The second day in London

Today is more exciting in London, though cold.

The most interesting thing I did today is to visit the Royal Academy of Arts. It has an exhibition named Three Emporors in Qing period, which I really like. The warm-hearted U.K gentleman Simon took me there when the other "Shopping Animals" are busy working in Havods. My big dream was to visit British Museum, but unfortunately time was not enough. But the exhibition in the Royal Academy was already pretty fantastic with valuable stuffs from thousand years ago.

The work today was really busy. But I learned a lot on hedge funds and funds of funds industry. An interesting part from a top financial manager who has an engineer backgroud: people always say market is already efficient, but we think in reverse. That's the value of engineers, including me(maybe): we always want to change everything.

The first day in London

London, in my imagine, should have been some noisy and busy city. But when I arrived the city in the Sunday morning, it is so peaceful with clouds around.

Staying in the Grange City hotel in the center of the city, I could see half of the city view just from the eight floor.(such a different image from Hong Kong where you couldn't have a full view even you are in the 20th floor in the Central). Buildings decorated with traditional designs tell the long long history of the city. People are not that nice as I thought before, but maybe they are decent gentleman inherited from the royals.

I will have a private tour with London Eye this afternoon(or evening in the HK time). really eager to do it. I should breathe some easy air before starting my busy and serious work tomorrow.

Job_trip to London

Amy will go to London to visit a financial group tonight. The company involves in many businesses, including hedge funds and fund of funds. I am super excited now, just thinking of the visit to the most developed financial city in Europe.

Always staying in Asia, especially in Hong Kong, it it easily to just think about the region, which may only take up several hundred percent of the size of the total financial world. Especially when China is rising, the country and its people are likely to believe the earth is going around the nation. But it is not the truth. The economy of the emerging country always has the fastest growth, but only takes a small percent. The world is not going around it.

Will post more in the future.

Media_Good journalism, bad journalism?

Met a friend in the university today and talked about the current journalism. He said traditional journalism is already going to die. "The problem is everyone could do bad quality journalism online".

In some extent, it is right. When I studied the journalism history, the newspaper was created when people feell the need to exchange informations between each other; now the problem with the born of Internet is people need the medium to exchange "useful" or "valuable" information. With the decentralization coming to the peak, the centralization will start. That's I learned from history: He jiu bi fen, fen jiu bi he.( the centralization always comes after long-time decentralization, and the reverse).

But the most difficult thing is not the result, but the timing. Just like the stockmarket, you could easily guess the price will go up or down, but always hard to get the exact timing.

Revolution from the Edge; the Demoratization of Media---Lecture given by Dan Gillmor

It's already one year passed when I listened to the lecture from Dan Gillmor. He is still with a bunch of enthusiasm to the new media, just like he did in the new media classes, which, in turn, always impressed people. And impressed me in yesterday's lecture held in the University of Hong Kong.

Dan Gillmor is the one who helped the University of Hong Kong to be the first school in the world to teach blogs(Isn't that amazing).He was the technology columnist for San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper for ten years. Now he is leading a non-profit project named "Citizen Media" with Harvard University and Berkley to help grassroot media. (www.citmedia.org)

Some of the notes I made during the lecture (and the ones who made me think deep)

(1) The media is made up of production, distribution and access. (which one is taking the lead now? of course access, see, Google who helped with easy access with people around the world)

(2) A read-write web (I would like to know how many people are reading, and how many are writing)

(3) Dan asked if it is still right today that "Journalist writes the first draft of the history"? ( hoho, depends how to define the "journalist")

(4) Dan said the truth in the journalism, both print and electronic, is accuracy and trust.

(5) Dan gave us some example on "Every object tells a story". A PDA-like handset could tell people what the medicine is, if it is expires, the price(and the price difference), and if it conflicts with other medicines, after scanning the label.

(6) BBC held a project named Action Network, also another sort of grass media.

(7) Dan said he is amazing to find Hong Kong is using criminal laws in copy rights cases. He thought the copyright law should be a bargain , or balancing rights, between creators and communities, and I totally agree. Law is used to make the society work, not to restrict its development.

(8) Last, the most famours words from Dan, "I learn from people think me wrong, instead of people think me right"

Some questions in my mind during the lecture but I guess I could already solve them as a professional journalist, which I couldn't do when I was a journalism student one and a half year ago.

(1) Does online journalism have a worse quality? (It varies, but there are really good pieces outceeding the print media)

(2) People spends more time on new media now, such as reading online stories. Is it possible to reduce people's creativity by that? (But believe me, sometimes it helps with the creativity)

(3) Will the traditional journalism be used into online media one day? (yeah, I believe, just the issue of the time)

Media_Where to find Chinese Community in Hong Kong?

Maybe I'm wrong, but it's really hard to find some mainland Chinese community in Hong Kong? The media, including newspapers and TVs, almost neglected this group of people, who came to work in decent professions in Hong Kong but always disperse in every corner of the city?

