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Showing posts from April, 2010

Rising from in the Ashes

Each morning, hundreds of planes are landing in Brussels airlifting the politicians, civil servants, researchers, businessmen to meetings in the capital. Since mid last week this airlift came to a standstill. Brussels Airport has been closed and access to Brussels limited to those that can take a train or car. While this could just work for the original EU6, the train is not an option for the EU27. But we are well in the 21st century and when we privately need to talk to someone in a different time zone, we use the Internet; tools like Skype, Google Talk, Messenger or any of the other internet technologies that allow us to see and hear the person on the other end. Researchers use more elaborate collaboration tools such as Adobe Connect, Webinar or Webex or combine voice or text chat with collaborative text editing environments such as Google Docs. None of that is possibe with the officials in the Comission, Council or the Parliament. The first thing I noticed when moving into my office...