What I expect more from Amazon Kindle?

I still remember one of the interesting cases I did in my Strategy class in the 1st MBA year is on Amazon Kindle. Philip Leslie, a very smart professor, asked us the question in one of the exams on the business problems for Kindle.

At that time, I was still not a Kindle user, while I hope I was. I am in a trial with Kindle for a whole week, and there's so many things I expect more. Technically speaking, Amazon is trying to change the whole experience of reading a book, and it's hard imagine a person already read books for at least over 20 years before he or she tries Kindle. I hope Amazon does have a Chief Experience Officer for Kindle to actually design an enjoyable product.

(1) a bigger screen. Currently, there are only 12 lines in one page, which is such a pain for the fast reader like me. I get bored with pressing the "next page" button all the time.

(2) a touch screen. I do like drawing on a book, and i hope i can have a pen and draw on Kindle, just like my IBM Tablet can. If it is hard, then how about a scroll ball that my favorite Blackberry has?

(3) removing the keyboard. who needs a Key Board on a book reader? if you want to type an artcile, using laotop will be much faster. Removing the keyboard with definitely reduce the cost and make the Kindle available to more people.

(4) A folding screen. That will make Kindle more like a book.


(5) Move the power button and wireless button from the back to front. Come on, right now when I want to turn on or off the Kindle, I have to look for the button on the back, which is really not convenient.

The reason why users are crazy about Apple product is its super user experience. you can easily get addicted. For Amazon who is famous for its operation efficiency, there's still a long way to go on the product design part. Speaking of this, I believe Amazon will change fast. Look forward to trying the Kindle verson 2 and so on.

Google CEO: newspaper is dying

When radio was invented, people said newspaper was dying; when TV was invented, people said newspaper was dying; now when search was invented, Eric Schmidt said newspaper is dying.

It turned out people were wrong for the first two times; then how about this time?

Eric Schmidt, a lecturer in Stanford Graduate School of Business, gave a speech to all MBA students on Tuesday. The main topic is trying to inspire the frustrated MBA students that America still has hope. However, it is more like a lecture on Google's vision in the media world.

"(The traditional media didn't get it; Internet is built on the abundance, not on scarcity. It is a "max" system, and they should try to maximize the distribution". Schmidt said. "Online behavior is very important now, and the maching can learn what you like".

Coincidentally(or not), Google publicized that it will match online adverts with Web users' viewing habits today. It is another controversial technique on people's privacy, but hay, Google always has this in all its services such as Gmail and Google News. and soon, everything becomes a standard.

I agree for Google, it is a strategic and smart move. Advertisers would love this because right now not a lot of people click on the small ads on the right of search results. But this turned out to be a traditional model, just as ads on newspaper or on TV. Schmidt's saying on the traditional media model is definitely contradict to what Google is doing now. Internet is a media, not different from newspaper and TV, though it has a fancy name "technology".

Do people still need newspaper? Sure, but in different format such as on PC or mobile. Do people still want to read a piece of paper to read on the train or at breakfast? Sure. The need is lower, but still there. I have bias on newspaper, while every time newspaper turns to survive and be stronger. Finger crossed!!!

Behind-the-scene story of Jack Ma in Stanford GSB

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, was in Stanford GSB to give a speech to Stanford students and Silicon Valley engineers. I gave a welcome speech at the beginning, and asked Jack to do a MBA case with Stanford some time.

However, he didn't really like to do so. He told the audience: "all MBA have said are correct, but they can't execute it", or "professors are paid to speak". I respect a successful entrepreneur like him, but definitely he didn't realize the value of business cases. Chinese businessmen may think they are born to be successful businessmen, and don't have to learn from the history. Personally I don't think that's correct, a lot of business practices are the same from the old days to now. and hopefully people can learn from the experience to avoid making the same mistake.

Speaking of this, Jack is still an inspiring speaker.

Maybe Obama works??

According to a report from State Street, North American institutional investors are regaining confidence while other regions are not.

Investor confidence is rising, according to the results of the State Street Investor Confidence Index for February 2009.

The index measures investors' confidence on a quantitative basis. It analyses the actual buying and selling patterns of institutional investors.

The index found global investor confidence increased by 12.7 points to 72.9 from January's level of 60.2. The increase was mainly driven by North American institutional investors, whose confidence climbed 13 points to 64.5.

There is evidence that institutional investors appear to have "left behind the extreme gloom that characterised their outlook towards the end of 2008," concluded the report.

