ChinaBiz Speakers Weblog

More internet trends at Beijing AdTech

2007-10-15T16:55:00.000+08:00

You are likely to hear a bit more about the latest internet trends in China as AdTech Beijing will open its doors soon and major bloggers will be reporting regularly. Thomas Crampton gives here an overview.
They include some of our speakers at the Chinabiz Speakers bureau, like Lonnie Hodge from Guangzhou, Kaiser Kuo and Paul Denlinger. To my amazement the interest in speakers covering this very existing subject has been rather low, compared to other industries and trends. For all the wrong reasons, I think. The outside world is not yet really realizing how the revolution in China nowadays it taking place.
Thomas gives you all the links you need and discusses the items on the program, like this very important one:

All statistics are lies, especially in developing countries. In China, however,
even online statistics are difficult to pin down.

While the US and Europe use relatively unbiased third party companies to verify data, I am told that Chinese Internet portals often offer no such guarantees. In addition, many companies do not buy based on impressions, they buy according to the number of hours a banner is online. You might, for example, buy a banner ad for three days, but not know how many times it has been seen. Why? One explanation is that the big bosses do not understand click-through, so they need to see an ad sitting for 24 hours on a website.
Companies at AdTech:
Nielsen//Netratings, DoubleClick, iResearch, Yankee Group.

Looks all pretty exciting.

Megatrends in the Chinese internet

2007-10-15T11:39:00.001+08:00

Thomas Crampton interviews in fast speed two prominent experts on China's internet about the latest trends. Kaiser Kuo from Ogilvy talks about the fast development of p2p in China, where in the US Napster-like services increasingly are being controlled. Andrew Lih, working on a book on Wikipedia, shows how the Chinese gaming scene is following the capitalistic way, also fast speed.
Kaiser Kuo belongs to our Chinabiz Speakers bureau; Andrew Lih not yet, but that is a matter (very short) time.

Meeting speakers - Bill Fischer

2007-10-14T19:24:00.000+08:00

One of the great things of having Shanghai as my current seat is that in the maelstrom of social activities many meetings with visiting speakers and other clients are on walking distance. Today we had planned a meeting with professor Bill Fischer from the Laussane-based business school IMD, who is in town for a lecture at a two-day internal meeting of the leftovers of IBM (after Lenovo took their PC-business over).
We had planned to meet at Sasha's, but there was a wodka-party going on, so we moved on to the beautiful garden of the Cotton's Club.
Bill is not only a talented speaker, but also a great networker and he would get us in touch with many people in his network.

Hurun identifies 106 billionaires in China

2007-10-10T14:35:00.000+08:00

Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf, in China better known as Hurun, identified in his annual report on China's richest 106 billionaires, up from 15 last year, writes Bloomberg.
According to Hoogewerf, who is also a Chinabiz Speaker, he has found only a part of China richest:

"China may have 200 billionaires, we just haven't identified them yet -- there are a lot of people out there who don't report their assets,'' said Rupert Hoogewerf, who has produced the list since 1999. ``The new wealth we haven't discovered yet is lying in the stock markets.''

His report was released yesterday, one day after Forbes came with a similar report. Both reports identify Yang Huiyan, the 26-year old daughter of a real estate developer, as China's richest person, with assets worth US$ 17.5 billion.

Brand building in China - Tom Doctoroff

2007-10-09T11:19:00.000+08:00

Tom Doctoroff

Chinabiz speaker Tom Doctoroff of JWT explains to Business Week how brand building among Chinese companies is changing.

The most exciting development is the emergence of midsize brands. You have these behemoth companies that are totally byzantine. But the midsize companies are led by visionaries who want to lead their companies to the top of the mountain. Most of the large companies use the big shops for propaganda purposes.

How much influence has China over Burma?

2007-10-06T16:13:00.000+08:00

William Overholt

Very little, says William Overholt, director of the Rand 's center for Asian Pacific policy and Chinabiz Speaker in the Los Angeles Times.

