I have attended Digital World 2014 and the recently concluded Digital World 2015. It was a great experience looking to the enthusiast eyes of the young men and women who joined in numbers to seek knowledge, to share, to hear and some to be heard despite all odds of current political situation. Needless to mention that these people are mostly from export focus IT industry the next chapter after Garments industry in Bangladesh.
When it comes to export apart from being able to deliver quality product timely and cost effectively another issue comes forward that is ‘Positive Country Branding’. Like this Digital World summit, country branding was the talk of all events I have attended lately including TEDxDhaka. While the big names in economic forecasters like The Economist reports “Bangladesh: A remarkable improvement” , Goldman Sachs includes Bangladesh in its N-11 Nation list among the world’s largest economies in the 21st century, when Dr. Rob Vows, Director UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs explains “Bangladesh Economy is a Star in the World Economy” and when CNN Money forecasts Bangladesh among “the fastest-growing economies in 2019” then why and where we lack in branding Bangladesh that’s remain a big question.
Even in ‘CXO Night‘ of recently concluded Digital World 2015 it was the key discussion point. Moderator Russell T. Ahmed asked the same question to a distinguished panel combining policy makers from govt. and Industry experts. In Russell Bhai’s quest in getting a single line answer to this question of what can we do in branding a positive Bangladesh the panelists presented different solutions (some old and some unique). But all were externally focused, all answers were limited to what govt. bodies can do or what industry experts can do. My argument is not that they were all wrong or inappropriate rather they were all very good; but from my point of view one important internal element was missing, that is as a nation, as a group, as a representative of a specilised sector or as an individual how well and how positively we brand ourselves thus our country, that is more important. We will do Digital World every year, take part in CeBITs and Expos across the globe; we will organise events and take part in major events abroad. All these will give us a face-lift for sure but before that we will have to have a positive face at the first place.
What is the first thing a person do when looking for something in this digitally enabled world? Answer is Google search, isn’t it? Then why ask when the answer is so obvious? The reason is not the question, the reason is the answer instead, the result that come out when someone search for Bangladesh. Because that result is our face to the world; because that is what someone get to see when looking for Bangladesh; because that is when someone build his or her first impression about Bangladesh; and that is when the perception is built positive or negative.
How does search engines make this face of ours? This face is made of collecting content in the form of information, pictures, images, graphics, jokes, comics, thoughts and news we upload, share and spread though our websites, portals, social media and blogs as individuals, as groups, as a body or as an industry everyday. Better our contents are beautiful or smarter we will look. The expositions and events can work as brush-ups on that beautiful face of ours but they will never be the face.
Unfortunately our face is not in good shape as we choose to share negativity over positivity. We share one Tazreen fashion disaster thousand times but not million success stories in the garment sector for a single time; we share how hard and cruel is pulling a Rickshaw but we do not share that even a day labour has access to cable connection now a days; we share how poor our internet connectivity is but not what we have achieved in the IT industry in just few years time; we only share success stories if it is directly related to us but share negative stories from every corner. The reason of spreading negativity is probably our perception about us. We lived in so much of negativity that now we do not believe good things can happen to us, we become skeptical when the do.
We need to bring change in this attitude. We need to pull us out from this negative perception about ourselves at all level. We need to learn and teach practicing positivity, learn to see the good things, talk about the good things, and share good things about ourselves to get that face right. Sumit Roy of Univbrands once said while talking about creating brand image that:
the look of their outlets or their fleet of aircrafts does help DHL to have a positive brand image to some degree but it does not depends on that rather it very much depends on the person who deliver the parcels because customers engage and interact with the delivery man not with the hoardings.
Finally as they say “first impression lasts”, we have to ensure that we also get the first impression right at the first place. We need to display a positive face everywhere, everyday. It will take time but we will get there eventually if we start now.
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