Difference between my Chinese thinking and American thinking

A native Chinese under an elite American education system:

Speaking in the class
my Chinese thinking: respect what professors say
my American thinking: challenge what professors say

Working with partners
my Chinese thinking: try to get along with first even he doesn't perform well
my American thinking: fire him when he doesn't perform well

Meeting with new people
my Chinese thinking: talk and chill first
my American thinking: let's talk about business

Going to a party
my Chinese thinking: have to go because the host came to my party last time
my American thinking: i am busy and don't really want to go

and there are more........

PIMCO_Stop the Decline of Asset Prices

PIMCO, headquartered in Newport Beach, Cali, is one of the asset management firms I respect. it said the most important thing for an asset manager is to control the risk exposure on its web front page, which is very true. Bill Gross, one of the companies, just published a report on stopping the decline of asset prices as a way to revive U.S. economy. Very interesting theory, just want to share.

PIMCO’s thesis for several years has held that the levered global economy long ago morphed from a banking-dominated regime to one that hid behind securitized lending and structures resembling a “shadow banking” system. SIVs, hedge funds, CDOs and increasingly levered mortgage and investment banks fueled asset appreciation in all investment markets, which in turn propelled real economic growth and employment to unsustainable levels.

To PIMCO, the remedy for this deflationary delevering and mini-depression is simple and almost axiomatic: stop the decline in asset prices.

That is the same thing as saying that current yields must come close to matching the economy’s embedded cost of debt if default is to be avoided.

PIMCO’s advice to policymakers is as follows: you can’t bail out everyone, yet economic recovery is not possible unless certain critical asset sectors are not only reliquefied, but rejuvenated in price.

Capitalism at its philosophical and practical center depends on credit, and while new loans can be and are being advanced via the banking system, it’s a much more difficult task to force shadow banks to lend. That lending depends on securitization which in turn depends on stable and eventually higher asset prices than currently exist.

The original text is here.

Twitter got funding, again

When the whole valley is talking about how twitter makes money, the investors definitely are not worried. Twitter, raised $35 million from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital earlier, making the total investment of $50 million.

Valley is always like this: users are always the first priority before business model.

Twitter Gets New Round of Venture Capital Funding (Update2)

By Joseph Galante

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Twitter Inc., the Web-messaging service used by everyone from Barack Obama to Britney Spears, raised $35 million from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital, gaining funding to expand products.

Benchmark General Partner Peter Fenton will join the board, San Francisco-based Twitter said today in a blog posting. Twitter had earlier raised $22 million, bringing the total so far to more than $50 million.

Twitter has more than 55 million daily users who post short updates on anything from their latest date to their views on Congressional hearings. The service has emerged as a valuable source of information and news, which users can access from mobile devices or personal computers, said Todd Chaffee, general partner at Institutional Investors.

“This is going to be a very large media property,” Chaffee said in a telephone interview. “Any time you have millions of users engaging with your service multiple times a day, there are a lot of monetization opportunities.”

The company, founded in 2006 by Chief Executive Officer Evan Williams with partners Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey, rejected an offer to sell itself to Facebook Inc. last year, Chaffee said. The investors plan to make it an independent media company, he said.

anyone who figures out how to make money from radio should be a genius

seems Google can't figure out now..


Google to Shut Down Radio Business, Cut up to 40 Jobs (Update3)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aS850OvFGSTs&refer=us

By Brian Womack

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular search engine, announced plans to shut its three- year-old radio-advertising business and cut as many as 40 jobs, saying the investment didn’t provide enough of a payoff.

The company, which expanded into the market with the 2006 purchase of DMarc Broadcasting Inc., is seeking a buyer for software that arranges ads on radio programs. Google will stop selling radio ads by May 31 and focus instead on online streaming audio, according to a blog posting today.

The move illustrates Google’s failure to parlay its dominance in Internet-search ads into offline media. The company said last month that it would close a business that sold ad space in newspapers. Google spent $102 million in cash for DMarc and agreed to pay as much as $1.14 billion in later installments depending on performance.

Founder and CEO, who can manage the company well?

As one of the few Chinese companies who successfully expanded to the world, Lenovo is always respected. Liu Chuanzhi, the founder, is definitely a character. He appointed Yang Yuanqing, a 30-something, to succeed him as the CEO, and then Chairman. He always says "Empower the youth".

Now with a huge loss reported for the last quarter, Lenovo is struggling among the pressure from investors. Liu is coming back as Chairman, and Yang resigned from chairman to be CEO. The official reason is that Yang will be mainly in charge of domestic business since that's where he came from. I can understand the pressure Lenovo is having now, but the question staying on top of my head is who can manage a company better, a founder or a CEO.

