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.
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?
ReplyDeleteAlso, so far what has been the most interesting event you've attended or task that you've tackled?
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.
DeleteThe 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.
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?
ReplyDeleteWell 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.
DeleteA 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.
Great replies Grant -- thanks for the additional information!
ReplyDelete