"They actually have very limited leverage, as all foreigners do," said William Overholt, who advised the pro-democracy coalition of 21 tribal groups that created the Provisional Revolutionary Government in Burma in 1989 and is now director of Rand's Center for Asia Pacific Policy. "The whole theory of this government is to cut itself off from the world so no one can influence it."

More in the LA Times. For those who have been following the conflict in North-Korea, the argument must not come as a surprise. Initially, China was also assumed to be in a position to change North-Korea's policies, politely or with economic sanctions. But its leverage proved to be much less than the US, as North-Korea was mainly eager to get the United States as a player in the talks. Also here it took a while before the China-experts could really made themselves heard in the political drumbeating.

Quality over price - Shaun Rein

2007-10-04T09:49:00.000+08:00

Shaun Rein

Chinabiz Speaker Shaun Rein takes on the perception that Chinese consumers go for price and the price only, here in Forbes. When international companies play their cards right, the Chinese consumers are willing to pay a premium for quality, especially when they are competing domestic Chines companies.

The trend for Chinese consumers is to buy items that are more expensive and of better quality. In other words, their frugality of recent years has been more a function of low disposable incomes than a cultural preference for shoddy yet cheap goods. How else can one explain BMW's smashing success in China, where the Middle Kingdom has become its fastest-growing market and second-biggest buyer of the flagship 7 Series?

That is of course true for those segments of the market who can afford to buy a BMW. But that segment is growing and, Rein argues:

Companies that understand the fear Chinese consumers have about being sold shoddy goods, and position themselves properly to assuage these fears, will be the beneficiaries of increased domestic consumption in the coming decade.

From mailing list to Facebook

2007-09-29T12:01:00.000+08:00

Now, we are looking forward to a well-deserved holiday, the remaining three weeks of October are going to be nothing short of hectic. Well in the second month of our operation, new projects, speaking opportunities and more casual visitors keep on asking our attention.
One of the more interesting new developments is the way we have started to talk to our network. We have set up a mailing list for potential clients and thought the number of people on that list would be a kind of benchmark for our success. I'm now actually very close to declaring the mailing list dead, since our activities on Facebook has been much more dynamic.
We have build there a community that has passed today 88 members and it has been for example the basis of our worldwide affiliate program. There is of course a danger of neglecting the people who are not yet on Facebook. We will find a solution for that.

Why a US crisis is good for China - Paul French

2007-09-27T11:13:00.000+08:00

Paul French

Never short of a provocative statement, our Chinabiz Speaker Paul French argues in his Access Asia Weekly update why a possible economic collapse of the US economy would be good for China, despite having a trillion or so in US dollars and other paper assets.

The other week, we made the argument (which apparently surprised a few of you) that the current vocal crop of China nay-sayers were ignoring a raft of economic evidence and that the economy is in pretty good shape, and holding up well, despite exaggerated consumption numbers. But, said a lot of you, what about the coming American recession? Won’t that throw one almighty spanner in the works? Well, by way of an answer, we say no, and we have one word for you if you think American’s cutting back on spending will cause the roof to fall in here – Japan.
Why Japan? Well, quite frankly, we are old enough, and very long in what is left of our teeth, and we remember when you could shop all day in a booming Tokyo and never see a Chinese made product. Japan boomed and China didn’t get much of the action. When Japan went pop, consumers traded down, ¥1,000 stores and discounters boomed, cheap-and-cheerful chains such as UNIQLO flourished and stores filled up with made-in-China goods. Put simply, the Japanese recession was good news for Chinese manufacturers.

His argument: a crisis in the US will have similar benefits for China's manufacturers.

The story cannot be over for Mattel - Bill Fischer

2007-09-26T12:16:00.000+08:00

Bill Fischer

Only apologizing is not enough in the mess Mattel created in its relationship with its customers, suppliers and China, argues our Chinabiz Speaker Bill Fischer in his latest column.

