EuroBubba

July Bootstrap B2B

Fernando Labastida will lead this month’s Bootstrap B2B meeting.

Topic: “Smarketing: How to market an international company in the US on a shoestring”

When: Monday, July 26, 2010 7:00 PM

Where: Business Success Center
Chase Bank Tower 7600 Burnet Rd.
Austin, TX 78757
933-1983

By use of white papers, case studies, press releases, blogging and social media, small international companies can implement the “Smarketing” methodology to enter the U.S. market: a hybrid of sales and marketing, in order to penetrate the fortresses corporate decision-makers set up to protect themselves from sales people, create buzz, and generate sales.

Fernando Labastida specializes in providing content marketing services for Latin American software companies wanting to penetrate the U.S. market. He’s been a sales and marketing professional for the last 20 years, having worked for several Austin start-ups, including Powered, Vignette and Sunset Direct.

http://latinitmarketing.com/como-entrar-mercado-estados-unidos
Twitter: @flabastida

Bootstrap B2B meeting 4/19

The Bootstrap Business-to-Business subgroup meets Monday:

WHEN: April 19, 2010 at 6:30 pm
WHERE: Business Success Center in the Chase Bank Building, 7600 Burnet Road (corner of Burnet Rd & Northcross Blvd, one block south of Anderson Lane), Suite 130.

Our speaker will be James Baker of Revenue Rising, speaking on:

The Business Communications Spectrum: The Journey
from Your Guts…to Client Advocacy.

“Everyone’s company is unique in both form and function. The main thing is
the mastery of Leadership’s integrity around its commitment to the
CLIENTS’/CUSTOMERS’ experience. That encompasses EVERY area of your
business…from financial to production to sales…leaving nothing
untouched. Come prepared to participate fully in a guided discussion around
that topic.”

Please RSVP to mlg@bdanube.com

See you Monday!

Learning to love global warming? German ship to cross Arctic

The German ship Beluga Fraternity will become the first to navigate the Arctic Circle from Siberia to western Europe this summer, according to Popular Science. If successful, the voyage will be the first such by an international commercial vessel.

Rodrik’s progressive trade agenda

Economist Dani Rodrik offers some suggestions for what a progressive trade agenda might look like:

1. Embrace globalization
2. More and better social insurance (safety nets) and redistribution of gains from trade
3. Better international rules to protect domestic values and norms
4. Multilateral orientation
5. Leave “policy space” for developing countries while establishing broad democracy and human rights principles within the trade regime
6. Begin expanding international labor mobility, not just mobility of goods and capital

Walled in

Risto Karajkov argues at Newropeans Magazine (silly name, interesting site) that the EU should ease visa restrictions on the people of former Yugoslavia (minus Slovenia and Croatia), who this January 1 “woke up to realize that they are completely surrounded by the thick walls of Europe. They woke up to realize they cannot move out. [...] A businessman planning a business trip through a few new EU member states and a few of the old ones would have to spend a month (in the least) obtaining visas. Anyone confronted with such a challenge, realizing on top of that the amount of working hours he/she would have to spend in all the different consulates, would simply give up. Not to mention the cost. Many estimates have pointed out that a significant share of the financial aid the EU gives to theses countries is offset by what they spend on visas.”

New eastern EU members may enjoy open borders by Christmas

EU Business reports that senior European Union officials expect a final decision to end passport and security checks at land and sea borders between the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia and their adjacent older EU member states in November, meaning freer travel by the Christmas holidays. Airports are scheduled to join the zone next March.

Meanwhile, the EU Observer reports that non-members (so far) Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia have signed visa agreements to make travel to the EU easier and less costly for their citizens. The Balkan countries are pushing for visa requirements to be eliminated altogether; the EU remains hesitant.

Howdy!

Welcome to the new and improved EuroBubba blog. I want to do some things here that I can’t do on the old hosted blog at wordpress.com, so this is where I’ll be posting from now on. There’s not really a lot of content back at the old blog — it was only up for about six weeks and I didn’t really write much during that time — but feel free to have a look if you’re interested.