Probably Levono is learning from Yahoo to have its founder back. However, we see Yahoo went still can't get rid of the destiny to be acquired by Microsoft. One of the companies that Leveno may learn is Cisco. Founders already cashed out, while the company has been going through two generation of CEO, John Morgridge, and John Chambers. Even in bad time, Cisco can still survive.

Founders usually have a lot of emotional attachment to the company, such as its original business plan. That type of connection makes it hard to get to a good decision since emotion is hard to control. That's why when company grows bigger, professional managers are needed because they are the one who made the decision for a better future, instead of a planned future.

All I can say here is "Good luck, Lenovo".

Look for one or two experienced website developers

I am working on developing some web application in China, and looking for a rockstar developer. Please let me know if you are or you can connect to someone. Appreciate!!!

Meeting Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape

He is someone in the valley with a big ego. He is outgoing and speaks fast but in a very organized way. I am a big fan of his blog: http://blog.pmarca.com/ though he stopped updating it for months.

He said that a successful entrepreneur has to hire a killer architect, watch closely on the change in the technology industry. He said it's hard to be a person who can both building the company and run the company. He said the silicon valley used to be a high-tech driven company but now turned more into consumer driven. He said the timing is very important.

One thing surprised me is his wide knowledge beyond technology. He is interested in media, and once spent a lot of time on reading the media history. He is also interested in financial service industry, and predicts to see a big change in the next 12 to 18 months.

I always respect smart people who work hard, and he is definitely one of the few.

Support Andy Xie

I shouldn't try to support someone on my blog since it is not an unbiased report. But Andy Xie worths this. He is an independent economy research and once Morgan Stanley's chief economist in Asia, and is now blamed for "being a US citizen". (see the reports from Standard)

It is not a citizenship problem; the cause is Mr. Xie's bearish reports on China's stock market. An article for an editor on Securities Journal blamed Xie's negative speech as being a US citizen. All in all, it is a big cap that tried to make readers hate Xie.

Not to mention if Xie is Chinese citizen or not. People have freedom of speech if this speech doesn't affect other's safety/security. People have freedom to choose their citizenship if this change doesn't affect other's safety/security. We see a lot of non-Chinese speak good things on China, and a lot of Chinese took bribed money from China to overseas. A citizenship means nothing; for someone who dare to say something different, it's unfair to close his/her mouth. It's also dangerous to a country. China needs much more of those types like Xie.

I just saw an annecdote on Obama today. He is going to bring blackberry to the White House though it is dangerous for his securitiy.

He said: "If I'm doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, 'What are you doing?'

The pain of financial crisis

1. US postal office just sent a mail on the adjustment of the mailing schedule after a decrease of 8 million first-class mail in 2001.

2. Jackson library in our school will be closed on Sat and Sun because of the lower budget caused by the financial crisis.

It's surprising on how the public system and education industry got affected by the financial crisis. Obama is going to be the President today. There are lot of things for him to do. A word "change" definitely can't change that much.

3G in China: not a long for now

China finally launched 3G. It is a good news to the telecom equipment manufacturers, considering the over $35 billion investment in the next two years.

lucky or not, I tried 3G phone for two weeks in Beijing this winter. The phone is from Datang, and the network belongs to China Mobile. Frankly speaking, there's no advantage at all; network coverage is poor and the phone is a pain to use. For consumers, it will be hard for them to upgrade their nice phones into some ugly handsets with poor signals.

Definitely don't long on this one for now.

Chinese banks' efficiency

I must be spoiled by HSBC and Wells Fargo; now in Beijing, I found even China Merchant Bank, the so-named China's best retail bank, still has a long way to go.

I was in the Dawang Road branch of CMB yesterday to apply for a new account. It took over half an hour waiting and half an hour to process. The other customers have same situation too. In fact, there are quite a few ways to improve the service, just a bit effort.


Ways to improve the customer experience based on the operation theory:
(1)
Reduce paper work and word-typing process. There are so many paper work involved in each service, while customer don't necessarily need it. For example for easy service such as deposit, signature is not necessarily needed. Another example is to reduce the required blank for applying new account, such as office phone/home phone.etc.


(2)
Add the number of customer rep in the normal service counter. Right now, there are three customer representatives serving in the hall(one manager, two intern), six reps in four normal service counter, three reps in the wealth management counter, maybe a few in the VIP room, too. Among the four normal service counter, one is in charge of easy service, and the other three are dealing with complicated service. The whole bottleneck is here. CMB can try to move the reps from the wealth management counter to the normal service counter to reduce the waiting line. Reps in wealth management counter basically doing nothing, while reps in the normal service counters are busy to death. CMB should increase the utilization in the other counter by letting them doing normal services.

