Latest Editions

Pittsburgh’s G-20 marketing

Audio: Play | Download

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
The World’s Jason Margolis reports on efforts to use this week’s G-20 summit in Pittsburgh as a marketing opportunity for local businesses.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: As you heard earlier in the program, President Obama and other world leaders discussed nuclear disarmament this morning at UN headquarters in New York.  Now it’s off to Pittsburgh, and the G-20 summit.  The meeting gives leaders of the globe’s 20 biggest economies a chance to focus on the global economy.  For people and businesses in Pittsburgh, it’s their moment in the international spotlight, as The World’s Jason Margolis explains.

JASON MARGOLIS: It’s rare that cities get a chance like this: 20 of the most powerful leaders in the world in one place, at one time, along with hundreds of support staff, and thousands of reporters and camera people.  It’s a fleeting chance for local businesses to press as much flesh as is humanly possible.

MATT HARBAUGH: I wouldn’t call it pressure; it’s a great opportunity.

MARGOLIS: Matt Harbaugh is the chief innovation officer with the group “Innovation Works.” It’s a public-private partnership that provides seed money to Pittsburgh-area businesses like Ephiphany Solar Water.

MATT HARBAUGH: Dirty water comes in one end, through tubes, gets put through a solar-thermal heating system that purifies the water, and drinkable water comes out the other end. This is great technology for use in developing countries.

MARGOLIS: Like most every ambitious business-minded person in Pittsburgh, Harbaugh is hoping for just a few minutes of time from a visitor this week to brag about his business.

That was the idea behind the trade expo organized by Pennsylvania state representative Jake Wheatley.  It was held in Pennsylvania’s Hill District, about a mile-and-a-half from the Convention Center where the G-20 summit was taking place.  Wheatley’s assistant Chuck Tyler ran the show.

CHUCK TYLER: Major events of this magnitude are the Super Bowl champions, the Stanley Cup champions.  But no, there’s definitely a buzz throughout Pittsburgh.

MARGOLIS: The building where the Trade Expo was held is a community center.  It normally hosts afterschool programs for children, daycare, and services for seniors.  Expo organizers rolled out the red carpet – a spread of chicken kabobs, meatballs, and cups of macaroni and cheese.  But 30 minutes into the two-hour event, nobody had touched the buffet.  Tyler kept glancing towards the entrance as we spoke.

TYLERWorst case scenario would definitely be if we all just sat around and ate some great food and chit-chatted among ourselves.  The average outcome would be more folks like yourself coming in here and talking to the exhibitors and getting their stories out that way.  Optimum outcome would be a G-20 country rep coming in, actually engaging with a business and saying, “You know what, I need to take notes, I need to take your card, your company should be able to do business with my country.”

BUD LATEEF: We are a company focused on medication security products.  We have medication containers that are lockable.

MARGOLIS: Bud Lateef laid out his merchandise on a table.  His small company is called Lockmed Medical Products.  We chatted for close to 15 minutes; I wasn’t taking him away from any potential customers.  There were none.  But Rina Liu-Balshe strolled over and joined us.  She manages the International Trade Program with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission.  Her job is to help people like Lateef grow their businesses.  I asked her if the lack of visitors at the expo was disheartening.

RINA LIU-BALSHE: Actually, it is.  The reason I think, with all the security, all the things, probably logistically, make the organizing a little more difficult.  Because if you’re not from Pittsburgh it’s pretty difficult…. How did you find this place?

MARGOLIS: GPS.

LIU-BALSHE: Oh, GPS, well now, you brought GPS, but a lot of people probably didn’t drive.

MARGOLIS: Nobody at the Expo was expecting Angela Merkel or Nicolas Sarkozy to personally walk through the doors.  But the lack of any foreign visitors couldn’t help but breed some cynicism that big international conferences like the G20 take place in hermetically-sealed convention centers.  

I spoke with one woman from a local chamber of commerce who asked not to be identified by name.  She said she wasn’t surprised nobody came.  She asked me:  “What would you do if you were a foreign visitor with a couple of days in Pittsburgh?  Go to a party thrown by the Brazilians or a trade expo in the poor part of town?”  

I stayed the full two hours at the Expo to see if anybody arrived.  I started to feel as anxious as organizer Chuck Tyler looked, like we were somehow in this together.  In the end, nobody showed up.  And I was the only member of the media.  I asked Tyler for his reaction.

TYLER: I’m going to use President Obama’s grading scale.  This was an A-minus.  We engaged small and medium enterprises.  We allowed them to network.  And we had great folks like you.  So we did generate some type of external attraction to our events.  And so, A-minus.

MARGOLIS: Or, as local businessman Fred Neumeyer said as he was packing up his display…

‘

FRED NEUMEYER: Ahh, there’s always tomorrow!  [LAUGHS]

MARGOLIS: For The World, I’m Jason Margolis in Pittsburgh.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.