Am I right?

Media_my professor will leave

Andrew Lih, my new media professor, will leave for Beijing to start writing his book on Wikipedia. Mei, his beautiful wife, will start her new job in Beijing, too. Such a great couple will go to Beijing, which is really wonderful, though it means I lost good friends in Hong Kong.

Andrew was the first professor I saw in the University of Hong Kong, and also the one helping me most during my study. I still remember the girl, who was still an engineer-type, came to visit HKU and talk with her dream in China's new media. The one who just sit opposite to me and listened my dream carefully is Andrew. We had same language at that time, maybe because we both know the computer programming. My feeling was that he is so cool that I must join the program to learn from him.

He didn't only help with the study, as time proves, but also on how to dedicate yourself to something. He is stubborn some time, to tell the truth, but a great advantage to achieve the success. When we built the website for Hong kong's politics, he worked so hard on the project, even harder than we students. He also introduced a lot of friends to me, such as fons and Isaac, the two who turned to help me a lot, too.

Unfortunately, I couldn't be one of his best students as I switched my career partly into business journalism, a more "flamboyant" direction, making me feel I betrayed my previous promise. Andrew may feel angry, too, as I guess, the reason we were not close in the second part of my program. But I still believe he is always my best professor and coach and forever.

In Chinese, people say "diffrent routes always turn to the same destiny". The words suit me, and also hope it will suit to Andrew.

Best best best wishes....

Media_Free newspaper

I don't know if China has free newspaper, and I don't think so. (maybe some "illegal" ones). But in Hong Kong, free newspaper already becomes a large market. You could easily see somebody reading the free paper in the subway or on the bus. Now Singapore wants to catch up the fashion,too.

-Singapore Press Holdings will launch a free Chinese morning newspaper in June, in addition toits three existing Chinese-language papers, Southeast Asia's largestnewspaper publisher said on Wednesday. The paper will initially be distributed Tuesdays to Saturdays at underground train stations, offices and some households and shoppingcentres.

hoho, we couldn't live without newspaper, but we could just live on free newspaper. I should start a first Chinese newspaper, and the future looks great.

Media_free newspaper

All the newspaper will become free one day, I believe. They could just live on advertisements. Then how about the paid TV?

Media conglomates always think big futures in paid TV. But I still wonder if customers will pay for it in a world you could always have free things from Internet. See, blog, has already changed people's concept to pay to read; and radio and TV will follow the same trend when people could easily make their radio and video productions online, just like they did to the blog.

Lol, let's come on to get another big business.

just get back from Beijing

Amy had a trip to BJ from Thursday to Friday. It is really cold there, but fortunately, I didn't need to go out quite often. I had a busy schedule there, finishing two interviews for my job, then getting together with many old friends.

Time flies quickly and many of my friends already got married(isn't that quick). And me, still hanging around in Hong Kong without knowing who will be my Mr. Right.

But it is ok. My job already brought me many happiness, knew different people everyday and wrote interesting stories. You couldn't always have the world, so just choose the most favorite.

Personaly_still wanna to go to Italy

I gave up an opportunity to go to Milan, Italy last week, which, as a result, a bad decision I've ever made. So I still want to go there, meet handsome Italians as well as the city's extensive design culture. Chinese need some innovative education, to have their own brands in the future. The world factory will not always work.

Tomorrow I will fly to Beijing for some interviews. It will be great to meet some people there. If you wannt to meet me, send me a line:)

Media_so many things happen in a week

I didn't write in the last two weeks because many things happen. My big boss left last last week, before he fired the second-big and third-big boss; then my boss, covering business desk, left this Friday. Suddenly, everything changed since the beginning of February.

I don't want to comment on that coz it is a bit of sensitive right now. Besides all the politics, I still think it is the common problem for newspapers; without an effective business model, everything will go down.

Newpaper once covered everything, including analysis, PR work, consulting, rumors as well as critics. Now analysis and consulting go to the consulting firms and specific organization; PRs set up their own company; rumor always with Internet; only critics remains with the newpaper, though, in some extent, advertisers don't feel good about it.

The only way to solve this is to review the resources and recover those original services to the readers; or give readers a free newspaper just like Internet does.

From the journalism course I learned, a mature News theory has been mature in 100 years since started; but Internet rebroke everything, so in other words, it is now changing to another grow-up where old theories may not work.

For example, we say fairness in a story; but look at Internet, you could easily find something totally in diffrent side at the same time, though they may be covered in two or more stories.

So what's is the value of journalism? We already go back to the old period where informations are all everywhere. Google has become a reporter which could be used as a tool to check, or "write" everything on the Internet.

It is easy to be a reporter now, but not easy to be a Google.

Media_Always helpful Google

Google said it will launch the new function to let me chat via online windows. To some people, it may doesn't matter that much; but to me, an Internet guru but has to use the office computer without the right to set up any software there, it is really great news. At least, I could chat on my Gmail account in my office computer, forbiddened to set up gmail chatting software, from now on. Google is great in doing such helpful and warm things.

