Portaleco (Germany) makes an interesting comment to a post from last October that I felt worth capturing and noting here.  It brings home to me that we are all to a certain extent cocooned by our environments, as much as the web is world wide.

The philosophical differences between the big continents remain, and provide a different lens for each of us, and how we see things.

So while I don’t full agree with the comment, I accept that we don’t all see the same things, the same way, and that strategies may need to be refined and regionalised to some extent.

portaleco  // Feb 2nd 2007 at 11:02 (edit)

With all the excitement about Web 2.0 capabilities you should not forget that a great part of your banks target audience is web agnostic. US is probably way ahead with adoption of Web 2.0 techniques by customers. In other parts of the world but also in US you have to provide smooth entries in the world of free interaction between banking organisation’s employees and their customers.

Colin // Feb 2nd 2007 at 13:58 (edit)

Interesting observation. My sense is that web use is pervasive everywhere, but the usage of social aspects of the web might be more prevalent in North America. Yet, I still don’t quite get the differences yet. This quote from Semel/ Yahoo is about new advertising, yet it might argue against your point:  “Still, some believe that online advertising in Britain provides somewhat of a roadmap for where online ads in the United States and elsewhere may be heading.  The U.S. is so behind, said Terry S. Semel, the chief executive of Yahoo, in a recent speech in London.  It’s certainly lagging the U.K. by at least a year or two”.

http://thebankwatch.com/2006/12/04/nyt-the-future-of-web-ads-is-in-britain

Source: How to web 2.0 your bank « The Bankwatch