Digital association decides to go digital

Our eagled eyed ICT team member Magnus Norman spots that EICTA, “the voice of digital technology in Europe” has decided to join the growing ranks of the Brussels trade association blogging community. Given their sector; about time some may say.

Announced on the EICTA website, Digital Advocacy Europe was launched earlier today. Unlike the pesticides information blog, it appears that the blog’s purpose is has an internal objective of cutting down on the large number of emails Director General Mark MacGann generates. In any case, it may have been wise to get into the groove of making a few posts before heraldling it to the prying eyes of Brussels’ ever vigilant consultants.

Having said this, we like Mark’s tone and the fact that in one day and one post he’s already managed to gather a number of comments from his membership. In itself, not a bad start to any blog – we are still trying to get our own posts/comments strike rate up – please comment readers, please….just say anything…it need not be intelligent (look at our posts…)

We look forward to seeing the Digital Advocacy Europe blog grow. It seems a natural place for an association such as EICTA to drive their message on all issues affecting their industry. As the blog grows, we hope Magnus and team will do the decent thing and update their top 7 blogs from the sector to include it. Perhaps with a few more from the sector, they could make it to ten.

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7 Comments

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October 02, 2008 | 9:27 AM

[...] Perhaps an example that digital industries can learn from? [...]

fhbrussels
July 17, 2008 | 11:52 AM

Pierre-Antoine, I think Mark answers your question in his comments above. James

Pierre-Antoine Rousseau
July 16, 2008 | 5:34 PM

Your blog already looks interesting. But why didn't you set it up as 'private' if you want it be read only by EICTA members? Anyway, I am looking forward to see true-spearking irreverent posts.

Mark MacGann
July 16, 2008 | 3:36 PM

The comment from "E-mail saver" (isn't anonymity is kinda rude in the blogosphere?) is a bit strange....First of all, "can you believe that a Director General...." gives the impression that someone with a fancy and fairly pompous title doesn't have the right to use the tools available to us all to try to communicate in a more direct, less formal and hopefully more effective manner. Second, he/she/it misses the point. As I said yesterday on my clumsy attempt at a blog, I am trying to give people in the EICTA community the choice of whether they read what I have to say or not. It is the whole concept between "push" information and "pull". Instead of writing directly to them, and adding to their daily chore of wading through e-mail and spam, they can consult the blog whenever they want to figure out what my view is on the topic in question....well, it seemed like a good idea yesterday....and believe me "E-mail saver", I didn't choose my title... And by the way Magnus & Co. at fh, the internal IT guy will not be substituted, for three reasons. First, he is a super nice guy to work with; second, he knows his a** from his elbow when it comes to IT issues, and most importantly, he supplies me with Belgian chocolate on a daily basis. Now I need to go and think about what to write on that godforsaken blog monster I created yesterday....!

fhbrussels
July 16, 2008 | 12:37 PM

lol Mistakes are we suppose part of learning by doing...something we've also been doing over the last year on this very blog. We think inadvertently you may have hit upon a good idea however. Surely EICTA should be using tools such as blogs as part of its external communications strategy? If you see our post about the success of associations such as NAM in the US on this front, you can just smell the potential... In any case, we think after your comment you've probably equalised... Magnus: 1 Mark: 1 Wonder if the internal IT guy may get substituted at half time however...

E-mail saver
July 16, 2008 | 12:08 PM

Can you believe that a Director General runs a blog in order to reduce his number of e-mails...

Mark MacGann
July 16, 2008 | 11:36 AM

Magnus Norman: 1 Mark MacGann: 0 Dammit. So I am the so-called spokesperson (yeah, I can be politically correct when I need to be) of the European high-tech industry, and I decide to enter the blogosphere around 2 years after it became fashionable. Thing is, it was supposed to be FOR INTERNAL purposes, so I could shout, scream and throw hissy fits (sorry, too much HBO in my house) at politicians, members, staff, consultants...and even bad dates. Then I see that the first comment on my first posting is from a dreaded CONSULTANT! No no, not the beloved Fleishman (ahem), but from Hill & Knowlton. Then I see that my internal IT wizard (or in this case, dunce) has not protected the blog, and has even announced its creation on our public website....So maybe I need to learn about blog "do's and don'ts" before I launch a blog...but too late for that. So, either I have a public blog (that only bored Brussels consultants will read in summer) and a private blog for EICTA members, forcing me to nag myself twice every day to write something...or I just stick with the public one, and go back to sending e-mails on internal EICTA stuff....anyway, certainly gives food for thought....and 15 seconds of fame (well, with Magnus Norman anyway...)