Ok, but let’s think about the content. I don’t know why I should ask the President of the European Council anything. Well, apart from the question whether we actually need a permanent president at all, as I have the impression that it only created another layer of bureaucracy and increased inter-institutional rivalry. But ok, maybe other people may find it useful. And who knows, maybe Van Rompuy himself (or his team) can learn something from the exercise…

After watching this video, I have some basic communication advice:

- So, Herman Van Rompuy, or as I like to call him now “the communicator”, prefers video. But why? Is text not good enough? Why does he mention it in the video? Just because video is the latest online and PR trend? The point I am trying to make is the following: If you ask people to contact you, give as many options as possible and don’t talk down on people! Make it sound positive. Instead of saying “video – that’s what I would prefer” just say “you can also submit a video” or “I will reply by video”.

- In a 28 second video do you really need to emphasize that “maybe not all questions ” will be answered? This is not very encouraging and it sounds quite negative. At least say “I will do my best to answer all questions” or “My team and I will work hard to answer all relevant questions that you may have”.

- And what about languages? The website is currently only in English, probably a sign that it is an experiment (but don’t tell it to the French!). But more seriously, it is the EU and languages are important. I understand that it is a lot of work to provide translations but if you launch a page such as askthepresident.eu make sure that people can at least submit questions in all EU languages.

- Voting without a google account. I understand it is easier to use google or facebook plugins to achieve a meaningful social media integration but at the same time these tools excluding many European citizens. Not everyone has a google account and I certainly would not like to open a google account just to be able to play around with voting on a EU website. Moreover, I don’t want to be forced to use a certain company to get in touch with politicians. I am also suspicious about revealing my political interests to any company…

But is it too much to ask that the government gets it right? After all it is  often the member states that are keen to make sure that certain EU terms should not sound too similar to national terms…

So, today Number10.gov.uk – the official site of the Prime Minister’s Office in the UK had this top story:

The only positive thing about this story is that the Prime Minister got it right…

But coming back to the editors at Number10.gov.uk – Not only do they seem to borrow journalists from the mainstream media they also don’ t seem to care about feedback unlike the Foreign Office.

The UK Foreign Office (FCO) was quick to change its twitter status update after an intervention by the Commission Representation in London on twitter! (check the FCO twitter updates before and after this tweet)

But the website of Downing Street is still the same despite their presence on twitter. So, I wrote a DM to Downing Street – let’s see whether they change the website…and whether they react to DM on twitter!