Dearth of Women in Juncker’s Commission – But Stop Moping Its Competence Not Gender That Counts

In the wake of President Juncker’s announcement of the members of the new European Commission the overall comments seems to be ”Not enough women.” And yes, 9 women out of 28 is far cry from 50-50. And being a woman with certain aspirations myself; I do find it abysmally bad that the Member States can’t do better on the area of gender balance on senior top positions. But there is one question I don’t seem to find and that is Why? I have yet to see one person officially asking why this skewed situation the case.

Could it be that the national senior posts are filled with only men? (An incredibly sad state in itself should this be the case.) Maybe the Member States didn’t look hard enough? Could it be that the women asked actually weren’t all that interested? We simply don’t know. What we see is a bad result but nothing about the process leading up to this result.

What we do know however, that we are many competent women that are out there that are not considered because it does seem to be that W2M that are then norm.

But what ire immensely in this whole debate is the general approach that it is only gender that counts, and because we are women our competencies are interchangeable. Well, here’s a surprise for you – we are NOT! Just as little, actually are men, but no one seems to think that is the case.

So, yes let’s keep our eyes on the ball – a gender balanced society, but let’s not go overboard on the way getting there.

This time it’s different – yeah right…

I don’t think there has been a bigger agreement in the European Parliament and the European Commission that the time to reform Europe, in order to save it, has come. Pity then that the result is as drastic as rearranging the deck chairs on Titanic.

Remember the election slogan “This time it’s different”? It was the promise we voters got. Now was the end of shady backroom deals. But this was a highly polished version of the truth. To use a mild euphemism. Because the fact is that there has never been more backroom dealing like the one we’ve seen these past weeks and the winners are the usual suspects and the losers us voters, subsequent loss of respect for [European] democracy can be considered as collateral damage.

So what we have now is a Commission president that seemingly didn’t want the job, that wasn’t on any ballot and is being sent to an institution that seemingly despairs his arrival.

But as a gloomy reality we live in for the moment and the fact that institutions appear at their worst as this backroom dealing is done this is still the best opportunity we’ve had in a long time to reform the EU.

How to fail in public affairs and communications

This is an exact copy of an email we just received. Seriously? They are congratulating an outgoing Member of European Parliament to his recent win (we lost.)

Dear Mr. Engström,

Congratulations on your recent election to the European Parliament.

I am writing to introduce you to our communications company, ALYS Web Design. With over 10 years of solid experience working in Brussels for both corporate and institutional clients, including several Members of the European Parliament, we are at your service for all your digital communication needs (website, e-newsletter, social media…).

I would invite you to explore our extensive portfolio and would be happy to meet with you and your team at your convenience to explain our working methods and answer any questions you may have.
Yours sincerely,
Pierre Neuray
Manager
For a quick glimpse at some of our ‘political’ references:
www.robertrochefort.eu
www.didierreynders.be

So dear agency, Alys, do your homework before you start spamming us.

 

Branding the European Parliament Post-Juncker

One thing that I have asked myself in these last days during the debacle over instating, or not instating, Mr Juncker as the next European Commission chairman is how this will affect the branding of the European Parliament and subsequently future voting.

As a side note, if it had been me I would have bowed out of the process now. But then again I haven’t grown the rhinoceros hide necessary for high political life.

There are two obvious possible scenarios right now:

1. Mr. Juncker is instated

2. Mr. Juncker isn’t instated

But whatever the outcome, what will this situation do for the branding of the EP, the voters will to vote in future elections and the legitimacy with the EP?

Before the elections the EP had dug themselves into the stance that “this time it’s different” when in fact there is no discernible difference whatsoever.  It is true that the Treaty of Lisbon says that the election results should be taken into account and that the EP could identify so-called Spitzenkandidaten. Only no one of the Treaty Fathers bothered to define exactly “taking into account” means. Added to this the main candidates where national only since there is no such thing as pan-European parties. ”Taking into account” could mean that the European Council automatically instate the person the EP has identified as their preferred choice, which is how the EP defines it as. Or it could mean that the Council acknowledges the EP’s choice and then goes on to identify a completely different candidate. A possibility the Council has an open door to. However, there is a certain ping-pong feeling about this process since the EP has to approve the candidate proposed by the European Council i.e. in the case of Mr. Juncker the EP has to approve their own candidate.

