Nature gets creative at the jungle’s edge. Steve Doswell finds inspiration in at the annual FEIEA conference and awards in Brussels

“Go beyond the parish boundaries in search of fresh thinking”

I’ve spent ten years helping to run FEIEA. That’s the European Federation of Internal Communication Associations. I won’t spell out the acronym. It literally refers to ‘industrial editors,’ which is how the community it serves saw itself when FEIEA began life back in 1955. Having rocked up as the UK representative one autumn’s day in Salzburg, I was gradually seduced by the attractions of working with European colleagues into more responsible roles, first as communication director, later as vice-president and then president.

Ten years on, I boarded Eurostar at the end of November for two intensive days in Brussels in the company of fellow IC practitioners and association heads from across Europe. There were presentations from winners of last year’s Grand Prix communication awards, a ceremony to acclaim this year’s winners and a meeting of FEIEA’s governing council. It was all good. But an unexpected highlight was a tour de force presentation from Jef Staes. A former telecoms engineer, Dutchman Jef has seen the light about the information revolution and he’s on a mission to share, warn, encourage and enthuse anyone willing to listen to his highly colourful take on what he calls the change from a 2D to a 3D world.

With a verbal delivery, maniacal charm and eccentric physicality that recall Russell Brand, Billy Connolly and the Amish grandfather from the film, Witness, rolled into one (glimpse and gauge his singular style for yourself on YouTube) Jef’s a performer, loud and proud. He powers his mission with a convert’s zeal laced with challenging, but also self-deprecating, humour. His vignette about chiding his son (pre-conversion) for spending too much time in cyberspace may resonate with others as it did me: “I said to my son, ‘Hey Neil, don’t spend time on the internet, come and sit with us and watch TV in silence, because you’re not being social.’”

With the creative power of collaboration as a central theme, he spices his arguments with allusions to the natural world: don’t be a sheep (a passive, unquestioning follower), create red monkeys (his metaphor for innovation), are typical. Another – the jungle – provided one of the key take-aways for his IC practitioner audience. Why is there so much biodiversity in the jungle? Not because of soil fertility in the jungle’s heart, he said. Most new species develop on the edge of the jungle as a result of contact with other terrains. Which led me to think that IC has to innovate through the cross-fertilisation that comes from being open to other organisations, other functions, other disciplines, other ideas.

Still in Brussels, while discussing a research project with a Romanian colleague, I came across a quote attributed to 19th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, “It’s hardly possible to overrate the value of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves…such communication is one of the primary sources of progress.” It would be hard to find a better argument in favour of going beyond the parish boundaries in search of fresh thinking. It certainly explains why I’ve drawn so much of value from my pan-European experience through FEIEA.

Finally, in sharp contrast to such warm thoughts of collaboration, I learned while in Brussels that Belgium may be just one year and one election away from dissolving its nearly two-hundred year national union between the French– and Flemish–speaking communities. As I returned to our own still-but-notirrevocably United Kingdom I reflected that there’s a lot of it about…

Steve Doswell is chief executive of the Institute of Internal Communication You can find him on Twitter @stevedoswell and @ioicnews