A year out from what may be the most significant day in Scotland’s history, and the majority of businesses north of the border have yet to state their views on the prospect of independence.
There have been some high-profile declarations for both the Yes and No camps but the level of engagement among the business community in the overall debate remains minimal.
There appears to be a genuine reluctance to get involved an understandable fear factor among companies that declaring one way or the other could alienate customers and affect businesses in both the short and long term.
However, I expect those concerns will fall away in the months ahead as the referendum looms ever closer and the wider debate hots up.
The release of the referendum white paper in the next few weeks could also trigger an upturn in engagement among the business community.
And there is a lot to talk about.
There is more to a possible split from the United Kingdom than just the fate of the considerable revenues from the North Sea, which have been the focus to date.
A move to an independent nation would affect every single business operating to this day from the smallest of concerns to the country’s largest employers.
Business rate settlements, the support network for establishing and expanding firms, the export environment, the nature of relationships with firms in the wider British Isles are all at stake and there’s much more besides.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is expected to outline more of the SNP’s vision for independence today and there will be further disclosures from both sides in the weeks ahead in advance of the much anticipated white paper.
We have been assured by politicians that the legitimate questions of the business community will be answered in good time ahead of the referendum debate. At that point it will be make your mind up time.
With a year to go it is the perfect time for businesses to have the debate behind closed doors and come to a considered and cogent viewpoint that can be communicated publicly.
The referendum is too big an issue for sitting on fences and firms will be drawn into the debate whether they like it or not.
* Twitter inevitably announced its intention to float on the stock exchange with a tweet. Less than 140 characters to inform the world that the future of a company which has changed the way the world communicates was itself about to change the way it does business.
Twitter will argue that a stock listing will only serve to enhance the user experience by freeing up cash for technological development making the social media of choice for business, celebrity and the man in the street better than ever before.
But with new investment comes new imperatives that could make Twitter less fleet of foot than its rivals, a potentially fatal situation for any high-end tech firm.
So Twitter has to be careful and learn lessons from other tech giants who have found the transition to a member of the quoted establishment more tricky than initially anticipated.
There is precedent in the UK tech bubble which saw boom followed by bust but for Twitter the experience of Facebook is the most obvious example of the challenges ahead.
Analysts generally agreed Facebook’s stock was fairly priced at the initial public offering last year and take-up was strong.
The stock price rose initially but doubt over the company’s ability to commercialise its offering by fully integrating on-site advertising without putting off users led to a slump in the share price.
It has taken months for confidence to be restored by Mark Zuckerberg and co and the share price only recently climbed back above the IPO price.
Twitter, whose decision to float was inevitable given the hundreds of millions ploughed into its development by early investors since it was founded, is in a close period meaning it cannot make further public statements about its intentions.
It has to hope it has already done enough to convince investors that it is capable of performing the tightrope act of keeping its users engaged while being able to live up to the demands of its new master the shareholder.
A tricky balancing act indeed.