“Hey Ben, I’m heading up a social media analysis of the NATO summit in Warsaw, we are looking for a student to fly to Brussels and give a keynote presentation to NATO … we a need someone who can really pitch it,” Dr Jenny Robinson asked ecstatically.

Okay I can do data, I can give presentations, I know where Brussels is… now I just need a crash course in world politics and some sales sizzle.

“Sure, I would love to help out”

Help.

The analysis of the NATO Summit was only a week away on the 8th and 9th of July with the presentation a couple days later in Brussels – that’s a short turn around for an important analysis.

Thankfully, Jenny had assembled an all-star team for the project: Nicole Matejic author of Social Media Rules of Engagement, Sharon Greenfield an ex-Intel manager in UX and Community Management, Mohammad Ibraheem Abdullah an Iraqi journalist, lecturer and a PhD scholar of media at RMIT University and Joshua Ehrlich a Master of Advertising student and accomplished designer.

I was in over my head. Of all the talented team members, I had the responsibility of delivering the work to NATO HQ.

Now while I’m knowledgeable in social media and communication strategies, I didn’t know how this would work on a multilayered political level.

Determined to not let the team down I borrowed all the books I could find and chewed through them:

@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex by Shane Harris
Social Media Rules of Engagement by Nicole Matejic
Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know by P.W Singer
Spam Nation: The Inside Story of Organized Cybercrime-from Global Epidemic to Your Front Door by Brian Krebs.

A whole lot of reading and many emails sent between NATO, RMIT and the University of Toronto and I felt informed and ready to go.

The social media analysis was done at RMIT’s VX Lab; giving us lots of screen architecture to work with. I nerded out the whole night, watching social trends grow and fall flat on Brandwatch, tracking sentiment analysis and sharing findings amongst the team from Mentions and Little Bird.

The team had diverse skills and were always on the same page - they understood the objectives clearly and outlined the tools we needed to help us get there. Sharon was really great at project management, suggesting diary entries for the qualitative analysis and outlines to follow. Nicole had extensive knowledge in the social media and political landscape which was invaluable in hunting down data. Mohammad had a great eye for seeing political tension that could cause conflict in the future. And Josh was exceptional at analysing visual communication and working with the data visualisation tools. As always Jenny had the whole thing running buttery smooth, keeping strong communication between NATO and RMIT.

The Monday after the weekend we regrouped as a team at RMIT to create a story out of the qualitative and quantitative data captured. Messy whiteboards, battery drained laptops and lots of coffee breaks and we had a data story and slide deck for the team to work on whilst I flew out the next day.

The next day… Yep, Stress levels are high and it was now time present to NATO in Brussels.

Having landed after the 23hr flight, my notebook was chockers with plane scribbled speech notes and motivation from reading Richard Brandson’s autobiography. The weather was moody with wet weather that cleared within ten minutes – “ah just like Melbourne weather, I feel at home.”

After wading through my flooded inbox, I sent the updates from the RMIT team to NATO and the University of Toronto for collaboration before the final speech at the end of the week.

A quick shuttle bus ride to the hotel and the friendly driver shared what to expect from NATO and the best ways to get to the HQ. After a friendly goodbye from him, I met Danielle from Toronto University for dinner to discuss our team’s findings.

Danielle and I would work to join the findings from RMIT and the University of Toronto into a 1hr long presentation to give to NATO. And from our initial meeting I was so thankful that we’d teamed up. She was the perfect person to work with under the tight time pressure; a quick problem solver, educated on world events and a smart worker. I had a great partner keep up the fast pace work and compliment my social data and design skills.

“Now before we get started, I have something important for you” Franky Saegerman head of Digital Insights says the next morning at NATO, “you’ll never know when it might rain in Brussels… so here are some umbrellas.”

Upon walking into NATO everything was grey and serious, yet bustling with so many different nation members speaking English and French. Everyone wore well fitted suits, sharp haircuts and polite smiles as they briskly walked through the laminate corridors. Upon entering the main building, a timeline showing NATO’s history was printed onto the walls. It was a nice reminder that NATO was committed to acknowledging the past, but also prepared for the ever changing digital future.

After a final tour of the communication facilities and again me geeking out at the technology, we found a space upstairs to work on combining our data results and the slide decks. But, very quickly 5:30pm rolls around – home time. Franky politely says “don’t work too late.” Putting a lot of trust in what we would deliver the following morning would be outstanding.

Danielle and I both knew it would be a long night ahead combining our presentations to make sure we did Franky proud.

By the morning we had our 1hr presentation practiced and looking slick. It was full of qualitative and quantitative analysis, category breakdowns, sentiment analysis and recommendations for improved social in 2017.

Silently NATO state members filled the room. The screen flashed a spinning globe, tweets from around the world and graphs dancing with trending topics. Ambassador Tacan Ildem opened by thanking us for our hard work, reminding the room of the importance of digital and briefly introduced the project. Steven Mehringer, Head, Communications Services, added to this with a passionate project overview. The audience applauded. Franky Saegerman gives us the nod. And I awkwardly tested the microphone – Show time.

Danielle spoke into a table top mic and public diplomacy staff from all over the world rushed notes down and nodded thoughtfully. We had a captive audience, itching to know more. Jokes were kept to zero and the liveliness seen in my normal presentation was replaced with a strong, confident and serious tone. What could have bored people. Graphs. Had images and context – the rise was when Obama tweeted this or when a social actor shared this. To show how social media and the real world interacted with each other.

An hour later we concluded our presentation and opened up for feedback. We were flooded with questions regarding best practice for research methods, social media analysis tools, how to catch trends early and any further recommendations. Then even as the doors opened to signal everyone to leave, members came up afterwards to ask a couple more questions and give their thanks. Once the final member had left the room, I took my first breath in the last two hours and hugged Danielle excitedly.

“Well done!” Franky said with a grin on his face; as if he had known we had it in us all along. I was ecstatic. I knew we delivered something both RMIT and Toronto University would be proud of. And NATO members were already eagerly anticipating the follow up report in their email inbox.

News Articles:

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/4034571/launceston-mans-presentation-to-nato/?cs=5312

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/4034571/launceston-mans-presentation-to-nato/?cs=5312

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4034571/launceston-mans-presentation-to-nato/?cs=5312

http://www.examiner.com.au/story/4034571/launceston-mans-presentation-to-nato/

Blog

That time I flew to NATO HQ to speak on digital communications.

News Articles: