It's hard for people to smile after a big disaster. Here I forwarded a pic of a few kids who succeeded in getting away from disaster after climbing over the hills to get to the safe place. The 483 kids in this primary school built under China's Hope Project(a charity project sponsoring students in the poor area to go to school) created a miracle that no one died or injured in this disaster. The mainstream foreign media may never report on this, but the school is one of the few that its building didn't fall down during the earthquake, which gave the chance for teachers and students to survive. The sponsor, a private enterprise in Sichuan named Hanlong Group, made the construction quality the first priority in this project, which help saved all the lives of those innocent kids. A Chinese journalist reported this on his blog, while he called the miracle is led to the firm's advanced insight on what will happen in the future ten years before developing the building.
I have seen so many miserable pictures these days, and this is the first one I can see hope. Those young girls smiled very happily, that's the happiness of surviving with all their friends. They are lucky, but there are hundreds of thousands of kids who are not lucky after either losing their lives, their friends or their families. Now, my hope is that the one sstill alive will remember this disaster, but will look forward. They should know there are much more happiness they can enjoy in their future lives.
I am planning with a few friends on going to Sichuan this summer. The only purpose is to bring them happiness, and enjoy that with them. If you have experiences or training in dealing with people who suffered from major disaster, please give us some help on what we should pay attention, or should avoid. We appreciate it very much.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
smile from Sichuan
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Chinese Earthquake Relief Effort
The Sichuan earthquake turns out to be a major disaster. From the first minute I heard it from a friend in Shanghai, to the moment where my two best friends' families suffered in the region, the information flowed around and I felt worse and worse. Over 30,000 people died and most of them are kids who were studying in the school. I remember seeing a photo with the bodies of students lying underground in the ruined classroom, with pencils or textbook still in the hand. I was wordless. They are supposed to be having a bright life, but suddenly an earthquake took all their lives. Why they are under protected, and why they can't get out of the classroom immediately?
This may not be the time to argue for the cause of those death, since people are busy saving lives. However, I still want to say we need an effective national emergency system, especially in areas with frequent disasters. Stanford just tested its emergency system, while it can reach everyone via mobile phone or fixed phone immediately and automatically. China needs this too. We have to make sure we are able to notify everyone in case something happens. Even if sometimes the notification is not accurate, it is still necessary to notify because life is the most important thing.
P.S. We are organizing a charity sale in Stanford now. Today is the first day, and we have already raised over 5000 US dollars. We will continue to raise money tomorrow.
Some reader asked me the websites on donation. There is only a few in English, such as Jet Li's One Foundation. I kinda of curious why Red Cross China doesn't even have an English website.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
P. F. Chang's
I still remember the first time I saw P. F. Chang's was in Austin, TX. A few friends and I were on the way to a Mexican restaurant. I suddenly saw this Chinese restaurant near by, and felt home. However, I didn't try it at last, and neither did I try it after I came to California until this Friday. I came into this restaurant with this mixed feeling. It is not a traditional Chinese restaurant, at least from the foreign waiter/waitress and pretty plates; but its renovation is very Chinese, with ancient paint and red color all over the wall. It turned out the restaurant is indeed a mix. The food is indeed a totally disaster, totally messed up the traditional Chinese cooking style. Too much soy sauce and sault; but the service is great, fast, efficient, and pretty plates which I do like. It is indeed American-decorated Chinese. Amazing to see it is packed with people for at least over two hours during lunch. Plus, it has a nice-designed website.
It kinda of reminded me of Chinese news in American media. On one hand, we see very Chinese-culture oriented reports, but on the other hand, the content and spirit is totally distorted. A lot of foreign reporters were trained thirty or forty year ago, and still hold this strong opinion towards Chinese. Pitifully, a lot of nice young American have been reading those since they were little, and bearing this wrong image afterwards, just like they will take P.F. Chang's as the native Chinese cuisine. In one of my non-market strategy class, the professor asked us to describe China in one word. The most shocked word I heard is "communism" from a young and charming female classmate. I got stucked and didn't know what to say.
Today I watched two war movies, We Were Soldiers Once..and Young, and Saving Private Ryan. Beyond the brutal scene, the only thing I saw is miscommunication, between American and Vietnamese, and American and Germany. Now Chinese will face the same situation, from the image people get from the cheap manufacturing labor to the angry shouting group in front of French Supermarket Carrefour. Media, especially English media, has an important role in describing all this. I sincerely hope they could end up with the original Chinese cuisine at last.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Chinese entrepreneurs in the 90s
Chinese entrepreneurs in the last decade is the generation bearing too much debate. They were smart, that's for sure, taking advantage of the changing policy to generate wealth. A lot of them became billionaire in a short period of time, while they attracted a lot of attention from the society and regulator as well.
Wei Dong, an entrepreneur, founder and chairman of Yongjin Group, committed suicide after reported investigation of the government regulator. The Reuters report doesn't mention his suicide note, which was publicized by Sina. He said in the note that he was struggling in mental distressed disease. He hoped his death will release everyone, including the beloved family members, from the burden.
He is not the only one in the 90s entrepreneurs group who suffered from mental distress generated by outside pressure. People talked about the "original evil", the "illegal" actions or strategies took by them in the 90s when the society was in chaos. And now the question is if they are going to be punished by that.
I don't have the right answer, but I do believe suicide, or getting rid from the reality, is not going to solve problems. There must be a solution, and those entrepreneurs need to find it before moving on.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Top 10 wireless start-up rated in Dow Jones wireless conference
it seems mobile space is much more diversified than Internet(which has a big focus in social networking now). These 10 start-up ranges from network, camera to shopping and ringtone. To me, that's a good sign for entrepreneurs.
1. Aerohive Networks Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., a developer of enterprise wireless networking technology. The company raised
2. Digby,
3. Knowtate Inc.,
4. Mojix Inc.,
5. Myxer (MVisible Technologies Inc.), Deerfield Beach, Fla., a provider of mobile technology, products, services and programs to manage and deliver digital media to mobile devices. The company has raised
6. Ontela Inc.,
7. Planet9 Studios Inc.,
8. Pudding Media Inc.,
9. Rocketbux, Bend, Ore., a developer of technology to deliver location and time relevant offers to mobile phones via the point-of-sale network. The company plans to raise a
10. TrafficCast International Inc.,
Monday, April 28, 2008
Mamma Mia spirit
I went to see Mamma Mia last Friday, and got very impressed by the Mamma Mia spirit. The music is great, the singers and dancers are great, and the whole musical is great. I know there is always a dream for everyone.
I have a dream
A song to sing
To help me cope
With anything
If you see the wonder
Of a fairy tale
You can take the future
Even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream
I have a dream
Friday, April 25, 2008
Advice to start-up from Jim Balsillie, the CEO of Research in Motion
RIM is a company I respect. With all the innovative products, it is hard to focus on one single function, Email. But it succeeded.
Excerpt from GSMA website.
Q: Can you tell of the inspiration behind the idea of Blackberry. What were the technological and market forces at that time that made you believe that this could be a potentially great company?
Jim: Well, the inspiration, I think, really lies in seeing what we thought were the trends and thus anticipating the changes in the market, and doing the work in advance of these things happening. And you got to remember these trends are always obvious in hindsight, but at foresight they are far from obvious. In the mid 90s when we are working o
Q: last question. What advice would you give a young start-up in technology today?
Jim: Trust your original thought. You are trying to look around corners and anticipate what's happening and do original thought. And from that, from the view in the world, there are opportunities going and so you have to form your own thoughts, trust your own thoughts. I think always stay with passion and enjoyment, focus and intensity because that will give you persistence. Sometimes these things are more difficult, sometimes they take longer so, you need to have a focused and energetic approach to it. And the other thing I would say, always, you will have many opportunities where you'll have to make a choice on a short term approach versus a long term approach, or an ethical compromise or not and I found it just being honest and being straightforward and taking a long term approach. You sleep well and it pays rich dividends, and so never lie, never cheat, never take a short term approach...though sometimes it's tempting. But I've seen it and it's not a way to do business and not a way to live. It's actually not very smart because it comes back to you. So whenever one of those reasons is going to motivate you, take a long term, honest (approach)...If you cheat somebody, they basically say this is not someone I can trust. So take a long term, honest approach.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
"Scared of China"
One of the advantages living in the valley is to meet a lot of innovative companies. One of them is Meraki, a Wi-Fi service and equipment provider backed up by Google and Sequotia Capital. They are selling a very well-designed Wi-Fi access point, and having a full data management center. Their logan is to "connect the billion".
I talked to a guy from the company on its business in China. It's amazing that he said "We are scared of China". He referred to the fact that some companies in China tried to learn the Meraki products and then copy it all. "We are so scared of it".
It is a dangerous sign for China's manufacturing industry, especially in the technology sector. As I said before, intellectual property protection is necessary to boost the creativity. There's no free lunch, and people have to design their own stuff instead of continuing the habit of copying others. Or, outsiders will get scared, and China will lost the connection.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The creation of the first newspaper
From my favorite blogger: Marc Andreessen, on the relations between newspaper and consumer Internet, through reviewing the newspaper history.
