Archive for the ‘Europe’ Category

by Marta Majewska

Ladies and gentleman … or señoras y señores! On Thursday night we reached our final destination – Madrid! The next morning we were expected at Loft39 – a very elegant location where the seminar was taking place – and after some good café con leche (or a triple espresso if we’re talking Danny), the seminar could start.

After a warm welcome and the introduction of the speakers by Juan-Cruz Más Vidal, the CEO of Porter Novelli  Madrid, Gary Stockman was the first to take the floor to talk about how real-time has redefined communications, the need for a holistic, integrated approach and the urgency of authenticity and innovation. John, using a fluent Spanglish;), talked about his experiences with Community Management, the need for brands to become curators of high-quality content and took our attendees to the magid world of augmented reality. Danny showed off with his mayorships and foursquare badges when talking about location-based services and introduced the participants to new analytics and Delphi – Porter Novelli’s forward looking cornerstone.  Next to our great speakers from Porter Novelli, we also had a guest speaker, Celia Morales, Head of EU Social Media and PR eBay Europe, who talked about the latest, and very successful, social media campaigns of eBay and the company’s take on social media.

After the seminar, we met with the Spanish from comms&marketing, business and technology publications including  PR Noticias, IPMark, Brandlife, Negocio, El Periódico de la Publicidad and El Publicista with who we’ve had some really great and open minded discussions. We discussed the role of social media for companies as well as governments and oh how handy it is to speak fluent Spanish in moments like that

The day was rounded off with an internal session at PN Madrid where we’ve met with our wonderful colleagues!

Big thank you to Juan-Cruz Más Vidal, Higinio Martínez and all our colleagues from the Madrid office who helped with the organization of the event!

If you speak Spanish, check out the blog of our Madrid colleagues for further reading.

connect.in.com

By Luc Missinne

The United States have their first Black President, Barack Obama, who’s a real “traffic stopper”.  Now we in Europe have our first-ever President of the EU, Herman van Rompuy, who’s grey and no threat to the traffic whatsoever.  You may even have met him and not remembered it.

In his quiet Belgian way, Mr. van Rompuy is great material for satirists, especially in neighbouring countries.  Belgium is widely perceived as being populated by unremarkable, bourgeois introverts who keep their heads down; in finance, the “Belgian dentist” is a mythical high-income, low-profile, risk-averse investor.

When the subject of European nationalities comes up in social conversation, there’s invariably a challenge to “name 10 famous Belgians” – or “Name a famous Belgian” as the Economist magazine had it.   Switched-on intellectuals will cite names such as Jacques Brel, Audrey Hepburn, Rene Magritte, Georges Simenon and Adolphe Sax; doubters will find reasons to discount them (“never heard of him”, “not exactly famous, is he?”) and cheats will consult www.famousbelgians.net .

As a Belgian I’m perversely proud that Herman van Rompuy probably won’t swell the ranks of world-famous Belgians.  Whether he’s successful or not, it will be in the background away from the spotlights and headlines.  If he’s successful, it may just show the world that politics and entertainment play to different rules, even if they overlap sometimes.

In a thoughtful piece about politics and celebrity in the New York Times today, columnist Ross Douthat wrote about choosing between eminence and celebrity (“They Chose Celebrity”).  He was writing about the American context, but similar considerations apply in Europe.  For whatever reasons, the EU leaders selected a new President who is clearly more interested in eminence than in celebrity.  In due course, if he achieves celebrity, it will be as the “eminence grise” of the EU.

As a Belgian, I’m worried that our poetry-loving “Haiku Herman” is stepping up to the bigger job.  He more or less saved our country from falling apart over the past year.  So I’m keeping fingers crossed that my country finds somebody equally capable to replace him.  And I’m offering my own modest haiku tribute to the new EU President.

Leaves fall, autumn skies

Yearning for warmth and colour

Quiet seeds are sown

To read the full post, visit www.lucmissinne.be