But to claim that Europe’s voters have spoken and want Mr. Juncker is a very difficult argument intellectually. The argument is actually more emotional and thus difficult to defend oneself against, but numerically it does not hold all the way.

Voter turnout in the parliamentary elections went up with ten percent, 43.00 to 43.09 between 2009 and 2014. At about 400 million eligible voters one tenth equals about 400 000 more voters. This corresponds to about the number of voters in Sweden who chose to vote (if we take into account that the number of eligible voters increased from 2009).

This turnout is likely not getting higher if the EP doesn’t manage this situation properly.

But to go back to the initial question. Exactly what arguments will be possible to use in a situation that easily can be turned around to a message that the voters’ will is not taken into account? And just to complicate matters it can equally be claimed that even if the Council comes up with another candidate it takes the voters’ will into account, since the Council consists of the elected Heads of State of the Member States and these were elected in free, open and democratic elections and that the Treaty of Lisbon doesn’t say that the election results automatically instate the EP preferred candidate as the EC chair.

Now it’s getting fun, isn’t it? Everybody is listening to everybody and all claims no one is listening.

The main issue, which have nothing to do with branding, is really what “taking into account” means and how to identify this sentence.

Having this debate now, after the election is to turn us voters into losers, however this debate ends … branding or not. Or maybe this is the branding we are left with? A situation, that at least I would be very sorry for.

Post #EP election: is back to basics for the #EU the way forward and to continued peace? or What should the club look like?

In the aftermath of the European elections with results that were expected and although I am uncomfortable with the results I can only state that the elections where free, fair and open and its results must be respected. No, it wasn’t Voltaire that said “those” words; it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall writing under the pseudonym of Stephen G Tallentyre in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), as a summation of Voltaire’s beliefs on freedom of thought and expression.

I myself join the large choir of critics saying that too much power have moved to the Centre and sincerely don’t think that more power to “Brussels” is the way forward is the answer to the situation we’re in now. It might be interesting to have a kind of “political memory” and to remind of that General de Gaulle himself, and many with him, considered that the way forward for Europe was an “imposing confederation” of European states. Maybe we should resuscitate that vision?

Being a staunch defender of the original reasons for creating the European Union, in particular the peace keeping, I feel that the EU stands in front of one of its biggest challenge since its creation – to keep the peace in Europe and our neighbouring regions.

No, I am not ”just another non-Federalist” but I do think that discussing what the club we are a member of should look like is something we need to do, and that this should be an ongoing discussion. And we need to take the good with the bad. I feel that this is the only way forward to achieve higher credibility for the European construction.

Could it be that “Back to basics” is the way forward?

Languages are a funny thing

Thing? Possibly the wrong noun, but I hope my trusted readers get what I mean.

In my life, where I at any given day interact in three languages and work in an environment where I hear 25, having some insights into the denomination of languages are something I take for granted. But when will one learn never to take anything for granted?

Today I applied for a job at a company that describes itself the following way:

Kronos is the global leader in delivering workforce management solutions in the cloud. Tens of thousands of organizations in more than 100 countries — including more than half of the Fortune 1000® — use Kronos to control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity. Learn more about Kronos’  industry-specific time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, HR and payroll, hiring, and labor analytics applications at www.kronos.com

Kronos: Workforce Innovation That Works™.

Kronos is a privately held company and was founded in 1977. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Kronos employs more than 3,500 people worldwide.

So it is fair to say this company claims to have a certain international outlook. Well, at least this is what you think because in the ad, for an International Communication Manager, one of the requirements were: Fluency in a language other than English is a benefit (European or Chinese)

European?

Or is their take on the debate on a federal Europe?

How Netflix almost ruined EU Net neutrality

Now when the debate sparked by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ blog post on net neutrality “Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality“ has died down and the European Parliament have voted in favour of Net Neutrality and against specialised services, I’d like to take the opportunity to vent my grief a bit. What I say in the header is a tall order, I know. But it is not far off.