"So just in this first post in the series, we get a sense of the profound wonder that the newspaper was even brought into existence, much less became widespread or had an impact on the world.
And we see the nature of the birthing pains of a new medium -- any new medium -- and obviously, all of the birthing pains of the modern consumer Internet are trivial in comparison to the mind-boggling headwinds the original newspaper entrepreneurs faced."
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
This will be the future
from FT
The number of mobile broadband connections globally has risen tenfold in the past year, lending credence to suggestions the industry is coming of age.
The GSM Association, the global trade body for mobile phone operators, is expected to announce today the 32-millionth mobile broadband connection, up from 3m at the end of March 2007.
It also found that the number of operators offering high-speed internet access through mobile networks had soared 44 per cent in the past 10 months.
The GSMA said operators in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America were all reporting an increase in the uptake of high-speed packet access handsets, which give users access to websites at speeds ranging from 1.8 -megabits a second to 7.2mbps.
It found that of 166 global commercial HSPA deployments, 100 offer speeds of 3.6mbps or above, while of the 27 countries in the European Union, 24 have commercial HSPA deployments.
Rob Conway, chief executive of the GSMA, said: "We are witnessing the creation of a virtuous circle in which mobile broadband is achieving greater economies of scale, driving down the cost of handsets and equipment and enabling more and more people to enjoy easy access to media-rich services."
The growth of mobile broadband services has set internet companies on a potential collision course with mobile and fixed-line network operators seeking to secure potentially huge new revenue opportunities.
In February, Google said it had seen 50 times more searches on Apple's iPhone than any other mobile handset, while Vodafone poached a senior Microsoft executive to head its new internet services unit.
The number of networks offering commercial mobile broadband services has risen sharply in the past year. Broadband on mobile phones is available in 73 countries from 166 operators, up from 96 networks commercially deployed in three countries.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Louisiana, Louisiana, they are trying to wash us away.......
It is my first Spring break. (since I only got winter and summer break in college). and I feel I've learnt a lot. If one day I am able to improve the education system in China, I will definitely include Spring Break on my agenda, since it is a great time to travel with classmates and learn about the world.
New Orleans is an amazing city. It is definitely different from any other American city I've ever been. The distinctive difference could be seen everywhere. On one side, it has the elegant European-style buildings around Jackson Square and French Quarter; on the other side, it is one of the poorest cities in U.S. with the highest crime rate.
Jogging along the Mississippi river, I feel I sensed the power from the water which has fed one generation of American; Food is good too, with Gumbo, Po-boy, Oysters and all other unique dishes; however, the homeless people sleeping on the street and under the bridge has kept reminding me that this is a poor area. The mix gives me a unique sense of the city, and thus attracts a lot of tourists as well as young generation.
Entrepreneurship
The trip is sponsored by the school as a way to help local entrepreneurs to start their businesses. This is the third year Stanford is doing this. Our task this time is to help select an entrepreneur to open his or her business in a retail space opening in Upper 9th Ward, one of the poorest area and most destroyed places in the city during Katrina. 16 MBAs spent five days to interview the four candidates, analyze their business model, debate among groups on figuring one which one is most beneficial to the community and most sustainable. The new vocabulary I learnt is double bottom line, to balance the business between social benefit and economic return. It's difficult to measure. After hours hours debate/discussion/brainstorming, we finally made our decision on selecting a hair salon business to occupy the space. The hair salon will enhance employment and draw traffic to the area. And hopefully, she will open her store very soon.
Entrepreneurship is everywhere. MBA is not necessary, wealth family is not necessary as well. In the Hope House, a charity organization in town, we learn from Jonika(if I spell it right), a single mother who raised two kids by herself, to start a pasta venture. She sold pasta everyday, and managed to make a living. She didn't go to high school, though she dreamed to go to play basketball there. Her mother went to prison because of drug abuse, and she almost lost her life in the hurricane. However, she survived from all of that and became an entrepreneur. The same stories are heard in New Orleans every day, and it's very encouraging to anyone who is hesitating.
Glass, class
New Orleans is a city to sense the power and class. For examples, there will be seven tables in the room, with only two having glasses and waters, which means higher-class people will sit in those two tables. The city has a higher percentage of Black Americans, which is described by some columnists as "the corner that is being forgotten or tried to be forgotten by the American mainstream". Education is a big problem, since the city has the worst public school system. Luckily, after Katrina, most of the public school system were destroyed, which gave the opportunity for a lot of young educators to come to the city and set up charter schools. A HBS graduate in his 30s is working in a charter school to bring advanced education system to try to get more kids into better schools. "Is it worth"? someone asked me. "Yeah, it is. Imagine how much impact you could make in a big corporate? here, in this school, this 30 something is going to change the lives of 400 kids".