Call me old fashioned, but in the wake of the Mattel mess, I sort of miss the old Japanese-style "I'm sorry! We let you down! I resign!" type of CEO apology. Not for me, this "he did, we did, a little bit doesn't matter anyway," type of merry-go-round that Mattel treated us to last week. I mean, who did they ?Mattel and the Chinese Product Safety Agency -- think that they were kidding? Were they serious, which would be truly worrisome, or merely "toying" with us?

Why not to invite the minister of justice as a speaker

2007-09-25T11:56:00.000+08:00

Wu Aiying

At our speakers' bureau we try to advise clients as good as possible who to invite for a key note speech, seminar or otherwise. Here I want to discuss a recent case, since it points at some wrong perceptions when foreign clients look at China.
When one of our clients at Chinabiz Speakers told me recently he had invited the Chinese minister of justice Wu Aiying for a key note speech, at least three alarm bells started to go off. It was not only because I had never heard her name before, but because our foreign clients often are not familiar with the huge differences between their and Chinese administrations.
Already before he had ended his explanation, one of my worries was confirmed. Madame Wu had politely refused to give a key note speech. There are some good sites, like China Vitae, to check the backgrounds of the higher cadres. When they would have done so, they would have noticed that since she got her post, Madame Wu has nowhere been seen, not outside China, not inside China. The chances of getting such an official for a key note speech seemed pretty slim. Also, I could not find her back in any of the major Chinese media.
There were other reasons too. In most European countries ministers a relatively high officials, often directly involved in governing their country, sometimes even in charge of police forces. In China ministers - a bit depending on what ministry they head - operate on a much lower level. The real administration is done by the State Council and ministers are often care takers who are not supposed to take on a really high profile. There are exceptions, but the ministry of justice - although important - cannot be compared with similar ministries in Europe.
In the unlikely case a minister would accept an invitation for a key note speech, the chances of them really making statements or adding to an ongoing discussion is rather slim. Partly because their position in the administration is rather low, compared to their foreign colleagues, it would be unlikely they would say anything remotely interesting.
Picking a good speaker is not an easy job. When you get in touch with us on a timely basis, we are happy to provide you with good advise.

New profiles online

2007-09-24T15:41:00.000+08:00

CEIBS professor Wang Jianmao

We are happy to announce that we have now a few more profiles online of our speakers. Among them the famous associate dean of China's best known business school CEIBS, Wang Jianmao.

Others include, John Chan of China Streetsmart and sociologist James Farrer, who focuses on the sexual revolution in China. Other addition I will introduce later this week to you. But you can also have a look yourself at our website.

On the future of advertising - Paul Denlinger

2007-09-24T13:00:00.001+08:00

Paul Denlinger

Our speaker Paul Denlinger takes at his weblog Chinavortex on the divide between the Googlians and the traditional advertisers:

First of all, advertising has been divided into roughly two camps; the “Google is going to own the industry” camp, and a more traditional advertising camp, which says that traditional advertising (TV, radio, print) are going to survive and prosper, albeit in a very different form. I must confess that for a long time I have leaned in favor of the former, or Google camp.
But having thought things through on a deeper level, I think that it might not be so simple. Here’s why.

More at the Chinavortex.

Meet Bill IPR Thompson

2007-09-23T20:15:00.000+08:00

Bill Thompson

Today was a great day to meet people at Sasha's in Shanghai and just when I had decided to leave the place, a tall guy called Bill Thompson walked in together with a more stern looking guy from Gucci looking for fake bags. Bill is an old friend I had not seen forever and he was on my list as a potential speakers too.

Bill Thompson has been in the forefront of the struggle against fake goods in China like nobody else, organizing and supervising thousands of raids at factories all over China. For my previous book I have been interviewing him extensively. He is a good story teller and very knowledgeable when it comes to (local) government relations and putting the struggle for intellectual property in a good perspective.

There was on problem, I thought when we set off Chinabiz Speakers, since he was working for the Pinkerton's Asia, who started their career in protecting the expansion of the railways in the US, prosecuted the Jesse James's of those days, moved on as strike breakers and are now a well-established detective agency. In Asia they have been mostly in charge of actions to protect intellectual property rights. I was pretty sure they would have a policy in place preventing their employees from giving paid speeches.

