In 2006, when Jean-Marc and I launched our ideas for enterprise “Web 2.0,” business platforms and collaborative sites to boost SME activity, we primarily targeted public institutions whose mission was precisely to stimulate economic activity: CCIs, research support organizations, clusters, professional associations. Somewhat naive and idealistic, at the time we were even ready to work in collaboration with them to demonstrate our concept, without them spending a single cent.
Although we were always received politely, nothing concrete ever came out of those meetings. The “innovative” concepts we presented were not seen as key in this industrial world. Yet sharing knowledge, pooling resources, unified marketing, collaborative work, and groups of SMEs joining forces to tackle large-scale markets are not gimmicky tools: they are a mindset and a way of working which, when they are (properly) used, produce innovation and wealth.
Still believing today that the future of SMEs lies solely in protecting and developing their know-how within a closed circle is a bit like believing that an IT specialist can, alone in his garage, design the operating system that will dethrone Windows tomorrow: that is the utopia. On the other hand, hundreds of programmers in their basements are making the giants of computing tremble with open-source software.
But here we are, in 2009, and the world has already changed. The crisis has passed through, and is prompting healthy reassessments. The proof? For the past few weeks, our phones have started ringing again. On the other end of the line, public organizations that would like us to present our feedback on business platforms. It will be our pleasure.