Leadership
How to rebuild the city? Leadership matter, said one of the GSB alumni working in New Orleans. He believes someone with the leadership skill will change the city. The city, once suffered from inefficient leadership of the mayor and unresponsiveness from the Federal government, is on its way to lead itself. A lot of non-profit organizations, such as Global Green and Solar Energy Systems Group, have been to the city and worked on different projects. The Make it Right foundation, led by movie star Brad Pitt, is now building energy-efficient housing for the local people. It's a new and insightful direction, and the city is hoping to become the leader in the next-generation urban planning technology.
To me, the most sad thing is to learn that the New Orleans is sinking. According to NASA, New Orleans will sink about 0.17 inches a year, or near three feet over the next 200 years. Parts of the city are 5-10 feet below sea level now. People are building and rebuilding every year, but there is chance that water will come again and wash everything away. I will pray for the city and hope there will be better solution and technology to protect the city. Hope people will continue to be happy there.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
New Orleans, a city above the lake
Sorry for not updating for long. I am in New Orleans, Louisiana for my spring break, doing a service learn trip to help local entrepreneurs. It's my first time in the city which was once flooded by so-called "man-made error". We visited the most serious flooded area and the broken defenses. The city is still in recover since the flood three years ago; however, a lot of people are coming back with the optimism to reconstruct this area. I am deeply impressed by this courage, and hope I could help them with my strength.
The famous Jackson Square
A very cool street show
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Wall Street tumble
I got lucky or unlucky to be in the U.S. right now to experience a possible economy downturn. The once-prestigious investment bankers on the Street now become the cheap target for deep pocket buyers. Bear Stearns is one example. J.P. Morgan got a favorable deal of only $2 per share, and the whole street is going to wait to see who will be the next one.
It's interesting to watch CNN's Larry King show today when several "financial experts" were talking about how to invest money right now. One expert said people have to keep their money in the stock market in order to enjoy a longer-term return. However, confidence does matter a lot here. When one person said it is crisis, it is usually not; but when seventy percent of the people said this, it is going to be. What I cared most is how U.S. stock market will affect the global market. I have to admit that New York is still the center of the world, while Europe and Asia markets couldn't replace right now. China market including Shanghai and Hong Kong will behave the same way, though the fundamental is different. The consumer industry in China is still pretty strong, while a lot of companies are going to report strong earnings, such as China Mobile. It is necessary to realize it and take advantage of this good opportunity in the market.
Speaking of this, even Premier Wen said the economy this year is going to be tough. However, the liquidity is still high when we see central bank of China still raised the deposit reserve rate for banks to absorb the liquidity. It is a good year to relax and enjoy Olympics. Keep energy to work hard next year, my comrades :)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
MII merger
This will be a big deal to China's Internet service as well as telecom industry.
"A new ministry of industry and information will be created to oversee the cellular phone industry previously under the Ministry of Information Industry. It will also regulate Web- based applications and Internet content, according to the plan. The ministry will combine responsibilities from the information industry ministry and the State Council Information Office."
From Bloomberg(the second last paragraph.)
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The online strength of female
Female doesn like Internet more. I never heard of Bloghim, but now I met two founders of Blogher.The website is a blog community for female, where you could find all information from fashion to relationship. The three founders met each other in a conference in 2004, and got this fantastic idea to do something only for female together. The business model is not new and based on advertisting, but I am sure a lot of consumer product advertisers like the specific demographic of the community. It's interesting to see how they evolve from small to big. More importantly, I found they are passionate towards blogging. One of them currently has six blogs.
Nowadays in the internet, the community is like a tribe where people could find the others with the same hobby. Advertisers love this, while the ads will be more focused and effective.
Speaking of this, I still think they should expand a little bit more international. The strategy has yet to come. When I introduced myself as a Chinese blogging for four years, one of the founders was surprised: "That must be really tough since all blogs are blocked in China?".
Well, it's not true, I answered. .
Monday, March 03, 2008
Everything is unlimited in wireless
I've been quite busy for the past two weeks. B-school is a place where you either choose to study to die, or have fun to die. I feel I am stuck in between. Mid-term was just done, while final term is on its way. Who told me I could have a two-year break? That's not true at all.
Back to serious topic. I got this gut feeling that everything is unlimited in wireless industry in U.S. these days. Customers already have the choice of unlimited data plan for quite a few years, and now suddenly the voice became unlimited plan as well. (remember when broadband usage changed from charging based on hours to unlimited monthly, now here is the same thing).
