Everybody in online journalism knows things have to change. We’re stuck in print reality, where journalism equals the written word. Where print still has higher status than online content.

Fake tweets become breaking news. Articles are being posted that should never have become news. When established media post stories about how the size of your fingers determine the size of your penis, something has gone wrong.

The answers are right at our fingertips. Bloggers, twitters, Facebook’ers are all leading the way to are more non-elitist and enlightened society, offline as well as online.

So how to define digital journalism? I would like to propose three journalistic dogmas:

1. From click rates to share-ability

Focusing on at what gets shared should replace focus on clicks and ”most read”-lists. Hopefully a focus on shared content will lead to less misleading headlines and content deliberately going for easy clicks (using sex or sensation as a trigger) and move focus to quality journalism that people enjoy reading. A lot of the most shared articles on email or social media is not classic journalism. It’s almost never a telegram or news articles, but content that moves people and doesn’t care about timeliness. A co-worker of mine pointed out that the most shared objects are not really journalism. Well, who defines that – the journalists or the readers?

2. Be equals

When you tweet, Barack Obama, Dalai Lama and Lady Gaga are all limited to 140 characters. Social media underscores the basic democratic fact that we’re all equal. One person, one vote. One person, 140 characters. This calls for humility, listening and taking in criticism. Virtues they don’t teach at Journalism School.

3. An article doesn’t stop at the last punctuation. It begins.

Engage with the readership, admit your mistakes and shortcomings. Let your followers do some of the work. Be part of the community.

An example of how a media can become part of the local community is taking at Norran in Northen Sweden. Every day they have a livechat with their users, and they play an active role in the community.

Hopefully this trend will spread from North to South, as journalists and editors realize that without an audience, there is no media.

8:30-9:30 Networking breakfast
After having networking lunch, networking coffee and networking cocktail party on Day 1, Anna and I had our own private breakfast at the hotel. Lots of coffee and fresh juice.

9:30-10 Welcoming Remarks by Andrew Rasiej and Mark Lopez
Was it just me, or did Andrew look red eyed? Maybe it was from celebrating, after all the hard work bringing the conference together. If so, he surely deserved it.

10-11.05 Three Keynotes and a Conversation on Reinventing Government, the Power of Networks and the Transparency Moment – with Tom Steinberg, Scott Heiferman and Ellen Miller
To me Tom Steinberg was one of the most interesting speakers at the conference. He talked about his projects at MySociety.com – FixMyStreet.com and WhatDoTheyKnow.com. Services that makes people’s life easier. Websites that actually bring about change and bring about transparency. That’s admirable.

Scott Heiferman gave a strong presentation about Meetup. It might have been a bit over-enthusiatistic for an European crowd, but there’s surely no doubt that Heiferman likes what he’s doing. I would have loved to hear more about what these Meetups so popular. Does it fulfill a need that was already there, or does it create something new? Hos is Meetup.com challenged by Facebook and the like?

Ellen Miller talked about the work at Sunlight Foundation to bring around transparency in the US government. Her presentation made it clear to me that some of the problems they struggle with in the US in terms of transparency does not exist at the same level in Denmark and probably other North European countries (sorry Italians, but Berlusconi doesn’t rhyme with transparancy…).

11.05-11.25 Keynote: Mobile Platforms for Change – by Katrin Verclas
A presentation with some numbers and examples of how to use mobile phones, but nothing really new. Maybe there should have been paid more attention to mobile phones in the conference program, so the subject could have been unfolded in depth.

11.25-11.45 Coffee Break
Time to recharge computer, body and mind…

11-45-12.45 The Internet and Europe: Can We Connect the Continent? Mick Fealty, Susan Pointer, Jeremie Zimmerman, Rolf Luehrs, and Rafa Rubio (moderator)
At this point my brain had left for lunch break already. Sorry….

12.45-2.15 Lunch
Brown lunchbags with sandwiches on white bread, a chocolate snack bar, some fruit and juice. Had an informal reunion at the hotel roof top terreace with the people we had dinner with the night before. Lovely view, great weather. Could have stayed there all afternoon.

2.15-3.30 Can Social Media Create a European Union? David Osimo, Stephen Clark, Mick Fealty, Andreas Mullerleile, and Jon Worth (moderator)
Out of three sessions, I chose this one about the European Union. Here Jon Worth showed some impressing multi tasking skills – he was moderating, talking and updating Twitter at the same time, which created a great dynamic on the session. Apart from that, especially the short presentation by Stephen Clark, communcations director at the European Parliament (EP) caught my attention.
The European Union has long struggled to create a kind of European public sphere, similar to the ones exitisting on national level. It became clear from Clarks presentation that the EU is still struggling to communicate with the EU citizens. He showed some great digital campaigns and initiatives by the EP, but he was also aware of the fact that the numbers of viewers and particpants were fairly low. Maybe the conclusion is that the EU as such will never be able to reach the attention of its people, and if the EU wants to gain momentum online as well as offline, the communication should be carried forward by the individual politicians?
Also, the work done by Andreas Mullerleile from bloggingportal.eu is worth paying further attention to – will they suceed in creating a European blogospehere?

