Making of

Call for blog reviews

I guess each of you has a favorite babel blog, the one you find most interesting, funniest, the one you go on every day to see if there are some new posts. Now you have a chance to express your interest - or maybe tell which ones you hate? - by writing about it!

We are looking for bloggers and blog readers willing to write blog reviews for cafebabel.com.

It’s easy – check one of already published blog reviews – all you have to do is write a short comment on 3-5 posts from different babelblogs, saying what you liked about it, making reader want to go on blog (it means: not spoiling the surprise! ) and spicing it up with a smart comment.

Interested? Contact me before writing at redakcja@cafebabel.com

7 comments

Friday, January 4 2008 By natalia - Making of

Call for articles Politics february 2008

ISSUE: European Politics
PUBLICATION: February 2008
EDITOR IN CHARGE: Fernando Navarro
redaccion@cafebabel.com

RULES: This “Call for articles & information” aims to find writers for the next proposed issues related to the Cafebabel.com European Politics section during February 2008. If you are interested in writing a paper about current issues described below, please send me a short outline of the proposal. (English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Italian or Portuguese read).

If you request more information about the current issues described below, do not hesitate to feed us with, so that we can focus much better our information and editorial offer.

Be careful: please, contact me before writing!

If you have any other idea for an article in Politics section July 2007, do not hesitate to communicate it to me as soon as possible.

WE WANT TO COVER:

24th January: Drugs in Europe
4th February: Treaty ratifications
06th February: Muslims economy
07th February: Nuclear energy in Europe
13th February: Streets of Europe
14th February: Commissioners blog review
15th February: Videopolitics
28th February: Price of fuel

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Friday, December 21 2007 By Alberti - Making of

Call for articles Ñam nyam

PUBLICATION: Spring 2008
SECTION: Ñam Nyam
EDITOR IN CHEF: Fernando Navarro
redaccion@cafebabel.com

RULES: This call for authors and information aims to find writers for the next proposed issues related to Ñam nyam section of Cafebabel.com during the spring 2008. If you are interested in writing a paper about gastronomic issues desribed below, please send me a short outline with your concrete proposal.

Be careful: please, contact me before writing.

If you have any other idea for articles, do not hesitate to communicate it to me.

WE WANT TO COVER:

Michelin stars
Bio food
European kitchens = plenty of foreigners
Chocolate
Interview cook specialised in desserts

30 comments

Monday, December 17 2007 By Alberti - Making of

Want to write for the January CULTURE section of cafebabel.com?

Babelians, come and find out what 2008 January’s CULTURE section will be about! To write or to propose different subjects for cafebabel’s CULTURE section you simply need to be a member of our community.

Nothing easier: go on the homepage just click on the red button “participate!” in the upper right to find out more about the conditions of being a writer for cafebabel.com.

Go for it! If you’re interested in one of the topics below, do not hesitate to contact our cultural editor Katharina at redaktion@cafebabel.com. We’re looking forward to reading you in 7 languages!

1. DOSSIER: NO LIMITS IN ARTS

a. Investigation: Scandal, disgust & creativity: Limits in arts

b. Panorama: Europe’s most revolting contemporary artists

c. Feature: Exposition “Körperwelten” - making dead bodies art

d. Interview: Michel Houellebecq or Elfriede Jelinek

e. Feature: Across limits - Arts in Second Life

Spencer Tunick

2. Cultural Agenda for January

3. Investigation: New ideas of young European designers

4. Multicultural metro art project in Germany

5. Investigation: Music download - the end of traditional music industry?

6. Trend: More & more female Mangas

7. Panorama: Should museums be for free?

8. European architecture awards in Austria

9. “Tower of Babel” is watching you! THIS LANGUAGE SECTION REALLY NEEDS AUTHORS! I look forward to recieving your proposals and ideas. Think of any strange expression in your country and look up its origin, compare idiomatic expressions in the babelian languages, explain why a film title has been translated in a very bad way. Everything around you could be a Tower of Babel! Do not hesitate to contact me if you need help or hints! WE ARE THERE TO HELP YOU.

