Good advice

All of this lead also to the nomination of the top 30 Euroblogs by the team of editors at Bloggingportal, with your not very humble servant’s own blog being included in the list.

OK: so now I’ve summarized it all, what is my point you will think? My point is that I am not even sure what a “euroblog” is, and am slightly worried at the idea of “organising” and “specialising” things…dear I say it: “professionalising” it?

I blog as a cheap means of therapy. I don’t have time for a shrink, I am too polite too shout my frustration or worries in front of my kids, so Wordpress and my PC are my two sanity vents when used in combination. I write in a not very professional way, with as little research as possible, and with no intention to influence anyone, because that is what I do as my day job and it’s the last thing I want to do when I write. I write to get things off my chest. And I self-censor myself by not writing about the dossiers I handle and the subject matters I deal with professionally just because my blog is not a lobbying tool to me. Except if you consider that a lobbyist writing about lobbying is actually lobbying for lobbyists (I know: I had a headache too when re-reading this).

Ranking blogs, discussing influence…why not…if it creates a buzz, that’s fine. But should we truly care about the “influence” of euroblogs? Is the whole purpose not to create an image of EU stuff that removes a bit of the dust and shows it can be fun, interesting, important, a source of a job, etc? Or is that influence and is my definition of that concept too tied to my professional perspective where influence = power = uses and abuses = egoland? Bloggingportal provocatively titled its post “My Euroblog is Better Than Yours“…hmmm:  mine is bigger than yours? Let’s hope the Euroblog does not become the Egoblog cause then I will have to find a new place to do my therapy

Image by sashjun from Photobucket.com

I have wanted to write this post for some time but even though I kind of knew what I wanted to say, the concept remained slightly vague and fuzzy (and yes, I know, reading policy material all day means I am normally very comfortable with vague & fuzzy).

But talking to someone today, I actually found what I considered a good way of putting it (and my lunch companion actually agreed, the dear soul): as a freelance lobbyist, I find my activities and availability to clients limited by (1) my capabilities (I’m too old to sell stuff I know nothing about and pretend I’ll wing it), (2) my ethics (don’t expect grand stuff here: my criteria are simply: will I continue sleeping well and can I look into my kids’ eyes) and (3) the TESIS factor. Being a bit of an EU geek, I think not in words but in acronyms, because they sound impressive whilst usually being meaningless.

TESIS simply stands for Time-Emotional Strain-Intellectual Strain. What it basically means is that:

• T: I only have so many hours per day and so many days per week, even if the concept of “work days” does not exist for a freelancer as it would imply there are “rest days” (which there aren’t)
• ES: people (especially clients) tend to underestimate (if they estimate it at all) the emotional strain you go through when advocating ideas, positions, etc. You are basically a salesman except that what you are talking about could affect a lot of people and a lot of companies. And if you’re really unlucky like I am, you actually believe in the stuff you advocate (I know: it’s of very poor taste for an industry lobbyist..), making your task even more energy draining. As my lunch companion pointed out: “it’s not the complexe stuff that is necessarily most tiring: it’s often the simple messages that you are going to explain to someone that you know will give you a difficult time and is likely to only agree with you after you’ve bended his arm violently” (by figure of speech, of course: I am not hit woman yet). On some dossiers, at peak time, the emotional emptiness you can feel at the end of a day spend in EU building corridors is daunting, to say the least.
• IS: some dossiers are handled really easily because you know your stuff (or think you do). But every now and then, I just like to remember I’m a lawyer and a geeky one at that, and delve into 500 to 1000 pages of academic articles, books, blog posts, FCC filings, position papers, studies by regulatory authorities or their consultants, etc. to try to “get it”…and sometimes, the realisation that all of this effort makes me “get that I don’t fully get it” and that I will have to digest, synthesise and explain all of that in 30 minutes in the office of an MEP with a clearly short attention span is, well, scary, frustrating, slightly irritating, totally depressing, [fill in the blank as I am sure you got my drift]

But I don’t want to end on a negative note: all of these factors (well, not the T one) are what make me like my job and feel that, even if half if not more of what I say is lost in the Brussels ether, if I can only convince one person to come in my corner of the room and look out of the window to see things the way I see them, it was all worth it.

No, this title is all about my job as a lobbyist.

I always thought being a lobbyists made me have this mysterious and, dare I say it, intriguing job. After all, lobbyists wield this massive power, no?

But then again, a lot of my work consists in preparing dossiers, analysing lengthy consultation documents in order to produce even lengthier responses. As I am freelance, I obviously do this on behalf on clients (no one would do this as a hobby, believe me). Which means that, a lot of my time is also spent understanding my clients’ business, what matters to them and what doesn’t , what could impact them and what is less likely to do so, etc. In terms of drafting responses, this also implies a lot of back and forth of versions 1, 2, 3, N, final, Final2, etc.