But tonight I discover Bill had started his own agency three years ago and that means he is a - relatively - free man. We will have lunch soon and expect him as a speaker here soon.

Doing pretty well on Google

2007-09-23T10:02:00.000+08:00

I just did a random check to see how well this website is ranked at Google and was surprised by the high score. When you use the key words "China speakers" we end up in the top four and for most of our speakers, even the celebrity ones, Chinabiz Speakers ends up in the top-10 search results.
About time we bring a few more profiles online.

Working on speakers' guidelines

2007-09-21T14:00:00.000+08:00

As we are collecting every day new experiences, we try to get a better understanding on what is the best way for speakers to stand out, many tend to come with similar answers. They are experts in the China market entry, know the development of China's economy by hard, know excellent how to do business in China and are specialist in solving intercultural problems.
That is of course excellent and from many of our speakers I know it is true, only, when you are part of a larger pool of speakers who all have the same characteristics, it is not way to stand out. Of course there is a market for speakers on those issues, but for these subject, there is no shortage of supply.
So, what we - amongst others - are going to advise is for those talents that makes our speakers special as individuals. Their in depth knowledge of an industry, their rich experience in dealing with state-owned companies, their reputation in marketing for different segments of the market.
Later we will come with some draft guidelines. If you have some ideas, do not hold them back.

"Dear Consul General"

2007-09-21T12:25:00.000+08:00

Today I find myself back in an old fashioned business: I'm writing letters. Of course I will still use my computer to write them, but for a moment I had forgotten there is outside still a world that has no clue about Facebook, Twitter and gathering information online.

At the end of last week we suddenly got a range of emergency assignments for speakers for a European delegation that was due this week. Yesterday, I went to one of the speeches and was able to ask them why they approached us so late. I learned from the diplomat involved that he got the information from another consulate in Shanghai we worked with. How else would he have been able to hear about us?

He was of course right and today I have started to write letters to the trade offices and consulates in Shanghai we are not yet working with, to send it by mail with a nice brochure. First we take on Shanghai, because from my contacts I understand they they are swamped with trade missions and visiting business delegations without having enough resources to cope. In the rest of China the pressure does not seem that high. But when it works, we might include them too.

Past the China hype - Paul Denlinger

2007-09-20T15:15:00.000+08:00

Paul Denlinger

"Do your home work before you enter the China market." It sounds very easy when our Chinabiz Speaker Paul Denlinger tells Christine Lu on the China Business Network what to do to prevent your company fails in China, like so many other companies.

Paul Denlinger's bio reads like a who is who in de China business and he is advising US and European companies coming to China, and Chinese companies going global.

What's hot, what's not in Chinese stocks - Shaun Rein

2007-09-20T11:24:00.001+08:00

Shaun Rein

Our Chinabiz speaker Shaun Rein of the China Market Research Group was interviewed by Christine Lu at the China Business Network joining on what Chinese stocks to buy and what not to buy. Why to buy Ctrip, Netease and China Mobile.

What subjects can your speakers talk about ?

2007-09-19T19:06:00.001+08:00

Almost anything, when it concerns China, is my answer. But I do not mind to give a bit of a list, at random. Additional advantage: the search engines can nicely pick up those subjects too. Here we go. There are the subject our speaker or upcoming speakers can cover (although there is always more):
international dispute settlement, reform of state-owned companies, online marketing, internet, Alcatel, telecom, Web2.0, branding, sex in China, sex in Shanghai, language teaching, entertainment, media, labor issues, rural development, real estate, macro economy, China's history, prisons, penal system, financial systems, stock markets, management training, finance, accounting, gaming, video sharing, art, pop music, energy, environment, pollution, law, marketing, China's middle class, Akzo-Nobel, DSM, Roche, expat life, business education, market entry, human resources, tourism, Michelin, yougsters, youth life, China's rich, outsourcing, retail, transportation, government relations, Chinese government, negotiating with Chinese companies, life sciences, MBA, banking, business schools, agriculture, IT, investing, sourcing, corporate governance, CSR, weblogs, VC's, logistics, supply chain, China/India, geopolitics, chemical industry, art, city planning, M&A, Taiwan, sport, wireless, mobile technology, WiMax, G3.
I might have forgotten a few.

