“Homecoming Scotland” – a spectacular calendar of events throughout 2009 that Scots and those who “love Scotland” will flock to – but at who’s benefit?

Dressed up in Tartan, Haggis and Whiskey (no stereotypes here then), the Homecoming campaign is being heavily advertised on TV, through it’s dedicated website , and via the many events carrying the campaign logo.  Interestingly the TV advert was originally planned to only screen in Scotland, but after widespread astonishment has also just recently been released on an American audience.

The message is fairly straightforward – “come to Scotland, attend our events, and spend money”.  On the face of it, the concept is a good one, and one that Golf loving, whiskey drinking Americans might actually fall for.  Start looking a little deeper however, and you could be excused for seeing this as a very clever push from Mr Salmond and some popular celebrity Nationalists to promote all things Scottishness ahead of next years Independence referendum. 

Whatever your political view, Alex Salmond recently promised the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce that the Homecoming will be critical to helping businesses survive  through the economic recession,  claiming returns of over £40 million from the 100,000 increase of expected tourists.  But will the average Scottish small business actually see any of this, or will it simply increase the profits of the likes of Turnberry Golf Course (owned by an American company)  and other “stereotypically Scottish” attractions. 

More importantly – what about the massive £1.25 million budget (already thought to be overspent) agreed by the Scottish Government to market the Homecoming or the £200,000 spent in producing the TV advert (most of which I assume went to Sean Connery and singing lessons)?  Would this have been better spent elsewhere?  I’m sure if you ask any small business owner the answer will be a resounding yes – on issues such as employment, redundancies, lending, grants, simplified public sector tendering, shorter payment terms,  tax breaks, VAT changes (the move to a 15% rate actually cost us money), and many more ‘immediate’ concerns that are directly impacting the small business sector. 

I’d argue against spending the large sums mentioned in promoting a false “shiny happy Scotland” and all things Scottishness,  when in fact things are far from rosy for small businesses (the FSB have just confirmed a 214% increase to the FSB small business help-line) – often the heart of local economies and communities, and crucial to the country as a whole.  The general idea of Homecoming is not a bad one, but to quote The Bard – “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men  Gang aft agley”.

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On Monday I attended the latest “Digital Future Debate“, one of a number of seminars looking at IT, Innovation and Entrepreneurial skills in young people, and its potential positive impact on Scottish businesses. 

Focusing on Education, the event gathered together a wide number of relevant parties including educators, policy makers, business owners and (most importantly!) young people.  Panel members included among others, Sunday Herald business editor - Colin Donald, Raymond O’Hare (Regional Director of Microsoft Scotland), Kirk Ramsay (Chief Executive of the Science Centre), Joe Wilson (SQA Business Manager) and David Kelly (one of our web hosting clients!)..

In summary, the event generated a lot of good discussion, including debate on the “graduate skills gap” topic that I recently blogged on, with a representative from University of the West of Scotland claiming to be fully aware of the “relevancy” issues surrounding the teaching of ICT and Technology within Education Institutions, and confirming their plans to change it with some rather radical (and greatly welcomed) different approaches to traditional teaching.  Colin Donaldson introduced the sessions with the question “Does business do enough to help education produce people with the required skills?”  I’d argue that the issue is the inverse…  Having knocked on a few educational doors over the years to see how we (as a small company operating on the “front line”) can help guide coursework etc, it’s clear that many in the traditional eductional world want to go it alone.

With regard technology in schools (primary and secondary), it was generally believed that even today, it’s the kids that are teaching the teachers, but there was some disagreement on whether online tools such as blogs, wikis, facebook and bebo, instant messaging etc were appropriate for the classroom.  Personally I welcome them – the kids are already using them outside school, and as Joe Wilson pointed out, by using a combination of all these online apps they are effectively building their own “personal learning environments”, in which the potential to “learn” is often far greater than in the traditional classroom environment.

All in all – it was actually quite positive, with the future of education and it’s digital input looking promising, but as with all of these focus groups and debates, we now need to act rather than keep talking a good game-plan.

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Yesterday’s press announcement from the Scottish Nationalist Government regarding moves to introduce a Top Level Domain (TLD) for Scotland, has sparked some lively debate.  Despite the fact that this is nothing new (similar proposals have been around for many years), finance secretary John Swinney is backing the campaign for the new “.sco” suffix which will see Scotland have it’s own domain space.

My own opinion to the question – “should we bother” is featured in today’s The Scotsman newspaper (p 24), but in short – I seriously question the value in the .sco domain, and can’t help thinking it’s being used by the politicians to push their own agendas, and not the interests of the companies trading online from Scotland.  Shortbread and whisky anyone?

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