First of all, as you might know, when I discuss companies or persons in my blog I don’t mention them by name. This is for several reasons, first of all there is an element of the Golden rule, second the industry is rather small and I hope to continue work in it, and, in the case of Netflix, I don’t want to come across as a disgruntled almost employee. Although, I remain rather unimpressed by Netflix’ EU hiring practises. Further, I think that Netflix doesn’t take their responsibility when it comes to making it simple to be legal on-line seriously. Nor do they go far enough in their actions. This time I felt it was warranted to mention names simply because anything else would have complicated the text beyond means.

But I digress.

In my everyday job I work as Policy advisor to a Member of the European Parliament concentrating on issues like net neutrality, e-commerce, telecommunications, cloud computing to mention a few. This is why I can speak with some certainty of this process since I was involved behind the scenes. And yes, I am a staunch defender of Net neutrality.

I am not going to go into the debate at heart here. The point I hopefully will make is to highlight a view that I often see from US-based companies with EU branches; there is seemingly little or no insight that points of view put forward in the US might affect EU legislation. They also join forces with their EU corporate counterparts in not entirely realising that the European Parliament actually is a parliament with powers and influence.

In his post Mr Hastings made a case for net neutrality and against specialised services, but instead of business, he based his argument on fees for traffic. In his text Mr Hastings state that if telecommunications companies get their way we might not see a new Skype or indeed Netflix again because the fees charged would stop any new ideas from being implemented. Had he stuck to this argument I don’t think there had been any debate; no one wants to be accused of stifling competition, hamper value creation and stop new business from happening.

”Net neutrality (also network neutrality or Internet neutrality) is the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.” The term was coined by Columbia media law professor Tim Wu.

But in any case, the impact this ill-timed post had across the Atlantic, where a vote on Net neutrality and Specialised services was taking place, was that it gave the telecommunications companies in Europe wind under their wings and they started to lobby for their point of view; that there is no such a thing as a free lunch, and users must pay for bandwidth. Nothing of which is questionable; but it isn’t the question at hand. Rather the real issue is freedom of doing business. Weaker Net neutrality would make it more difficult to run any business on-line. If the vote had gone a different way Mr Hastings could have had to seriously review his expansion plans for the EU. Is that really what he wanted? This attitude towards the European Parliament is something I frequently see amongst companies, EU & US alike. It is getting better in EU companies, but many US companies whose activities’ spans both sides for the Atlantic seems blissfully unaware of that the European Parliament actually produce legislation that have impact on their business. And if they consider it, they seem to think it is some toy Parliament and when you want to lobby it you just send employees with little or no leverage with the C-suite. Or a VP is coming and is expecting the Parliamentary calendar will change to accommodate them.

Is there really no-one within Netflix that has any view on legislative developments outside the US? Because, the state of net neutrality in the EU will affect Netflix business. Is there no-one that could have advised Mr Hastings to hold off the post to a better time? That maybe a better way to push net neutrality is to speak about preserving, maybe even augmenting, freedom to do business? And is there no one that can enlighten him about the importance of the European Parliament? It governs over 500 million citizens which makes it one of the biggest parliaments in the world. 80% of national EU legislation emanates from the European Parliament. OK, someone say; this post was published on Netflix USA Canada blog and was not at all aimed at EU. This is correct and true, but even if all business is local, corporate standpoints for international corporates rarely are. And if someone high-profiled like Mr Hastings speaks on a relative controversial issue this will have repercussions far beyond what one had identified from the beginning.

The Telecoms Single Market proposal (the proposal that was voted on) will now be reviewed by the Council of the European Union. The Council representatives are expected to adopt a final position on the Telecoms regulation later in 2014. Personally, I hope that the Council maintain the safeguards to protect net neutrality and prohibit network discrimination in Europe. This includes ensuring that this principle can be effectively enforced. Achieving this has not been easy, and in case Netflix wonders, the battle isn’t won. In in the meantime, in the relative vacuum that will be during the election period, we are certainly not helped by blog posts of the likes of Mr Hastings.

Swedish and Norwegian men say No Thanks to male only panels

As you know I am not a proponent of affirmative actions to get more women on board (yes, I mean this in the word’s widest meaning). Quite on the contrary. But when asked what I propose as solution to the sorry situation I have been lost for words. Because in order to achieve a change it is privileged class that has to initiate it, and why would anyone voluntarily give up power and influence? So maybe affirmative action was the only way forward?

