying political science, so I have to admit I skipped the first part, which provides a good overview of the EU institutional and legal framework, rather quickly. However, I immediately spotted the relatively jargon-free style and the great sense of humour, which holds promise of a rather enjoyable reading, despite the subject's utter dryness.

Check out www.ilobby.eu for more info and to purchase the book

The second part of the book is dedicated to EU 2.0 and talks about lobbying and politics in the social media age. And I think that this separation in two parts really makes sense: after all, Caroline describes social media for lobbying and politicians more as an evolution than a revolution. Therefore, the main message could be "as a lobbyist, know your basics first before you enter the mysterious realm of social media".

Social media is not rocket science!

What Caroline goes on to explain and demonstrate about "EU 2.0" is extremely clear and useful. She gives tips, describes the use of social media among the various EU institutions, and more importantly explains what works and what doesn't in an area that is still very much in "try, fail, try again" mode.

There are two recommendations in particular which I recommend any politician or wannabe politician should follow:

1. Whatever your social media savviness, make sure that you first register your personal name or that of your party or organisation on as many platforms as possible. I'm still appalled by the fact that a majority of politicians have not understood this.
2. Being on Facebook is not enough, you still need to decide whether to create a profile, a page or a group. Caroline's explanations and table are the best thing I've read so far on this topic - so I recommend you go and read it too :).

I'm also happy to notice that without being involved in her book, Caroline comes to the same conclusions as I did while using social media during the volcanic ashcloud crisis on behalf of EUROCONTROL. Indeed, her golden rules on using social media closely mirror the lessons learned I have shared at several conferences (see my presentation).

Caroline will forgive me I'm sure for summarising them here for you:

1. Be there
2. Show your human face
3. Act in real time whenever possible
4. Speak, listen, reply
5. Paranoïa is good - control is utopia (I highlight this one especially for EU institutions)
6. Link and sync when appropriate
7. Please the eye
8. It won't kill you to be funny.

I agree with Caroline that the rise of social media already impacts EU politicians and lobbyists, but that it is not a radical shift in their way of communicating.

I however personally believe that in order to master the golden rules defined above, politicians in particular will need to endorse a new mindset which could eventually result in a radical reshaping of our representative democracies... Time will tell!