(3)

Entertain customer while they are waiting. There are a lot of ad post but they are not entertaining at all. CMB should add some newspaper/magazine or some TV screen to attract customers' attention from waiting. Those entertaining tool will dramatically reduce customers' complain.

Good luck to CMB and other Chinese banks on the way.

bad service in Lotus Beijing Lotus Supercenter retail store in Beijing

If you are ever in Beijing, never ever go to Lotus Supercenter retail stores. It might be close to your place, but you will sacrifice your good mood for this convenience.

I got a very bad experience in a Lotus Store in Beijing near Chaoyang park. I left my basket in a corner, and went to get something else. The basket just disappeared. I asked one customer rep, and she said she doesn't know. I asked another customer rep, and he said he is charge of the other area. There's a manager-look lady asked a rep to help me, and the rep's answer is she can't help since she just got off the work. I asked totally six employees, and no one ever felt responsible for an annoyed customer.

It turns out Lotus has this rule of return every goods left in five minutes, and someone may mistake my basket as a leftover. I understand this, but that can't be the reason for them to collect the goods basket the customer is still shopping with in two minutes. The rule is a burden to the customer, just because the store wants to keep the goods in order. Shame on them.

More importantly, no one takes an ownership on a single customer. i don't know how Lotus trained their employees, and how they got paid(definitely not for customers but probably for the speed of returning the goods). Every rep looked at me like there's nothing to do with them, instead of trying to take the responsibility to help me. When I asked to see the manager, a rep even said he is not allowed to cross the level to report to the manager.

I used to think the service in Asia is much better, but if you ever in Whole Foods or Safeway in U.S., you can feel like being helped. Reps will approach you and say "do you need help", the countermen or counterwomen will say "did u find everything ok. It's a pity that Lotus is founded by Charoen Pokphand Group, a well-respected Thai conglomerate.

With such a bad service, no wonder Lotus is losing a lot of money in China. It hired two senior WalMart excutive, Jim Haworth and Terry Pharr to save the loss in the beginning of the year and changed the company's Chinese names. My only words to the Jim and Terry: train your people to be customer-centric, instead of rule-centric; or everyone will stop going.

I have to spend 73 rmb in the store today, and will never pay them a cent in the future. Will go to Carrefour though it is a bit far.

If Lotus has a stock, definitely go short.

happiness can be contagious

Happiness can be contagious, even happiness from strangers. so how about an idea of happiness social network?

From New York Times:

How happy you are may depend on how happy your friends’ friends’ friends are, even if you don’t know them at all.

And a cheery next-door neighbor has more effect on your happiness than your spouse’s mood.

So says a new study that followed a large group of people for 20 years — happiness is more contagious than previously thought.

Reform Chinese media just like reform banks?

It's a shame for English media to miss this interview in Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly.Liu Binjie, the director of General Administration of Press and Publication in China, said the state-owned media organization should be restructured in the way as banks did. This is a strong signale on an incoming big reform in China on media organizations, and also a sign that Chinese press and publishing industry have to reform in order to survive.

If people, can remember, Chinese banks did restructure itself a few years ago, while the big four already or are going to list in the stock exchange, making the organizations more transparent.

If what Liu said is true, the impact will be huge on the media industry. For example, the newspaper industry in China prints over 44 billion pieces of newspaper every year; if each piece costs an average 2 rmb, it's gonna be a US$12 billion industry just by selling newspaper, not to mention advertising and so on.

For the book publishing industry, Liu said it will legalize the private capital's role in the industry. This means the private capital can directly publish books in the future, which will make the book publishing market more efficient, and I expect more innovative content will be generated.

Liu also talked about the plan to set up three big media groups with annual revenue over $10 billion. This is an easy part, since right now there are already three including CCTV, SMG and Southern Daily Group. This may not be a good thing for a media start-up, but at least their operation will be more transparent when they are listed.

Hope emerges amid the global financial crisis.

Best wishes to Mumbai

The world peace is hard to remain, and there is always something going on in a corner of the world.

Let's pray.

the impact of financial crisis on MBA

A lot of people asked me how the global crisis affect a MBA. In fact, the impact is much bigger than expected. A lot of companies canceled their campus recruiting, while even companies came are hesitated to give a full-time offer. I heard a lot of consulting firms only hire one or two people in a regional office, which is much fewer than they used to hire. Not to mention banks and private equities. I had lunch with a friend today, and our conclusion is that the MBA job market will not recover quickly even if the economy turns better.

People started talking about how difficult to get a job now, though Stanford MBAs don't usually take the offer from campus recruiting. Entrepreneur career seems more attractive since at least you can start cheap. Luckily, I am on this trek.