A wrap up from businessweek:
"On Feb 19, Verizon Wireless announced a new pricing plan that offers unlimited calling for $99.99 a month. Later, AT&T announced a similar plan, while T-Mobile went one better by including unlimited text messages for the same price. The move is a big change from the wireless model in which customers pay for limited buckets of minutes. It's the latest sign that carriers are viewing voice as a commodity and data service as the future growth opportunity."
However, mobile carriers still bear the bad reputation on not being creative in the data service. In fact, mobile should be just a platform like Internet, where everyone could freely create a website, and share information. Mobile carriers should be just like broadband service providers, where they couldn't control the content. It's all grassroot content works. We couldn't imagine Comcast create a facebook, while AT&T couldn't possible create a killer web app too. This new era encourages creativity from all the people, instead of monopoly.
I feel encouraged by this unlimited plan, because I know the era of mobile creativity is coming.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Apple's business model in China
I talked to a friend in China last week, and he is expecting that his friend is going to bring him an iphone from U.S. later. "Could u use it in China?", I asked. "Definitely, a lot of my colleages have been using it for a long time", he said.
The fact that the decoded iphone has become very popular in China. According to unofficial data, there are already 400,000 decoded iphone running on China Mobile's network. Of course, it is illegal, but people seems pretty much enjoy the service....(not sure if all the applications will work, but definitely surfing on the internet is the best attraction).
Speaking of this, Apple and China Mobile are still yet to start the official negotiation. I guess the point is that Apple is stick to the profit sharing model it was using in the collaboration with AT&T or some European Carriers. However, in China, the dynamics between carriers and service providers are not quite the same. And more importantly, China Mobile dominates over 60 percent of the market, which has much more market share compared with AT&T in U.S.
Besides sharing profit with carriers, Apple should focus more on selling the content to users via iphone, such as music or video. In some extent, it's more like printer business. firms make 90 percent of the money from cartridge instead of selling the printers along.
In addition, China is going to issue mobile licenses to fixed-line operators such as China Telecom and China Netcom soon this year. Apple's iphone is definitely a big attraction to customers, which will help carriers increase the user loyalty. Some investment bank in Hong Kong said Apple shouldn't partner with China Unicom, but I don't think it is 100 percent true. China Unicom definitely needs iphone more compared with China Mobile, which may lead to a better deal for Apple.
For emerging markets with more carrier monopoly, Apple should change its strategy to a more user-friendly one. Users are everything, and it's better to provide users service sooner than later. There is also chance to cooperate with small/new carriers in those countries, if Apple could assure the service quality of customer support is the same.
It's always not wise to wait for things to change. Better change something first, my two cents to Apple.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
iphone's Chinese sister
You may not believe this, and I don't believe it as well. But according to this website, some Chinese manufacturers developed a phone called Hiphone with the similar interface and application. It is only sold for less than US$125.
First, they have to watch out the certain legal lawsuit from Apple. But I have to admit those manufacturers become more and more innovative and creative. In fact, they have enough ability to develop their own design, instead of copying others. That's why China should implement IP protection regulation strictly. The law itself will help push manufacturers to be more creative, instead of trying to steal sth from others.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Facebook Mobile
I signed into Facebook Mobile last week. It's very convenient to receive and send updates for the Facebook mobile. However, the service is kinda of expensive since my AT&T carriers will not only charge me messages I send, but also messages I receive. I would call the second charging "passive payment", since I couldn't really control on how many updates I will receive from facebook every day. It's a business model which expels customers from using the SMS service more.
That's the situation in the fragmented U.S. mobile market. Since there are many carriers, the interconnection cost is so high that customers have suffered a lot of benefit. In the terms of MicroEconomics(which Amy is studying on), the high price of interconnection(such as SMS between different carriers) have created a dead weight loss in the whole revenue map. Both carriers and mobile users leave money on the table.
Internet could help change all this. There was once a website which has the potential to challenge the whole situation. It is the skype. However, since Ebay itself doesn't have a lot of operating experience in telecom, Skype now becomes something stuck in the middle without any future innovative move.
For Facebook Mobile, I would suggest them learn from Tencent in China, which provide the service of Mobile QQ to customers. (5 yuan per month for unlimited messages between online and mobile chatting service, that's the price I remember). It is the only way to attract users to the SMS service, since we know customers always want to control on how much they gonna to pay.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Happy Chinese New Year
Amy has been busy with her mid-term.......
So forgive me for the late New Year wishes. Hope every wonderful dream will come true in the year of rat.