4.15-5.30 Adapting and Thriving in the New Media Environment. Antonio Sofi, Vincent Ducrey, Liz Mair, Clo Willaerts and Astrid Haug (moderator)

I was moderating the panel on how to adapt to the new media environment throughout Europe and in the US was united. A fairly wide titel, with Vincent Ducrey and Liz Mair representing government and politicians, Antonio Sofi and Clo Willaerts representing the social media sphere.
After the presentations the discussion focused on whether politicians can actually learn to dance on the digital dance floor, as Clo Williaerts termed it in her presentation. And can politicians be honest enough to use Facebook and the like? Of course there was no definitive answers to these questions, but at least the panelistst gave some honest answers. I think the most interesting disclosure came from Liz Mair (she worked for John McCain in 2008), who revealed that some of the smears against Barack Obama came out of her computer.

I look very much forward to the release of Vincent Ducrey’s book, Hub Management in 2010 – I hope it will come out in English too, so I’ll have a chance to read it.

5.30-7 pm. Goodbyes and off to the airport.
Unfortunately we missed the last session, with with Julian Assange, Chris Ward, Esther Dyson, Tom Watson, Andrew Rasiej. I’m sure I could have learned a lot, but hopefuly I will get another chance to here them speak. Micah Sifry quoted Julien Assange for saying that he couldn’t understand why not more European journalists got arrested in their strive to reveal the truth.

In sum
My output from PdF Europe was:

• lots of inspiration and great Europan cases
• a European network of bloggers and new media influentials
• better inside on how – and how not – Obama’s campaign can inspire European politics.
• a stronger European feeling and a clearer idea of where to look out for a European blogosphere

Cheerio PdF, hope to see you again soon!

List of speakers
Anna about Day 1

9:30-10:00am  Registration & Coffee
Buzzing atmosphere. Some slightly hung-over, others ready for networking right from the start. The many suits blended in nicely with Spanish students and all the Google fellows, who – for most parts – could be recognised by their lazy t-shirts and comfortable shoes.

10:00-10:45am  Welcoming Remarks with Andrew Rasiej, Micah L. Sifry, Marc Lopez and Mayor Jordi Hereu
The organizers are charismatic figures. Good at captivating a crowd and getting every ones attention. Got excited about what’s to come.

10:45- 11:00am Keynote conversation: Charlie Leadbeater on Cloud Culture: How Cloud Computing Will Change Culture and Politics
Leadbeater made a side remark during his conversation with Micah Sifry: “Obama was Dean done right” – right because the Obama campaign was control and management. Right because he won. As Martin Sønderlev (aka @nowuseit) noted, it will be interesting to see if grass root-organizing will get so mainstream and structured that a chaotic reaction will be inevitable.

11:00-11:30am  Keynote: Mapping the Eurosphere with Anthony Hamelle
..! Great slides, but we never understood, what it was all about? Why did they make the slides showing the blogosphere for the different countries in the EU? What was the purpose of their study?

11:30-11:45am Coffee Break
Much needed!! The wifi isn’t working, our computers have used up all the power and you’re not allowed to bring coffee with you to the different halls. …I ended up missing the Danish Reeboot conference.

11:45-12:45pm Keynote: How Obama Won with Joe Rospars
Fun to se him. Nothing new. The downside about the Obama campaign is that most people here have been following the campaign closely, and read up on it as it became bigger and bigger. So there really wasn’t anything new to he presentation apart from this video.

Klik her for at se den indsatte video.

Joe Rospars told the audience, that towards the end of the campaign, they were starting to worry that people would stop volunteering for events because the polls indicated a win. Of all the different videos they tried, this video was the most successful one. After seeing it, you understand why.
Would have loved to hear more of that kind – the practical stuff – , or how the work with “Organizing for America” is doing – how do you turn a campaign in to e-governance?