Thanks Godnesss.....

Media_A coming graded Internet

In Chinese, we say "people have different grade, such as rich and poor, or high class and low class". But the words were not once available on Internet, though now a new Internet with different grade seems coming.

Here, a new system to give priority to paid emails is created, while we could imagine how our unpaid, or free emails, will be treated by our email providers. One email may take a day's time to arrive to the right place because it doesn't been paid. (read the story on NY times)

There, Sina.com opened a new blog site for celebrities in China. Imagine how many comments got for a female star Xu Jinglei? over 500, and always. So on an Internet which should be fair, celebrities draw more attention.

Internet is also the society; In the start-up, you feel free and fair; later, you will find someone has more power that you; at last, it is the society like we are living now.

So what? give up the Internet, me?///

Media_Boss Change

The big boss of our paper will be changed shortly. Mark Clifford, will go to South China Morning Post, the rival of the Standard, as the group editor-in-chief. I wonder if it is always the rule for most people working in the Standard. Standard first, and then bigger one SCMP.

Many reporters in our newspaper left for SCMP in the past day, after SCMP reporter left for news wires or PR companies. Newspaper, to me, has already been a cliche business, where it could just live with the last breath.

But newspaper is still a big part of the media which you could see the real readership. I suggested my boss to open a Chinese news website to attract mainland Chinese who live in Hong Kong that day. Then he asked how it could make money even if the site got the readership. Good questions. Online media couldn't only live supporting by the advertisement, I always believe, but then what could they depend on?

Media_what a shame to repeat the same action

I always love my country, but it doesn't mean I should always bear the stupid thing the government has ever done.
---a sentence I should remember for the whole life.

Bingdian, a popular column on the official pioneer youth newspaper- China's Youth Daily, was shut down yesterday, possibly caused by a story it published blaming on the current textbooks. The author, a philosophy professor Yuan Weishi with Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, said it is not right to continute using the same history textbook now as the one during the 1950s to 1970s when several disasters including cultural revolution happens. He said the textbook should not just teach students that the world only has right things and wrong things; there should be more democratic things the children should differentiate themselves.

He compared the students who study the textbooks as "the generation feeding with milk from wolves'' and argued the school should teach how to be a modern citizen instead of to be crazy activists.

It is believed that the comparation has made some official angry. But the fact is what he argued is reasonable. Textbooks are already out of date; but the regulator seems has no idea to change it.

If you always block people from speaking from their bottom of heart, then one day nobody will speak to you.

I will remember yesterday, Jan.25. when Bingdian, the most popular columns among Chinese youths, were closed due to stupid decisions.

Media_Internet and celebrities

Living in Hong Kong, your life is never short of celebrities. TV, newspaper, posts, or even on the street, you will meet them and their big, exaggerate photos. I can't help thinking of how they make money, and how much.

My friend Edwyn Chan, who is an Internet enterprenuer in China, looks to think in the same way as I do. One of his interesting posts told about the sameness between internet business and pop stars. I would like to say it is only part of the truth. The most important point is the exposure. Celebrities could earn money shooting advertisements if they are popular; so do internet websites. See Google grab how many advertisements from traditonal media.

But could exposure make all the things? a little doubt.

Amy's another blog got readers, too

Amy loves reading Chinese history, the reason why she opened a blog, also in blogspot, named the history of China.Unfortunately, she only posted one story there, the translation of a Chinese poem.

Amazingly, someone have read that. Ted, a guy living in Singapore, wrote to Amy Friday to tell his interest in China's history. Wow, it is really nice to know friends with same interests in the world.

That's the reason why Amy doesn't want to leave Hong Kong now. Full of Chinese culture, you will feel like home.

Amy have given up the opportunity to Milan, Italy. A little frustrated, but I believe the decision will help me focusing on my current media career.

My generation is kind of "lost generation" in China; we know western culture more than the local ones. But when one day I went to a Chinese artistic exhibition, it was amazing to see how beautiful they were. Fantastic paintings and accessories, and suddenly I fell in love with them.

Stock market_Is the U.S. stockmarket model suitable to China?

I am keeping an eye on China's stockmarket these days. It is really disappointing, or maybe interesting to someone, that many state-owned companies had a so-bad performance in the past years. A famous financial-academic-turned TV idol once said Chinese companies need to learn to be responsible to shareholders, instead of the government. But I guess it will be pretty hard, when most of the big companies are still owned by the government these days. Many CEOs of those companies still hold the position in the government, or wanna to hold such positions.

How a company be responsible to two entities at the same time? it is a hard question, which could decide China's future if some smart person answer it.

Myself_I am not that smart

I always think I am smart (sounds too frank and arrogant). But today I found I am not. Clever person, if he could dig into one point, he could be smart of smart; but if he dig into various point, he would be a idiot.

I find I am the second type, at least, in the past year 2005. I need to rescue myself.