Katharina Kloss

23 comments

Thursday, December 13 2007 By Katha - Making of

When ECOSOC communicates for and on Europe

What is ECOSOC? In the Brussels Euroxpat language it stands for the European Economic and Social Committee, a consultative body where European representatives of civil society, trade unions and employers share a platform to put forward opinions on decisions made by the European Commission, the European Council or the European Parliament.

On 12th Nov ECOSOC organised a one day seminar on "Communicating Europe: what role does civil society wish to play?" which gathered around 150 communicators from across Europe.

Daniel Feher (Dialog 09) and I moderated a workshop on "How to better reach the European Public? The Role of the Internet in communicating and consulting civil society organisations". I always enjoy these types of events because 1. you meet new people 2. you share ideas. The objective of the workshop was to find ways to improve communication towards European citizens and provide communication channels for European citizens to use when seeking to connect with EU Institutions. The web 2.0 can open these channels (let's not get into the whole debate of whether 2.0 is for real or not ). And given the fact that ECOSOC works directly with civil society, it has a key role to play in making them available.

This was the idea Daniel and I tried to convey during our seminar. I was surprised to see, however, the general skepticism towards the blogosphere: what legitimacy does it have? How can we control the information? Does it really have the power to influence? I thought it was even quite difficult to stick to 2.0 topics at times.

Nonetheless, some valuable examples were given such as, the "Our Europe- Our Debate - Our Contribution", which published videos of people randomly interviewed about Europe, or the Interactive Ideas blog animated by a young Greek participant. For some, like Willy de Backer, former chief Editor of Euractiv, blogging on environmental issues is now part of his daily professional activities (see 3E Intelligence). In the end, we all agreed that new media tools should be used to provide information in all languages and gather consultations for civil society. "How" remains to be determined. What's important is that communicators continue to share their ideas. Beacause as Yochai Benkler says, there's no point in trying to analyse too much "popular tools of communication", since "these will undoubtebly be supplented by new ones". This is why Daniel and I have created a facebook group called "Communicating Europe", a group to share ideas and best practices- so feel free to join.

In fact, should the new Treaty of Lisbon be ratified, civil society will have its word to say so figuring out how is extremely relevant. During the morning session, one of the participants suggested the idea of launching a "European Civil Society" wiki tool, based on the wikipedia model (see also Adriano's eurogeneration article on "Inside Wikipedia and more"). One of the panelists suggested to create a sense of European belonging with simple means: first day of school under a Greek theme or a Spanish day at the canteen. And why not see the Erasmus programme extended to apprentice students and teaching bodies?

I'm fairly convinced that many of these brilliant ideas had already found a fertile ground at MEP Gérard Onesta's "Citizens' Agora" organised the week before at the European Parliament and which was mentioned here and there throughout the day. But the best place for inspiration remains in cafés (hence café babel... get it? :-). After an intense day of listening, brainstorming, networking and communicating (!), a nice drink with Mrs Jillian Van Tournhout, Vice-President of ECOSOC (and former business woman who converted 2 years ago to the non-profit sector), her team and other participants gave new impetus to our common objectives.

Photo credit: EESC/ Vanessa Witkowski

44 comments

Monday, November 19 2007 By Vané - Making of

Live from Paris office

It's a sunny day today in Paris. Here our English funky editor, Nabeelah.

Our Spanish editor Fernando (right) with a seller of EU-flag umbrella during the semi-final of Rugby World Cup last saturday in Paris.

"I made it". Behaviour of a Spaniard getting to edit a bad translation...

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Thursday, October 18 2007 By Adriano - Making of

GA 2007 in Paris

((/public/coffeefactory/GA 2007 in Paris/. Babelians all over Europe met in Paris to be part of the futur of cafebabel.com. Web 2.0 and our new tools have been widely discussed.

bene Adriano is commenting our propositions: Bene! Bene! Bene! These babelians have ideas! They want to launch a communication campaign with naked breasts! Bene!

in the restaurant In the evening we could get relaxed in a restaurant with a very nice meal. Food is quite international - and wine too

A little song was played for Simon, Martin and Nuala, who are leaving cafebabel.com. Adriano and Nicola have been the singers! -Let's make a CD with many more cafebabel.com songs!

Simon will leave cafe babel Simon's last day as babelian.

