In Brussels

Our first impression upon arrival was, where is everybody?

At 1:00 on a Tuesday nobody is on the streets.  No smokers lining the sidewalks, shoppers, people returning from lunch, tourists?

At our first client meeting we ask about the empty streets:  “Nobody lives in Brussels.  Everyone lives outside.  We have the most beautiful towns 30 minutes from here, Bruges, Gent.   So the reverse is happening here, the price of properties in the city are going down.  It’s becoming a place for the poor to live.”

The major technological advancement we saw was the elevator had no buttons.  Halfway down the hall you punched in your floor number on a pad on the wall and it told you which elevator to go to and it took you to that floor when you arrived.  The building which currently houses 3000 employees was made for 2000, so this system improves the elevator wait time.  

I noticed our client, who spoke English to us, spoke French to someone in the hallway and then Dutch to the woman at the conference desk. 

“Which language do you speak around here?”

He told us everyone has to be fluent in all three because he will speak to clients and hear presentations in all three, all day long.  He said his brain is tired at the end of the day switching back and forth, but the real challenge is marketing, his main job.

Imagine having to create a marketing campaign in two languages, French and Dutch.  And if you send the marketing piece in the wrong language to the wrong person, not only might they not understand it, they are offended and will cancel the service. 

Beyond that they need to come up with product names and since the Dutch speakers want nothing French and the French don’t want Dutch, you have to find a meaningless words that interests and attracts without offending.

Hence products with a name like Bizz.