What does Todd Really Do?

Besides traveling, exploring and adventuring? I actually do have a purpose for being in Kosovo beyond the clean air and raging nightlife. Lets see if I can explain this in English (not because everyone here speaks Albanian but because there are enough acronyms in this line of work to actually be its own language). In a nutshell, my project is trying to help stimulate local economic development in the private sector. Due to the mostly rural environment this primarily falls into the exciting industries of growing and harvesting fruits and vegetables or working with the dairy sector milking cows and producing dairy based products. We do a little on the side with construction materials, wood flooring and even asphalt laying.

And what do I do for the project actually never having grown a vegetable or milked a cow? Well, I like to think a bit of post harvest marketing and linkages to actually get the products sold so the locals can have a livelihood and continue to develop their businesses. This is very slow and painful process since to begin with, most of the local product quality does not stand up to the flood of imported products being sold. Second, very few companies or people understand or recognize the value of marketing. Third, any domestic or regional sales are mostly based on personal connections AND there is general mistrust in the Balkans for doing business with Albanians (Kosovars). Beyond all this, no problem.

My team is the Marketing and Trade Linkages group (original huh?). Well aside from a good size collection of small deals and projects that we work on in each sector (entirely other teams working with the technical side of our project), we produced the first Marketing & Linkages Conference in Kosovo last week which brought together about 200 local retailer operators, producers processors, traders, wholesalers, donor groups, associations and marketing agencies. It was held in the only venue large enough known as the Grand which is an old Socialist hotel that was recently privatized but has yet to reflect any improvements. I was able to bring in some very well known and reputable regional retail chains to share their insights and words of advice with our infant industry in Kosovo. All and all the conference was very well received and we believe that not only did the attendees hopefully learn a new thing or two about how to improve their business but they met a couple new business prospects.



Although I have done similar events to this in the past, I learned very quickly that Kosovo once again provides a unique environment to operate in. For example, each of the 13 presentations had to be translated and edited for English, Albanian and Serbian (which means 39 versions). Not to mention most of the speakers are not very good (understatement) at using powerpoint so I had to edit each one increasing font size, altering layouts etc. The problem was that since a majority were not in English, I could not actually comment or edit the text. And then once it was translated if we needed to make edits we would have to do it 3 different times.



And of course there are the obligatory opening remarks by VIP's and government officials. Our keynote Deputy Minister of Ag. bailed at the last minute so we got his assistant who proceeded to talk 10 minutes over his allotted time about nothing related to the topics at hand. And then there is the attention span. Apparently most of the audience could hold it together for about a half hour before they get fidgety, start talking, leave the room, or take their cell phone calls. This attention deficit was magnified by the fact that once I fed them their free lunch, about 3/4 of the conference left leaving only a handful for the final excellent panel discussion. And you could forget about getting any supplies from the hotel. They don't even have a copy machine. All the projectors, computers, translation equipment, speakers, microphones etc were brought in from outside companies. They did however provide the food, drinks and little snacks which were much appreciated. Can't say much for the quality of the local wine though.



So all things aside, several of the Ministers said it was one of the best events they have ever attended. USAID made opening remarks with the Mission Director and appeared to be very interested in the guest presentations made during the morning sessions. As for me, 3 months of planning and logistics were rewarded by my failed attempt to snowboard (see earlier blog posting). And there you have it. I guess an event in the life...