And then, lo and behold, a miracle happened – someone alerted (Thank you, Megan Browne!) me to this campaign: Men say No, Thanks. The campaign has been going since November 2013 and has this far attracted 200 signatures in Sweden only. According to the Tacka nej-website:

The idea is that men, when they are invited to speak at a conference or participate in a debate panel, will ask whether women are represented on the programme. If not, they will turn the invitation down say no, thanks.

– There is a lot of talk about gender equality, but we decided to do something about it. This kind of initiatives can make organizers to really find the best and most competent persons to put on stage, Fredrik Wass co-founder of #TackaNej in Sweden.

In particular I like the approach that it is competence, not sex, that is the important and deciding factor.

Our goal is to turn Say No, Thanks into a Say Yes, Please yes to more female speakers and more diversity in debates and conferences.

A sentiment I fully support, change through Yes is better and achieves far far-reaching results.

Now, whom will take this up elsewhere? I sincerely hope it will not remain a regional two-country initiative.

10 tips for better Social Public Relations

Yes, folks Social Public Relations is my own invention because by now I think the two should merge. And in fact I don’t even have a list of my own 10 top tips, well I do but I have copied it from the great blog Useful Social Media, read them and then tell me – how does these differ from “traditional” PR tips?

1. Listening
2. Nurturing
3. Sharing
4. Leadership
5. Engaging
6. Responsiveness
7. Patience
8. Writing
9. Newsworthy
10. Unpretentious

No, in no way do I want to belittle or waft away Social Media by claiming plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. On the contrary, I think Social Media is for us communicators what Dewey decimal system is for librarians. And being born sociable I love the instantness, the response, the contacts, the networking, the chattiness, the learning…

I’ve said it before and I say so again, finally PR and Corporate Communications is where it should be – in a position where we can have a conversation with our stakeholders be they internal or external.

But what we tend to forget in our strife to be adaptable, to ensure that traditional PR still has a value, that we that have passed the horrible 30’s still think we have a market value, to show that subject matter insights still matter; you name it is that Social media are tools. Properly used they can be devilish efficient. But, if we have nothing to say of value; well, much as it pains any chatty person to say so but then old fact remains:

Silence is Golden.

 

 

 

Is this the worst lobbying campaign – ever?

No, it probably isn’t but it’s recent which is why I react. Still, the campaign might beat the pens I wrote about in the post” Why are there so many bad Public Affairs campaigns?” https://goldkom.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/why-are-there-so-many-bad-public-affairs-campaigns/

What makes it so fascinating is that it comes from a gathering of interest groups that should know something about communications: European Federation of Journalists, European Magazine Media Association, European Newspaper Publishers’ Association and European Publishers Council. It is a pity they went down this road because they are trying to achieve something that is extremely dear and close to my heart –safeguarding freedom of press and public access to documents. So it makes it all together sadder when they mess up like they do. It started last Friday, when a representative for one of these groups called and wanted to follow-up on their sending this petition. Nothing strange about that, on the contrary it’s quite advisable to do. Only she called on a speaker phone and from what seemed to be a child care centre filled with energetic and happily playing children, loud happy children, which gave the phrase “dynamic phone call” a whole new meaning.

And I don’t want to be arrogant – but the office in-box is filled with petitions and requests and proposals and without any doubt they are all highly important and affect a lot of people. It is a question about time and possibilities and taking into account our constituency’s interest; since they elected us on a programme they can expect us to work according to that programme first and foremost. This issue here is, however, right up our tree.

During the Friday conversation I asked the person on the other side of the phone to resend the petition and please, in the email could she write a couple – max. 10 – bullet points of what they want to achieve and what they hope we would do? And I would see to that the message was put in the hands of the Member of European Parliament I work with. Needless to say, nothing came.

This morning another person called from the same constellation and for the same follow-up. So either they are eager or they have limited internal communications. It was good that he did because now, finally, I got the petition and the bullet points and it is worse than I could imagine. Interesting is that that they don’t propose any amendments or changing the writing of the article in question, they are simply asking us to sign a petition. To what avail? What do they think they will achieve with that petition?

A simple well thought through campaign starting earlier in the process and not two days before the vote, could have changed the outcome of the vote. Now, the results and the future state of press freedom are anybody’s guess…