I’ve been in the internet, mobile and tech industry for about ten years and have been a keen observer of Jamaican and Caribbean companies and their willingness to wait and watch what others do first instead of observing, seeking to know, accepting and positioning themselves for the inevitable.
The inevitable being- their customers are spending lots more time online, revelling in their connections and choices and have left them behind scrambling to make good and catch up. It’s never fair to wash an entire industry, country or region this way, but I do it because I’ve been around and I also trendwatch for a living. There have been few Jamaican and Caribbean companies who have ran ahead, they are smiling now and like Usain Bolt is looking over their right shoulder, hand out, calling to their slower competitors to try and catch me if you can. I guess we would call those Caribbean companies – the pathfinders and fire starters.
The good news now though is that the majority of Caribbean companies seemed ready to move. They are making those calls to the pr and ad agencies and asking the tough questions; they are spending money to know; they are heading to conferences and workshops; they are opening the previously slammed shut doors and engaging the services of people and companies who’ve been waiting for a while to show them where and how to go about this business of the Web.
To these Caribbean companies we say welcome to the game as we wonder and wait with excitement to see what you guys will be doing with the Web in 2009?
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