Our PRGN colleagues in Brussels, Athenora Consulting, have just released an interesting report on the newly-elected EU Parliament. The report Focus 2009/2014 provides an overview of the 7th legislature, noting that “a pro-free-market, pro-European trend will likely be visible in the work of the parliament over the next five years.”

Other key observations include:

• Just under half of the members are newly elected, opening the possibility for a directional change
• The European People’s Party maintains a very strong position, despite their loss in numbers
• The socialist vote was not boosted by the financial crisis, as anticipated
•  There was a strong Green showing, reflecting energy and environment concerns
• The extreme right increased its showing, perhaps bolstered by the economic crisis and disenchantment with mainstream politicians
• The PSE group is now dominated by the German SPD and Spanish PSOE, and changed its name to reflect its new socialist/liberal democratic alliance
• Jose Manuel Barroso has been nominated for a second term as President of the Commission, a move opposed by the Socialists and the Greens
• Graham Wilson, the liberal leader, appears to be in a strong position to win the presidency of the Parliament

In our increasingly global society, the politics of one region often have a dramatic impact on others. Through our affiliation with PRGN, JMC is able to keep its finger on the pulse of international government and business trends for our worldwide client base.

Thanks to Gretchen Reed, JMC’s Director of Editorial Services, for this post.

 I finally had the conversation. It was with Mike Thompson who for a number of years has been our organizational development coach. His firm is now called peoplesmartllc.  (The site is not fully running.)

These days Mike is breaking into new ground as colorful and as varied as his many interests. One of them is marketing and selling small crosses made by the homeless in Kentucky (who receive part of the sales price), with the cross being distributed to the U.S. military In Iraq and Afghanistan.

The whole initiative is run by Catholic Action Center,a non profit that has worked with the underserved and marginalized for the last 15 years. “Sometimes faith can be challenged when facing adversity. Sometimes a simple thought or promise that there are those who care can mean all the difference in the world,” the center says. They are right, I know, from being in a similar situation at another time.

That becomes abundantly clear in the case of college recruiting.

We have a fully empowered social-media equipped market comprising teens who shun most of the vehicles many of us think of as being new and cutting edge, like blogs and Twitter. They are deeply rooted to Facebook and texting as their preferred media.

Teens, the research tells us, don’t use mainstream media except maybe TV as background, don’t e-mail, and basically leave Twitter to adults. Their facebook activities and texting are confined to their circle of friends.

Of course parents and high-school advisors have influence — because many teas are driven to get into college — the right college. Of course they have tremendous on line resourcers including reference sites and digital match-making tools.

So how do admissions offices avoid producing messages the kids don’t pay attention to, and effectively reach out to their potential freshmen? It’s looking more and more like the answer is strategic buzz.

                                                         An excellent  blog today from Scott Hanson, our friend and colleague is Phoenix, presents the social cast — new media phenomena courtesy of social media.

The social cast has:

• – Mutual linkage of new media delivery and the old-media trust-building.
• – Culture of fan loyalty 
• – Remix news  in which citizen feeds are mixed with MSM news sources.

Check out Scott’s post directly or through his firm’s site: http://www.hmapr.com/ 

Behold the rate of change in the media.  This afternoon’s breaking news from PRSA: blogs are now mainstream media (MSM). Meanwhile, Business Week this week posts a scenario projecting a possibility that Facebook.com’s  open-source move could end up siphoning its ad revenues turning the site into a ghost town.

Blogs

Blogs now reach tens of millions in this country and both readers and creators are growing, says e-marketer.comannouncing its $695 report. “Currently, 96.6 million US Internet users read a blog at least once per month, representing 48.5% of the Internet population. By 2013, 128.2 million people, or 58% of all US users, will take part.”  And bloggers, those posting at least monthly, will increase from 27.9 million to 37.6 million in the next five years, adds e-marketer.com.

Facebook

BW’s  The Tech Beat commentary suggests that in opening parts of its code to developers, the popular social marketing site could see revenues decline when the thousands of new apps allow users to tap into Facebook without going to its homepage where its ads now live.

Not so dark. “it appears that the company is planning to replace the revenues it will lose from banner ads with a new type of revenue: in-stream ads, which would appear alongside status updates and other ‘news stories’, even on third-party apps,” says BW writer Douglas MacMillan .

Banner ads on Facebook’s home page are really old fashioned “interruption marketing” whereas in-stream text ads are part of the search experience.

Both the mainlining of blogs and the possible in-stream ads in Facebook are much more than change. They’re enormous opportunity for marketers.

Photo: John Holm (foto 3116 Flickr.com)