Strange; I thought it was peace.
"Diplomacy opens a portal to profit; Boston’s consulates focus on business" by James F. Smith, Globe Staff | September 21, 2009
CAMBRIDGE - It’s no accident that the Swiss consulate for New England, with its huge windows, exposed brick, and chic Cambridge address, feels more like a high-tech start-up than a European diplomatic outpost.
For one thing, there is an actual start-up company inside - a Swiss software firm trying to break into the US market. The fledgling company has been invited to work out of the consulate building for up to six months, and take advantage of the technical support it offers as part of an “incubator’’ plan for Swiss small businesses....
They don’t even call it a consulate anymore; they call it Swissnex.
Talk about in-your-face.
Boston has long been one of a handful of American cities with a significant foreign consular corps, hosting full-time and honorary consuls general from 55 countries. Now, thanks to its combination of globally renowned technology companies and universities, Boston has also become a magnet for new approaches to cross-border linkages, with the Swiss and British consulates leading the quiet transformation of diplomacy....
So they should know be known as MARKETING AGENTS!
The British consulate general moved from downtown Boston across the river to the Kendall Square biotech hub in 2000, prodded by Gordon Brown, then-chancellor of the exchequer and now prime minister, after a Massachusetts vacation awakened him to the value of strengthening ties with the region’s leading technology institution. Brown soon fostered two projects, said Boston Consul General Phil Budden: the Cambridge-MIT Initiative, linking the University of Cambridge with MIT, and Britain’s Global Science and Innovation Network, which added science and technology offices to many consulates - starting with Boston.
The British offices will soon move again, from the
Tells you WHO are the REALLY IMPORTANT PEOPLE!
Politicians are elite ass-wipers, nothing more!
Other governments are also turning their Boston consulates into innovation centers.
The French....
The German government....
The Chinese government....
Norway....
But no one has done it as energetically as the Swiss, better known for precision watches and secretive banking than open-door innovation....
Related: Lying Looters Large and Small: Secret Stashes and Secret Deals
One breakthrough in conceiving Swissnex was the government’s decision to allow private funding for new Boston offices, financing everything from building costs to network and conferencing systems. Governments traditionally shy away from such intermingling of private and public sector spending, but that seems chaste in an age when the business of the consulate is business.
Switzerland’s ambassador to the United States, Urs Ziswiler, said that many of the programs in Boston, and in a similar office in San Francisco, emphasize Switzerland’s success in green technology, from cleaner rivers to bike-friendly cities.
In Boston, Marmier and his team turned out for “Bike To Work Week’’ in suits, to show the European tradition of biking to work in business clothes....
Did they now? TAKE your LIVES in your HANDS, did you?
See: Morning Bike Accident in Boston
Related: The End of Boston's Bike Program
MIT professor Edward B. Roberts, a specialist in entrepreneurship, said in a Web seminar last month that foreign governments in the Boston area are sharply raising their visibility and involvement with students and small businesses.
“If you are any kind of a technical organization or entrepreneurial organization [and] you are looking for someone to host you, in a beautiful space overlooking the Charles River, all you have to do is tell the British Embassy . . . and they will jump on the opportunity. The same thing is true of the French Embassy. The same thing is true of the Swiss Embassy. . . . This is now a very different class of engagement and I welcome it.’’
Just OPENLY SERVING those they ALWAYS HAVE!
Don't get me wrong, readers, I am ALWAYS for TRADE over WAR!
I would just rather not have the STATE doing the PROMOTING!
That NEVER SEEMS to turn out good.
