Waltzing Matilda
April 19, 2010
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There is no doubt that social media have an influence on how administrations will have to communicate. But as social media are relatively new, there are no experts that can tell us on how we should do it. This blog is an attempt to discover with our readers which issues will come into play. We will explore ideas, share our doubts, seek advice,…
We believe that the name of a blog should sound intriguing. Waltzing Matilda was the first thing that came to mind. Can’t explain why. When looking at what “waltzing matilda” actually means, it was to our surprise quite a good reflection of what the intention of the blog is. This is what Wikipedia says about it:
derived from the German term auf der Walz, which means to travel while working as a craftsman and learn new techniques from other masters before returning home after three years and one day, a custom which is still in use today among carpenters.[13]
Matilda : a romantic term for a swagman’s bundle.
Waltzing Matilda: from the above terms, “to waltz Matilda” is to travel with a swag, that is, with all one’s belongings on one’s back wrapped in a blanket or cloth. The exact origins of the term “Matilda” are disputed; one fanciful derivation states that when swagmen met each other at their gatherings, there were rarely women to dance with. Nonetheless, they enjoyed a dance, and so they danced with their swags, which was given a woman’s name. However, this appears to be influenced by the word “waltz”, hence the introduction of dancing. It seems more likely that, as a swagman’s only companion, the swag came to be personified as a woman.
Travelling while learning new techniques with all your belongings wrapped in a blanket of wonder and surprise and with a critical eye, that is what this blog is all about.
The same as the “waltzing craftsmen”, this blog will return home, i.e. close down, after 3 years and one day. We should by then have covered (hopefully) all possible aspects of social media and have learned a lot about the trade.
Authors of this blog will be mainly:
Bert Van Maele is Head of Sector “Social Media & Promotion” in the Communication Department of the European Commission. Bert has a background in advertising and marketing and works since 1994 for the European Commission.
Anne Christensen: holds a master in information studies from University of Aarhus (2007) and has been working as a web editor with the Europa web team since March 2009. A bit of a gadget geek, but passionate about the ways new technologies affect the behaviour in people, networks and organisations.
Alenka Natek holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Science from the University of Ljubljana. She is especially interested in social media and communications of international organisations. She was a trainee at the European Commission in Brussels from 1 March to 31 July 2010 where she was part of DG Communication’s team dealing with institutional communications through social media.
But we will also have guest bloggers.
The success of this blog not only depends on us. It will also depend on our fans’ and followers’ comments, questions and suggestions.
Looking forward to our conversations,
Bert, Anne and Alenka
(Alenka was the unit’s trainee from March to July 2010)
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April 21st, 2010 at 10:26 pm
B, A&A,
You can start by explaining what “social media” is - keep it brief though I’ve a feeling its likely to be a bit dry.
As none of you are Australian I can only assume you’d been on the waccy baccy when you chose the site name – beats “Abusing Doris” though I guess.
regards
geoff
April 23rd, 2010 at 10:43 am
Dear Geoff,
Thank you for your comment.
Our general definition of the term social media is as follows:
“Internet- and mobile-based tools and practices characterised by user-generated content, user participation, user interaction and sharing of opinions, information and experience”.
For us, it covers web communication where there is a two-way conversation going on instead of one-way conversation. Examples include:
- social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace),
- blogs,
- microblogging (i.e. Twitter)
- collaborative projects (wikis, shared documents, online mindmapping, social news sites) and
- media sharing sites (e.g. Flickr, YouTube, Picasa)
As I am sure you can imagine, it is a challenge for a big organisation like the European Commission to adjust to the new media landscape as it demands a change in the style we communicate with the world around us. This is also one of the reasons the blog’s name is referring to learning as we go along.
I hope this answers your question.
Anne
April 25th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Instead of worrying about how EU should use social media, the EU should first worry about the privacy of its citizens.
Most of the social sites (especially the ones you cited) are based in the US and, as seen by the recent snafus on Google and Facebook, they do not care much about users privacy. Furthermore, the data of most of these websites has a copy in the territory of the US and therefore under the control of the US laws, justice system and law enforcement agencies.
A first good step would be to ask their european operations to default to the most private settings and let the users opt-in to share some data, and not the otherway around as it is so often the case.
April 26th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Dear Lefouduroi,
We are well aware of the privacy issues related to social media.
It is definitely a topic we will cover in the blog at regular intervals.
Privacy and data protection are rather complex issues that can’t be solved just in the wink of an eye.
I think that there are at least the following elements that we should look at:
· Can we make specific terms of use agreements for Europe with the providers, which are US based, linked to privacy and interest-based advertising?
· Do we have European alternatives – with as wide coverage and use as, for example, Facebook or Google?
· Are European social media providers, such as Netlog or Hyves, more secure in their privacy and data protection?
· Who determines the privacy level: the user, the provider or the legislator?
· How could a legislator sanction a provider that violates privacy rules?
· What is the best way to inform EU citizens about how to use social media safely and what sharing of sensitive personal data means?
We are currently looking into making specific terms of use agreements.
One of the reasons we have started the blog was that our readers might help us find some of the answers to these questions.
Bert
April 26th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Have a good start; we’ll be watching what the Commission will do with, for and in social media!
April 26th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
Congratulations on yr blog. I shall be watching it with interest. Interesting to see that the EC is interested in a direct relationship with the citizens – which is great. Just hope that you extend this approach to a lot more areas of the commission’s work
April 29th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
I have added a few links to commission pages with content about privacy while we are working on a blog post. They are on the blog homepage.
Anne
May 7th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
> Privacy and data protection are rather complex issues that can’t be solved just in the wink of an eye.
