Submitted by dirk_s on Wed, 2012-05-16 11:33

I understand that a main focus of the digital agenda is to enable every European citizen to make use of digital services.

I feel that one group is not enough in focus: Small traditional businesses ("offline" - local business). They still often struggle to make make use of digital services to reach their customers online and bring them back in their stores and locations.

I think there needs to be more programs to support them to start and speed up with using online services for initial communication and marketing and integration of more advanced services in a further step.

Whilst adoption rate of internet services for the citizen is growing fast, traditional businesses become more and more "invisible" to the informed customer.

Whats your view?

Group audience:

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Comments

funny I should just find this

Submitted by conder on Sat, 2012-05-19 19:35

funny I should just find this post right after I tweeted on this very subject! I agree we do need more help for small businesses, but there is no point in providing help until they can all get a fit for purpose connection. Many of these businesses are not in the city centres, and therefore more often than not have inadequate connectivity. Slow connections cost money, and frustrate the users, and turn them off digital. We need to concentrate on making sure good connections are available, but be ready to provide help once they are. Most help can be accessed online, but not on dial up... The startups are also important, they are the small businesses that really need connectivity.
this is what I Retweeted earlier: RT @Fibretothehome: "nearly all the net job creation in the United States between 1980 and 2005 was start-ups" http://tinyurl.com/cp9j6pm #da12bb

Yes, broadband is an

Submitted by dirk_s on Tue, 2012-05-22 13:37

Yes, broadband is an important prerequisite. But as the infrastructure topics are the ones discussed already and got attention I wanted to put focus on the digital divide.
I fear, that even if fastest Internet was available to small businesses, still a lot of them wouldn't know where to start with making use of the internet for business.

Dirk this is exactly what we

Submitted by AxelS on Mon, 2012-05-28 22:17

Dirk this is exactly what we are proposing and already starting to do in the #da12social - it is all about the mid market. And the simple reason for that focus is that if we can make the mid market more successful we will see more jobs and a more stable economy.