Report :

I would like to express my gratitude for my selection to participate in a workshop entitled “Political Communication in the IT Age” in Theodor Heuss Academy in the town of Gummersbach, Germany, during 2-14 December. The political land technical benefits were greater than I expected. Moreover, the training had a direct impact on my professional life and enabled me to plan future projects that will have a profound effect on the media profile of the DFP. The following is a summary of the most important activities of the workshop, the lessons learned, as well as a brief future vision and a discussion of potential cooperation with the institution.
The theoretical study started with the means of managing the repute through the Internet. Our able trainer, Abraham Olandres, taught us the way of creating personal blogs, the means of management, and the addition of new information. The professional politician Gulmina Belal talked to us about her influential experience in using the Internet as a media tool in achieving the political impact. Her success stories were very stimulating to us, and we wanted to make the utmost use of this knowledge hoping that we can achieve the same impact on our communities.

The practical training occupied the largest amount of time. Through this training every participant created his/her blog. We also learned how to use many of the Web 2.0 tools. We were divided into four groups, in which we worked on a presentation on the use of the Internet and its impact on all areas geographically divided according to the continent. We were also divided into 4 major groups: a news group, an electronic bulletin group, a documentation and recording group, and a control and entertainment group. Each morning prior to commencing the program, each group gave a presentation, which created an atmosphere of friendliness and mirth among the participants. Then we were divided into groups to learn how to use Web 2.0, which helped us understand deeply and more comprehensively the tools.

We had a meeting with the Chairman of the International Relations in the German Democratic Liberal Party, during which he talked to the participants about the political media strategies using the Internet, and the impact of the web on the elections. Then we had a tour in the city of Cologne, where we visited the grand Cathedral and walked around the Christmas markets. Then we were given a presentation on the rules for writing on the Internet, the means for attracting attention. We also learned the way of recording, changing, and saving votes and the movies. We learned how to broadcast these movies on our blogs, which provided us with more attractive methods on the use of the Internet. We visited the city of Weimar and Dresden. We toured the Christmas markets once more. We also visited the Center of Multimedia, University of Dresden, where we were given lectures on blogging, e-learning, and other multiple uses of information technology.

We finally visited the Parliament of the state and had a meeting with the spokesman of the Party and talked about elections campaigns, and the current issues. Moreover, the e-marketing party official gave us a presentation about the use of the Internet in political marketing for the party.
In the following day we visited the MDR station, in the town of Ivernet. The visit was charming, as we saw in reality the way the station worked, and the president gave us a presentation on the way the German government deals with public media and the laws thereof.

Finally, came the presentation with Alex Wünschel, the marketing expert.  He showed us how to turn blogs into income-generating projects. We had a deeper study related to understanding blogs, the means for improving search results of the blog contents in order to increase the number of potential visitors to our blogs. Our trainer would spend long nights to give us more advanced presentations to those who desired extra information. This was the elixir of knowledge, their use was invaluable. The Academy was fully equipped to host this training, and hospitality was fabulous, as all the participants felt the friendliness and the warmth starting from the administration staff up to the trainers. The effort exerted by the coordinator Petra was the best evidence on the interest of the Academy in this training, which was the first of this kind. The networking among the participants, which was aided by the training and the group work, was indeed the true fruit of this workshop.

I would like to reiterate my thanks to FNF and the Academy for the great mission they are undertaking, and I hope that I get the opportunity to pay both of them back.