12:45-2:00pm Learning from Obama with Joe Rospars, Kate Albright-Hanna, Benoit Thieulin, Dominique Piotet, and Diego Beas (moderator)
Hm.  French vs. Americans. The debate never seems to take off. It was like the question wasn’t right. Yes, you can learn to use all platforms and construct and organize. But from what I recon the biggest difference between McCain and Obama was McCain and Obama for starters, and secondly the ability to get people organized. And the Europeans do use the Internet for campaigning. As Benoit Thieulin pointed out, Segoyine Royals campaign was indeed digital.
What really struck most people after that session was how little we knew about what was going on in Europe. Everyone there – more or less – had paid close attention to everything that happens in America. Not just because the country has fostered some great campaigns, but simply because we could read the language. We could follow everything, and select our sources from the vast amount of people writing, tweeting and blogging about the campaigns. Ask me a question about Spain, and I know almost nothing. Even when it comes to my neighbouring countries, like Sweden, whose language I can understand, I don’t know where to start. There just isn’t that huge amount of attention, so it doesn’t land in my inbox who to follow, who’s feed to subscribe to – I mean, what’s Germany’s equivalent of Politico? Or the French version of Huffington? oh, but never mind answering, because I can’t really read any French or German… So back to square one.

To me that emphasized the need for PDF Europe - European style. Who’s done what, where, how, why and with what result? Who’s the Joe Rospars of Portugal or Italy? Or were they not at the conference, because there’s nothing to tell?

Networking Lunch
The lunch-concept was perfect! A brown paper bag with two sandwiches, snacks, fruits and drinks. Perfect for a picnic on the rooftop terrace on the Hotel together with Google Fellow and founder of FolketsTing.dk, Michael Friis.

How Political Parties are Reinventing Their Relationship with the Public – Sindre Fossum Beyer, Anna Ebbesen, Ghislaine Robinson, Rishi Saha, and Antoni Gutierrez Rubi (moderator)
Blog post about the presentation to come…
Looking forward to seeing how the Conservatives will play their campaign after having heard Rishi Saha’s talk. Hoping that he will share his details on the rumoured PDF UK, which Sifrey and Micah had post-meetings with Steve Osgood in the days after the Barcelona conference.

Missed the next session – the breakout I wanted to see with David All on the panel was full, so I ended up spending the hour chatting to Matt Scofied from Newt Gringricht office about working life, odd ones on Copenhagen and life in general.

Plenary on Crossnational Collaboration: Case Studies and Lessons for the Future with Markus Beckedahl, Jeremie Zimmerman, Paul Hilder, Jack Thurston, and Javier Cremades with Micah Sifry (moderator)
Too tired. We had to leave. Astrid needed to get her panel organized for the next day, and we both needed some silence, wifi and power for the computers.

Cocktail party.
More like a reception and mainly the place for finding out who to have dinner with. Meetups at 8:15 attracted 13 – 2 Danes, 2 Americans, 2 Irish, 2 Germans, 4 brits and one French. Drinks and beer down town later on, where a few of the people travelling in transparency joined us. The Sunlight Foundation had invited many of the attending bloggers and hackers to a networking dinner – nice treat – and many of them found their way back to the rest of us later on.

At 4:45 I leave the brits and the Americans at the Hotel Bar. Great people, great company but a full day of constant conversations in a foreign language does wear you down!

Continue to Day 2

Pre-ramble
Wednesday evening came and went as I re-did my presentation for Fridays panel over and over. 8 minutes is not a lot of time. Especially when you spend a quarter of that trying to find the English word for the articulated Danish sentence you were thinking of….

Sitting in the plane to Barcelona, we realized that none of us had brought a map, or thought at all about practicalities: how do you say “hi” in Spanish? Where are we actually staying? Did you get any Euros with you?

It’s been such a hectic year for us, that this break is truly welcomed. Plus, this will be our celebration of having published our book. Even though it came out early October, we just haven’t found the time to celebrate.

Cocktails and chatter
Thursday evening we joined the rest of the speakers for a pre-conference speakers cocktail party at our hotel. Great fun to meet people from all over Europe and the states, who has risen the bar when it comes to using the digital tools to promote a cause, reconnect with the public or just securing everyone a place to leak information, politicians are trying to stop.

At the general introduction, Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej had everyone saying name, occupation, country and 3 words that describe them. Quite a good icebreaker and interesting to listen to.

Looking forward to some good conversations over the next two days. Almost sad that we re leaving on Saturday already!

We’ll try to blog and tweet as we go, but you can tune in online for the real thing via http://civicolive.com/pdfeu/ where everything is livestreamed.

For the program go to the Pdf website.

I år har de så valgt at lave en europæisk udgave af konferencen. Gemt mellem tyske bloggere, Obama-kampagnefolk og Barcelonas borgmester står Anna og jeg på listen over talere til konferencen. Vi skal med udgangspunkt i bogen og radikale.net, som Anna er ophavskvinde til, fortælle om, hvordan politikere kan bruge sociale medier til at revitalisere forbindelsen til borgerne.

Det bliver nok ikke det sidste, vi skriver om konferencen her på bloggen.