Britain lags behind

London, UK

In today's Daily Telegraph tucked away on an inside page is an article entitled "British firms 'missing out on Facebook' by Ben Farmer:

British businesses are lagging behind overseas rivals in harnessing the power of social networks like Facebook and MySpace, a study says. That doesn't surprise me. I know of two firms who ban the use of Facebook, or indeed any internet access. Remember this post from last year?

Jim Nail, of TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony, which carried out the research, said: "It is surprising to see that the UK is lagging behind other major nations in terms of recognising the business potential for social media". As I said above, it doesn't surprise me. UK PLC never seems to enthuse about anything that it enterprising and forward-thinking. My colleague from the PSA, Graham Jones goes a bit further in this article.

On a slightly different note, at the end of 2006, I heard Sir Martin Sorrell at a business breakfast meeting. He suggested, that Britain, to a degree, had returned to "1974 type thinking". With the news that we're about to tax nom-doms and possibly over-regulate sovereign wealth funds like Dubai World, one does wonder. The UK government should be doing all it can to help promote inward investment.