This blogging thing...February

Ah well, another tardy post...I know now that I am not cut out to be a full time blogger, we have too many other things going on.

This month has been an exciting one despite the dismal weather up here in northern Spain. We have been full steam ahead with several projects including our wine promotion program which is moving ahead despite the clients being a famously argumentative bunch. If only they'd compete with their competitors instead of themselves.

Last week we found ourselves in Alicante signing up a new client in the fashion sector. And we are in the process of establishing new offices in Santiago and Madrid with the Santiago office due to open this month.

Mid February saw us in Madrid for the Online Marketing Espana conference to see some of the presentations and workshops. It was encouraging to see most sessions packed to the rafters and that the general profile of the visitors was younger and more dynamic than is often the case in ageist Spain. Some of the better presentations came from the search marketing consultants and the big guys such as Google and Microsoft.

While benefiting from high broadband penetration, the local market lags a couple of years behind places like the UK and Australia in terms of overall development. Communication and entertainment use is advanced but ecommerce lags behind European leaders such as Germany, suffering from Spaniards' preferences for cash and face to face transactions.

Some speakers proposed that the next phase of Internet development in Spain would see increasing adoption and activity amongst older age groups, something that I see taking significantly longer here in largely conservative Spain. The development of each country reflects local cultures and habits, some of which are so strong as to overcome even the relentless advance of technology and the market.