Time for some more "Emerging Findings" from the Scottish Government's digital directorate "Supporting the transition to a world-leading digital future", the latest in a series of publications on the subject.
So far Scotland only leads the world in dreaming up fancy names for amorphous entities. Although short of concrete actions to boost trade in the here and now – e-commerce skills training programmes, for example – we have instead a new range of terminology: Digital Excellence Partnership, Big Data innovation Centre, Digital Leadership Programme, Digital Participation Charter, Digital Excellence & Demonstration Centres, Application Programme Interfaces. Is anyone keeping track of all these abstractions?
The right stuff
Some cheering answers to the question "Is Scotland still a good place to do business?" were heard at a stimulating policy breakfast hosted by Newgate Communications and lawyers DWF Biggart Baillie.
The answer is yes, according to main speakers Iain McMillan of CBI Scotland and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce head Stuart Patrick, both of whom were refreshingly optimistic, and who took comfort from factors as diverse as trading opportunities with Indonesia and Venezuela, and a marked increase in March car sales.
The Glasgow audience was happy to be reminded of exciting initiatives in the city, including Strathclyde University's new Technology Innovation Centre and an International Technology Renewable Energy Zone plus the £24 million Future Cities Demonstrator (smarter transport systems and so on).
And while McMillan highlighted the importance of education in the economy, and the need to improve illiteracy and innumeracy rates, Patrick pointed out that Scotland scores very well in "educational excellence" when investors are asked why invest in Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article