Saturday, November 13, 2004
Exceptionally and to keep my precious aura of objectivity that my readers appreciate so much, I’m going to write a laudatory article about Mexico. Distinguished Internaut, behold the sweet words that will appear under my virtual pen, they might be short-lived, like blooming roses in the desert.
Destiny’s twisted path conducted my company to participate with a booth in the Semana PyME exhibition held from November 1st to 5th in Mexico City.
As expected the organization was awful: no less than a dozen spelling mistakes in our company description on top of the booth, the event’s official directory indicating the wrong booth number for our company, no electricity installed in the booth a mere 10 hours before the grand opening, etc. A caricature of Mexico and its defects, yet…
I couldn’t help but marvel at the hundreds of exhibitors present representing an amazing diversity of products and services, ranging from inventors showing their robot dinosaur to BBVA Bancomer showing their… good looking hostesses perhaps? I rest my case that high tech is only a fledgling industry in this country, but I can only be impressed by the breadth and scope of the economy as a whole.
Manning our booth allowed me to talk to dozens of entrepreneurs, manager of Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) who often demonstrated a surprising degree of knowledge about the technology we were offering. We registered over 60 prospects in 5 days – and have no idea how to follow-up on all of them (are we Mexican, or aren’t we?).
Mexico’s social diversity was also clearly to be felt, with the fancy snob from Tijuana and his model wife dropping some arrogant words, and hordes of students from Ecatepec or God knows where, swarming like clouds of crickets to steal our stress balls and other marketing gimmicks. I wonder if they will ever read the brochures they took from our booth?
At the end of Semana PyME, my company received a prize that makes me especially happy: we were nominated one of the top-25 technology developers in Mexico by the Secretaria de Economía, a valuable recognition for all our efforts. We know that we are trying to do something unheard of, and such vibrant support is more than welcome. A glimmer of hope to help us keep on the fight…
Since good news never come alone, I have just learned that we are also finalists in the Intel prize for a competitive Mexico. With over 100 participants from all horizons, this would be a prestigious trophy for a micro-business that boasts only 12 employees. I must admit that Intel take their role as promoters of high-tech in Mexico rather seriously. Kudos to them!
So, to anyone who wondered where I had disappeared, let me tell you that we went through some incredible roller-coaster weeks. I’m sure there will be more Mexican madness reported on this site soon, please stay tuned!
