Strange kind of issue today I know folks, but it’s something I want to gauge my visitors views on in light of the fact that in the past few months I have through my own networking and indeed through this site come in touch with people and companies which strictly speaking can be considered as my competition. Many of these people and companies have expressed desires to meet up with me informally over a beer or a coffee and have a chat.
Now generally speaking, I love chatting about the businessy (not actually a word I know - but should be) side of the web such as SEO, Internet marketing, ecommerce in general, takeovers, stocks etc. and not the technicial side of it, this is despite the fact that I have a first class honours degree in Computer Science and work as a PHP/.NET developer (or ‘code monkey’ as my boss calls it) during the day but one has to wonder about the merits of meeting up and getting to know the competition.
What good can come of it I wonder? Does it enable us to learn more about the competition in order for us to make ourselves better than them or even to enable us to put them out of business? Or does it put in place a type of ‘friendly competition’ which can be useful when either side gets bogged down with too much work and is looking for someone to send that excess work to perhaps even in return for an ever so slight commission?
Is it possible for two competitors to meet without ulterior motives on either side? These days even the smallest bit of business information could potentially be worth thousands and thousands of hard earned currency, so are meetings like these basically an exercise in information extraction in which the most tactful side will ‘win’? Or is there enough business out there for both sides and is an exchange of tips, thoughts and approaches beneficial to both parties for use against the rest of the markets’ competitors? These are the questions I pose, your thoughts and opinions are as always much appreciated.
