Friday, February 29, 2008

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.

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