As any EU thing.
> · Can we make specific terms of use agreements for Europe with the providers, which are US based, linked to privacy and interest-based advertising?
China managed to force google to get out and to force yahoo/msn to censor on behalf of the Chinese government. Can’t EU have some controls too (well not the same kind of controls
?
These US companies have branches in EU, sell advertisement space to EU companies, etc.
> · Do we have European alternatives – with as wide coverage and use as, for example, Facebook or Google?
Well regulations can create market opportunities.
> · Are European social media providers, such as Netlog or Hyves, more secure in their privacy and data protection?
It does not matter: new regulations should apply to everyone. The goal of privacy regulations is not to create protected markets. If you tell google (or anyone else) that to sell advertisement in the EU they have to host the data in the EU they will most likely comply. If they dont, other will rise to the task. This is internet and things can change fast (remember myspace vs facebook).
> · Who determines the privacy level: the user, the provider or the legislator?
The legislator defines the default privacy (with in mind the 12 years old who creates an account). The provider can decide to offer much less private options as opt-in (possibly dependent on the age of the user), and the user decides which options s/he wants to opt-in.
> · How could a legislator sanction a provider that violates privacy rules?
Follow the money: the advertisement sold by the mothership to EU companies. Yes, facebook does not really advertise yet, but do not worry they are going to at some point (as shown by the latest idea of the social graph to be communicated to special partners).
> · What is the best way to inform EU citizens about how to use social media safely and what sharing of sensitive personal data means?
The legislator just need to set the default to be sufficiently private and let the opt-in mechanism go beyond that. People eventually will learn not to opt-in too much thru the press etc. Anyway the naive users are not going to opt-in (path of least resistance principle). And the more savvy users are the ones who will opt in to share more: they can educate themselves.
May 25th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
I’m delighted that the EU is catching up with the use of social media but I am puzzled about the choice of this blog’s name.
“Waltzing Matilda” is Australia’s unofficial national anthem as Wikipedia confirms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda. I wonder how many Europeans would associate German craftsmen with Waltzing Matilda and with the European Commission? Less, I suspect, than if the EU’s own ‘Ode to Joy’ anthem was used.
There is too, an increasing amount of expertise in social media. For example, the technical communications community is active in this area – through blogs, Twitter, and social networking sites.
Try looking up Content Strategy too. Wandering wonderously through the bush on a voyage of discovery is all very well but it is extremely easy to get lost in the outback. Clarifying your own aims and objectives would make it much easier for readers to give useful contributions and feedback.
And looking at your graphic, perhaps many Europeans like to waltz, but I hope you don’t end up at the same starting point after three years and one day!
May 26th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Thanks for your comments. Well, the name is perhaps not obvious, but in many ways I think it paraphrases very well how the Commission changes when looking at communication culture.
We’re “dancing” with a very big organisation. Big organisations in general and bureaucracies in particular are not likely to make huge leaps in change of the way they communicate, so small steps, gradual movements and many, many dancing partners need to be swung on the dance floor.
Craftsmen on the waltz also returned back to the starting point. But they themselves had changed. So maybe our task is not so much about changing things than about changing people?
Even if we should get lost in the outback now and then, there are always lessons to be learned!
//Anne
June 11th, 2010 at 11:32 am
G/day,
Crikey! Youse shuldn’t thunk wikipoidia is guna give yus the lowdown on ouse Maltida started waltzing. It just ain’t roit.
If yus wanna git som oidea of ow eet all starded, yu auta take a squiz at dis one, wots ritten by edukated folks. Its a beudy.
Yer no; Eyes reckon that yer blogroll is a liddle like me swag. Ya rolls it up when ya go on tha road, then ya lays it aut when ya mates get tugether at tha billabong to ave a chat un snooze. But we’s neva gunna dance with ut. Fair suck of the sausage!
Anyhows. Yu ave a gud ol time.
June 11th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
You forgot the “Fair Dinkum, mate, throw ‘nother shrimp on the barbie”‘.
My first reaction on seeing this blog’s name is unprintable. But then (as far as I know) I’m the only Australian working on EU online comms and social media strategy.
So maybe it’s not well known among wandering German craftsmen that the swagman in the unofficial Australian anthem version drowns himself rather than go to jail for thieving a sheep.
Or maybe there’s a coded message in there somewhere …?
August 12th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Well, Talking about drowning, and you working on the EU “social strategy” . Is there any thought being given to putting the authentication methods together for all the “potential” EU platforms.
We’re coming down to the wire over at terena, (you know the guys the EU gives aout E50m/yr to come up with some interesting ways of researching (networking) , and share it. A common sign on (e-signature) seems the only way to get serious about all this so called social stuff. But having a common combination of online services would also help. Federated services (in network speak)
E.g. Synapse and SCIC . Give me a few minutes I could probably come up with quite a few more.
Anyhow,, we are starting to see about being inclusive and the .edu and .gov need a point where they become sociable. Any ideas?
August 12th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
Gosh, Simon, that was a lot of expensive words in one comment ;o)
I am afraid I do not have a complete overview of all the reseach projects we are funding with EU money, but as I understand it from your post and the Terena website you (?) are working on linking up reseach and education networks in Europe? And you are almost ready with a common authentification/sign-on solution?
“The Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association offers a forum to collaborate, innovate and share knowledge in order to foster the development of Internet technology, infrastructure and services to be used by the research and education community. ”
Then you are asking if we are planning to integrate authentication in potential EU networking platforms? I don’t know, but I will ask my colleagues in the Directorate General for Information Society and Media
if they have some input and get back to you as soon as I can.
//Anne