SMEs - Suddenly Everybody Loves You?

I received an e-mail last Friday from British Airways. It introduced 'a new forum for small business experts worldwide'.

The new forum is called the 'Face-to-Face Business Connection Hub - Innovation Discussed, Experience Shared, Growth Inspired' - and it consists of a series of blogs, and something called "The Face of Opportunity Contest".

I don't propose to comment on the blogs. You can read them yourself at British Airways - Be There Face to Face if you want to, but you will almost certainly find that you've read it all before (and better) elsewhere.

The contest, though, is interesting - or at least will be for British Airways if you really do (as they strongly suggest you should!) "Share your submission with your networks, friends, and colleagues and remind them to vote" in an effort to win, because if enough people do that, it will net BA a mailing list that will be far and away more valuable than the free flights they are offering as prizes to 250 successful contestants , thank you very much.

Some very unpleasant words - like 'opportunistic', 'cynical', 'exploitative' and 'bandwagon', for example - sprang to mind as I read my way through this beautifully presented (and almost certainly very expensively produced) piece of work, but what struck me most was how out of touch with reality it was, not just for SMEs, but for people in business generally in the present economic climate.

The fact is that 'face-to-face' - or at least 'face to face and in the flesh' - is a gone goose for practically everyone if it means travelling long distances and paying for meals and an overnight stay. And who needs 'face-to-face and in the flesh' anyway? Conference calling and video conferencing have made travelling from Halifax to Bolton unnecessarily expensive in time and money, never mind flying 'from London to NewYork and beyond'.

Take a look at the conferencegenie and you'll see what I mean. You can do 'face-to-face' quite cheaply - and much more comfortably! -from your office or your home, simply by taking advantage of this easily accessible technology.