I did not quite know how to qualify this process, until my husband brought back a toy for our new Labrador today, and I happened to read the description of what I would call an orange ball on the cardboard label attached to it (see picture below).

So the “thing-I-consider-an-orange-ball” has a name (it’s called Huck) and the guidelines for use are: float, bounce, chase, chew, repeat…with the additional guarantee that “We guarantee Huck against “Dog Damage”. A customer may return the toy to a local representative for a free one-time replacement”.

Hmmmm…Why does this sound so familiar? Wait a minute: float, bounce, chase, chew, repeat…that’s exactly what happens with every paper I write for a client... Oh my God: I’m a Labrador, and my every day deliverable in life is Huck, the “orange ball”! Just a clarification though, to any zealous client reading this: I don’t do one-time replacements (but then again I’ve noticed you tend to replace the Labrador rather than the ball anyway). Oh, and for anyone waiting for other labrador analogies such as wagging tails and dumb love for anyone feeding them, I’ll leave that to your imagination.

So I think it’s time for a change, Europe, and I am ready to endorse full rhino army gear to chant along “You’re in the Euro now!” (lyrics at the bottom of the BJ article).

This rhino is ready

It is a funny misconception that if you want to have two months of holidays during summer you can either become a teacher (and do something useful for humanity) or become someone hovering around the European institutions (and do…well, what lobbyists do, I guess). I can’t comment on the former but when it comes to the latter, it always makes me wonder if people truly believe that if there’s no MEP around to lobby, we just sit at our desk waiting for them to come back….like robots in “off ” mode or very sad Labrador puppies left home alone.

Well, sorry to disappoint all those considering a lobbying career (or governmental affairs, public affairs, “something” affairs) for the nice summer holiday perks: there’s still a lot to do over summertime! And that is because policy-makers and regulators truly make the “jobs and growth” motto a central objective in the way they work. How so, will you ask? By creating a policy environment that stimulates employment and innovation? Well, maybe…kind of…but also by making sure lobbyists like me do not fall in a deep hole of nothingness over summer by issuing a zillion consultations at the end of June / beginning of  July, with a deadline for responses in September…Thou shall not stay idle by the pool, says the regulator!

Oh, and did I mention that slightly over-full folder on my desktop called “TO READ” in which I put every file, document, report, etc of over 60 pages that I am not bound to read but just know I should at some point in my life, if only to feel smarter.

However, I will do all of this whilst humming “in the summertime”!

So hum along!

Rarely does a lobbyist listen to someone and feel utterly impressed, no strings or cautious thoughts attached…Or at least, not an “old rot” like me…But today, just for a few minutes, I felt like “not all was lost”…that some sense would come out of the ongoing debates on how to “handle the Internet” if someone with the eloquence, brains and proven delivery record of Julian Assange could be invited to speak in a place such as the European Parliament, in the context of the ALDE organised debate on (Self) Censorship and Freedom of Expression in Europe.

And so he did, and he did well, at both a philosophical level and in terms of quoting facts, cases, real life. Sitting on the panel was also the representative of the Icelandic Parliament that spearheaded their “Safe Haven” law for publishers and whistle blowers, and a professor specialised in libel and defamation laws, whom I will not name just in case he sues me for “attacking his reputation”, as he seemed really gung ho on that one.

I would encourage everyone to listen to the debate once it gets posted [Addition on 8 July: video embedded below - thanks to commentators] on the ALDE website , as it is worth listening, for the immense sadness one feels when listening to some of the comments in terms of balance of rights and freedoms some seem to deem appropriate, and some of the hallucinating exchanges that took place between Mr Assange and the unnamed lawyer, of which my favourite was [quoting from memory - only the actual recording should be considered accurate]:

Lawyer: “In this case, the BBC claimed people died and that was wrong”

Assange “How do you know it was wrong?”

Lawyer “Because the BBC paid damages and settled”

Assange “So you are saying that settling out of court for strategical reasons and to avoid heavy legal fees means they were wrong. Over 100.000 people had to go to the hospital due to that event and BBC said that as a result, 14 died. How unbelievable is that? How wrong could they be?”

Lawyer “I didn’t say they were wrong”

Assange “Yes, you just did”

Lawyer “I can’t remember what I just said”

Assange, turning to the audience “OK, people: do you remember what he just said?”".

I guess Lincoln’s statement that to be a good liar, you need to have a good memory could also apply to lawyers speaking on panels at the European Parliament…

Update 8 July: Please find below the full video of the EP hearing