You will find many more pictures here

(Credit photo: Erika)

7 comments

Thursday, June 21 2007 By Spock - Making of

General meeting coming soon!

Every year cafebabel.com hosts a general meeting with the most active members all around Europe who have created a local team... This year we decided to open this meeting to all babelians and put in place an application system... We want to thank you for your enthousiasm because we receive a lot of requests to participate! Thank you also to all those who applied but we could not host more than 30 people... But everyone of you is sooo precious to build a strong, transnational community all around Europe! That is why we propose you to comment the following Agenda of the meeting... we'll keep and represent your thoughts and come back to you with a report of the meeting! Ad maiora, babelians!

Friday 15th June

10:00 – 13:00 Plenary session: Nicola, BI President chairing

10:00 – 10:30 Presentation of every babelian attendingWe want to now everything of you in 1 minute : 'What I do in my life, what I did in cafebabel.com, my spoken languages, why I'm here'

10:30 – 10:50 Introduction: how cafebabel.com is changing The project of new website and future steps. Community + magazine = the eurogeneration media. The vertebral column: tags and multilingual navigation. Presentation by Adriano, Executive Manager

10:50 – 13:00 What does 'community' now mean? Getting to know your tools... The concept: from the 'network' to the 'community'. The tools: presentation and their aim. How to create/moderate: profile/ babelblogs/ forum / chat / petitions / surveys The organisation: what can be your role as local team or simple Babelian and the organisational structure. Possible partners: European NGOs from Council of Europe (special guest: Silvia Geise from CoE) Presentation and discussion animated by Vanessa, Community Animator

13:00 – 14:30 Lunch

14:30 – 16:30 Workshops: Vanessa chairing Putting your tools in action! by Vanessa - Every group chooses a rapporteur 1.Local team blogs What for? Events, practical info, features, your activities? 2.Forums and chats ...or how to build the real-time transnational debate? 3.Petitions and surveys how to build a transnational public opinion? Which kind of campaigns? Have we to limit this by fixing criteria? __16:30 – 17:00 Coffee break

17:00 – 19:00 Plenary session__ Presentation of workshop results. Roundtable: how do I see my role in community animation. Eleonora will present the example of digiTO, a local e-community in Torino, Italy End of the session. Transfer to restaurant Le coin de Malte for a singing dinner. Bring your guitar!

Saturday 16th June

9:30 – 13:00 Plenary session: Nicola, BI President chairing

General Assembly: the legal meetingOnly persons who belong or have applied to become Babel International branches can attend. If you are to create a Babel International branch and want to attend as observer, request inscription by emailing dellarciprete@cafebabel.com and farano@cafebabel.com

__13:00 – 14:00 Transfer__

__14:00 – 15:00 plenary session, Alexandre, Communication Director chairing-

Communicating about cafebabel.com 2.0__ What is buzz communication? Best practices and benchmarking. What is the communication planning for the community? Presentation of readership survey. by Alexandre

15:00 – 17:00 workshops

Brainstorming buzz strategy : web mapping to spread the word* - with Alex & Monika buzz campaign: finding creative concepts - with Adri local teams in the community : how to communicate? Which partners? Which opinion leaders to babelize? - with Vanessa

17:00 – 17:15 Coffee break

17:15 – 19:00 plenary session, chairing: Alex Results of workshops and roundtable on everyone's role 19:00 – 19:15 Best profile contest: results by Vanessa

19:15 End of the session Free evening but partying together for those who want around 10pm!

* *

What you can do before coming...

1. Test the community! please go on http://community.cafebabel.com with Firefox navigator instead of Internet Explorer

create your profile with photo and your babelreplies (and compose your babelmix). Then send an email to Vanessa before Monday 11th June to participate to the contest of the best profile among people attending! post comments on babelblogs... if local team, scan local blogs for workshop 1

2. Gather ideas! Get informed about communities and interactive tools in your country! Very important for Saturday's web mapping workshop. Our aim: to spread the community word all over the Web!

one comment

Friday, June 8 2007 By Adriano - Making of

cafebabel.com on Polityka.pl

cafebabel.com is also famous in Poland !

This article was published today in Polityka.pl, a famous Polish newspaper.

Congratulations to Polish team !

12 comments

Wednesday, April 18 2007 By Simon - Making of