Monday, June 17, 2013

Organizational Assessment Blog Post


Organizational Assessment Blog Post

The organization I am interning with is called Security Europe.  Security Europe publishes monthly publications on civil security developments in the EU and can also provide clients with specified “trackers” – newsletters on a specific topic i.e. cyber security.   The main policy areas Security Europe deals with are security and defense in the European Union.

As an intern, I have had quite a range of tasks.   The principle role I’ve had so far is attending events and taking notes.  I’ve attended events at the European Parliament, the European Defense Agency, and a few speeches by politicians or security experts.  In addition to attending events, I have had to read final reports written for the EU Directorate of General Enterprise and Industry and then summarize them into more concise stories that will be published online and in print.  Recently, I helped to look at and reorganize Security Europe’s website and have also been asked to do research into how to use social media to promote the organization.

From what I have seen, Security Europe does not have too many organizational constraints despite only essentially having two full-time employees, two part time workers, and two interns.  But beyond best-case scenarios with a fleet of reporters and perfect technical operations, I’m not sure what could really be done in terms of the organization to make it function more efficiently.  “Security” is a broad policy to analyze, but it seems to me that it is specialized enough to allow for the employees to go to most if not all relevant events and report on the proceedings.  With the right connections, which my boss appears to have, there are not too many constraints when it comes to getting access to relevant information.

In terms of connecting to the larger landscape of European policy and politics, at the end of the day, Security Europe is essentially a newsletter that seeks to inform rather than dictate or overtly influence policy.  However, I think there are 13,000 subscribers to the newsletter, so in that sense one might argue that Security Europe’s interpretation of ongoing events could have some ramifications in terms of informing people.  That said, it’s hard to measure the influence of an organization like Security Europe but I do think (from what I have seen) that it has been effective in gaining followers and reporting on notable civil security developments.

5 comments:

  1. A good post, Grant. I'm curious -- what kinds of groups and organizations subscribe to the newsletter that Security Europe produces? Who is the main audience for your organization?

    Also, so far what has been the most interesting event you've attended or task that you've tackled?

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    1. I'm actually not sure exactly who the individuals/specific organizations are that subscribe to the newsletter as I don't have access to the subscribers database. I do however know that several MEPs subscribe. The main audience for the organization is really anyone who has an interest in civil security developments in the EU. However, Security Europe can also focus on more niche or specialized interests through the "trackers" I mentioned in my original post that highlight specific areas of client interest.

      The most interesting event I've attended was a panel at the European Defense Agency discussing "Safeguarding Defense Technology." In many of the classes I've taken that dealt with security issues they've only really addressed things in terms of broad policies or thematic/theoretical issues. The event at the EDA was about the concrete and relatively narrow topic of European defense spending/defense technological development. So it's been nice to see "real world" security issues being discussed as opposed to just reading about them.

      A couple broad things that have come out of events like this that have interseted me are the repeated comparisons between EU defense spending and the United States (U.S. spends so much, we need to as well to not become irrelevant) and the general sense that the CSDP is at a crossroads and member states must take tangible steps to further cooperation.

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  2. I had similar questions as Professor Boesenecker. However I'll add one or two: for SecEUR's private programs such as the "trackers," generally what are the customer's looking for? and how detailed/personalized are the reports?

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    1. Well I've primarily just been working on the normal newsletter, however I did write about half of a sample tracker to send to a potential customer about cyber security.

      A key idea behind the trackers is that the customer can select what they want to know/focus on so it can really vary in terms of detail/what they are looking for. In the case of the cyber security one, this meant looking up upcoming events/tenders/contracts and writing very short 4-5 sentence summaries and analytic synopses of developments related to the field.

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  3. Great replies Grant -- thanks for the additional information!

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