Lost a nice assignment

2007-09-19T15:31:00.001+08:00

Long Yongtu

People who know me will realize that this weblog is not only going to be a good news show. We are learning fast at Chinabiz Speakers and by sharing our learning curve with our network, we hope it all makes us wiser.

Most assignments have a lead time of two, three months and when it involves celebrities even longer. But at the beginning of this project we have already gotten a few panic-assignments. Promised speakers call off or after arriving in China, business delegations discover nasty holes in their program.

One of those "help us fast" assignments failed today. An European conference organizer was trying to find a celebrity speaker for the beginning of December. At the end of August I talked to them and realized that former WTO-negotiator Long Yongtu would be an ideal match for this client. We had been talking to his office before about his speaking engagements and knew how to work with them. To our surprise, Mr. Long was still available for a key note speech at such a relative short notice. But the client, used to free speakers, was taken away by the price and took more than two weeks to come back to us, reluctantly agreeing. We got in touch with Mr. Long's office again, but now we learned he was fully booked till the end of 2007.

In August, we did not want to look to pushy, but we should at least have made very clear that any delay could mean that we could not close the deal anymore. It is very hard to find a good balance between not looking too aggressive, while still getting this kind of fast deals done.

Getting the first affiliates in place

2007-09-19T15:24:00.000+08:00

We are getting the first affiliates in place after we started a few days ago our new program, people with sometimes really powerful networks that look very promising. Of course, now we have to see what they can bring in in concrete business, but I'm really very hopeful. As they bring in business, I will introduce them one by one. While the internet is a powerful tool, sometimes it is also nice to talk to people in the same time zone.

The dilemma of famous foreign speakers in China

2007-09-18T19:59:00.000+08:00

Edward de Bono

Say, you are a famous speaker in the US or in one of Europe's countries. Of course, you want to expand your reach to the rest of the world and especially China enjoys an ongoing flow of celebrity speakers from elsewhere.

There is one big, and some smaller problems here. No matter how much of a famous and acknowledged speaker you might be back home, here nobody here knows you. That happened at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s with famous Western brands. They entered the Chinese market and discovered they had to build up their brand from scratch, to the shock of some of their managers. In the speakers business that experience is still developing.

This week I had to deal with this feature in three different occasions. Most famous of those speakers is Edward de Bono, who will speak this week in both Beijing and Shanghai. A few weeks ago I met one of the sponsors of this trip and he was not really hopeful it would be worth there investment. Similar visits they cancelled because of the lack of interest, but this time they wanted to move forward.

I do believe there is a market for famous foreign speakers. When you name is Bill Clinton or Allan Greenspan, Chinese companies are willing to dig deep into their pockets. But if you go down in this food chain, even a little bit, the Chinese audiences will not know you and are certainly not willing to pay the surcharge for such a foreign speaker.

An act of god

2007-09-18T19:16:00.000+08:00

typhoon Wutip

You probably know these clauses in contract that allows you not to fulfill your duty in the case an act of god gets in your way. Well, we are just having this week our third assignment and we have quite an act of god at our hands.

One of our speakers is in Beijing and cannot fly because typhoon Wipha is hitting Shanghai today and tomorrow. In the real spirit our speaker is now trying to take the train, but he might not be the only one to try this. Looks like tomorrow we have to dig up a reserve candidate speaker.

Chinabiz Speakers affiliate program

2007-09-18T15:15:00.000+08:00

We are happy to announce that our affiliate program has started now. The program focuses on people who help us to bring in events where there is a need for a professional speaker in or on China. Please sign up here and we will send you the needed information and sign you up for our mailing list.