How do you get parliamentarians and their staff to better use web tools in their everyday work? It’s a question at the heart of what I do for clients on an everyday basis…
So I’m rather content that Google’s Brussels office has asked me to help out with a workshop they are running for MEPs, assistants and staff in the European Parliament on 9th December, looking at how web tools can be better used in everyday parliamentary work. I’m there to give some of the more political perspectives on the Brussels web politics environment, and explain a little bit about some of the projects I’ve worked on.
As I’ve said to the Google folks I am not always a Google user (I favour Netvibes and WordPress over Reader and Sites respectively, but do use Google for search, mail, maps and my browser) but essentially on the matters for the event next week our interests are in the same direction – pushing the EP into the 21st Century. I’m also not going to be answering questions on this week’s EU probe into Google – Daily Mash has done that better than I could!
Questions for the event can be posed beforehand here via Google Moderator, and all MEPs’ offices should have the event info already. You’re also welcome to contact me if you have questions or want to come along.
Interesting workshop, I’m glad I was there. Mostly common sense stuff, but it’s always good to repeat it considering the poor communication strategies of some MEPs (funny that the only one that made the effort to come seemed a bit lost, sadly). The Google guys were quite good too, although it was pretty clear they were here to sell their stuff, but I guess that’s in the nature of things.