Doing Business in China: Strategies (2)
Doing Business in China Part 2:
The third strategy in our series on Doing Business in China involves: “Besieging Wei to Save Zhao.” Basically this means that you don’t need a bigger army if you’ve got relative superiority at key points of contact. Ask anyone who has ever played the Japanese game of Go if they have ever lost due to “target fixation” by fixating on the larger battles and getting overtaken by the troops in the skirmishes. The story involves a general of Zhao, who allowed an opposing army to lay siege to the major city of Wei (one of 7 “key” cities) so that his army could exhaust his opponent and defeat them later.
During our time in China, and having traveled to meet dozens of top expatrapreneurs, we feel confident we could amass a formidable staff in your campaign for business superiority in China. The metaphor, however prosaic, stands to give you the information needed for relative superiority at any point of business contact:
Without a doubt, you’ll need China Law Blog as your JAG. If you have a question about the law you should be talking to Dan and Steve.They have the most powerful and best researched China blog on the Internet and don’t let the name fool you: they talk with good humor and keen insight about all aspects of life in China both personal and professional.
And recently we met Sam Flemming, CEO if CIC in Shanghai. His company, once providing niche research has created a mainstream standard in China and is an absolute necessity: to learn the latest IWOM buzz on your brand, Sam’s team provides the latest in searched-for terms for your product or service on in the China websphere and identifies for you all critical advertising data, reputation management information. Our Online Digital Marketing Company, Culturefish Media, has resolved not to enter into a large campaigns for clients without the thorough recon’ work offered up by CIC. Equally helpful is China Vortex, who keeps abreast of the latest Internet news, trends and information in China. And for in-depth knowledge about consumer markets in China, Shaun Rein and his team will prepare the field via white papers and in-depth reports that will guide you to success. And las, but not least is Marc Vanderchijs’ blog. Marc is a Dutch Entrpreneur and co-founder of the China video sharing site Tudou. Reading his blog wiill make you feel like you a fireside chat with a real veteran. There is much to be learned there.
For a good quartermaster, we heartily recommend All Roads Lead to China for the latest information about logistics, shipping, and import-export here in China. As for logistics, kinakontaak…kinaahgk…kinkatonkie the tall Scandanavian guys on the small motorbikes at Kinakontakten and the publicly traded kings of online savvy at Global Sources are two reliable resources for keeping supply lines open and moving with quality products.
For Engineers capable of helping you build a great business, Globe Forum and its SME incubator methodology will connect you with the world’s fast-growth and corporately responsible companies and opportunities.
In public affairs, Kaiser Kuo, Web Wednesday and Danwei are the best at what they do. All of them know the lay of the land and are not afraid to speak or change their minds as the truth mandates. If it is relevant, Kaiser, Napoleon and Jeremy have likely already talked about it over lunch or Twittered, Facebooked and Blogged it throughout the Middle Kingdom.
China biz needs an expat Signal Corps: men, women, and sites dedicated to quality digital content, keeping up with the latest in online technology developments. China Web Review 2.0 will keep up to date on the latest in Internet trends, David Feng will brief you on the latest updates on technology and trends (especially Apple Products), and ChinaOnTV will provide you with high-quality digital videos about anything from history to contemporary Kung Fu and Chinese Recipes. Meanwhile, China Webmasters will keep you ahead of the power curve and put your website on track for visibility in China.
For cultural affairs, Shanghaiist stands out as a great collection of the most interesting cultural news in China. From updates on the Worldwide Pillow Fight in Shanghai to updates on F-visas, these guys know what is going on. The defense language institute belongs to Chinesepod and The Lost Laowai Blog.
For personnel needs, look to ChinaBiz Speakers and the wealth of great knowledge these speakers can tap into. The top aggregator of talent driven content about doing business in China is the China Business Network. CBN, hosted by our comrade-in-arms Christine Lu, is a one-stop Linked-In connection for Web 2.0 in China and Silicon Valley leaders and visionaries.
Everyone needs a Morale and Welfare Corp, and in China’s all-too-serious blogosphere, some down-to-earth chopping wood and carrying water is needed. The Library Project, which builds literacy in orphanages and rural schools around China, does a great job of spreading goodwill as does The China Dreamblogue, whose purpose is to create travel, charity and educational opportunities for Westerners and Chinese while promoting engagement with all that is positive about China. CCTV9’s Culture Express provides a surprisingly well produced source of information about China’s remarkable past and contemporary cultural heritage. And since we live on the south we look to GZ nightlife, Shenzehn Stuff and the newest gourmet dining spot in the area belogs to our friends at Wilbur’s Guangzhou Restaurant–They even have their own private-label house wine if you get tired of that Rothchild’s brand.
There is plenty more to come. Not nearly as many links, but a footlocker full of books, movies, and other valuable resources….
Posted 2 April, 2008 in Internet marketing China, Chinese Internet, The Internet, New Blogs, SEO, SEM, China Law, SEO China Expert, 中文, Chinese Media, 中国, Top Blogs, Greater Asia Blogs, Hong Kong Blogs, Top China Blogs List, China web 2.0, Intercultural Issues, China Editorials, In the news, China Business, China Cartoons, China SEO
Zaijian…. (46)
Books have been virtually replaced by blogs. But, puns aside, many of them showcase the transformative elements Pablo Neruda* suggests as essential to written art in Ars Magnetica:
“From so much loving and journeying, books emerge.
And if they don’t contain kisses or landscapes,
if they don’t contain a woman in every drop,
hunger, desire, anger, roads,
there are no use as a shield or as a bell:
they have no eyes and won’t be able to open them….”
Here I have I have tried to smooth the stubble of memory, share poetry, attempt humor, journal my social conscience, and reconcile my longings while shoutng to you in some far-off room. I leave here absolutely bewildered that anyone, other than my long-suffering friends, ever returned to listen. I am grateful you did.
(more…)
Posted 2 August, 2007 in Entertainment, Guangzhou, Travel in China, New Blogs, The Great Firewall, Guangzhou China, The Sharpest Guy on the Planet, Censorship, China Book Reviews, Charity in China, Beijing Olympics, China Law, UK SEO EXPERT, China Business Consultant, American Professor in China, 中文, Chinese Education, Hainan Island, 中国, In the news, Expats, Teaching in China, China Editorials, Intercultural Issues, China Expats, Hong Kong, China Humor, Hong Kong Blogs, China Cartoons, China Business, Confucius Slept Here, Just Plain Strange, Photos, Weird China, China Photos, Cancer Journal, American Poet in China, The Unsinkable Ms Yue, China web 2.0
China Photo Contest (4)
Have picture of the Middle Kingdom you like and want to share with the world?
OMBW will sponsor a contest that will run all year and culminate in a coffee table book that will raise funds for China charities and the Literacy Group The Reading Tub.
It is simple:
Send your best shot of people, places or events in China to: dreamblogue@gmail.com with the information required below. We will post several shots, once a week, on OMBW and on http://blogof dreams.com where you and your friends can vote for your favorites. The top 250 will make it into the book. There is NO entry fee.
There will be prizes, yet to be decided, for the winners, links back to blogs or sites if requested, contributor copies of the coffee table book. All rights are returned to the creator upon publication and you are free to multiple submit your work to other sites, magazines or contests. First prize in each division will be an expense paid week on the road with Yanzhi and Dawei and the Dreanblogue Team during their charity and friendship tour of China
Ideally there will be three divisions:
Hobby Photographer: You take pictures for personal enjoyment and you have a shot that you would like to share with the world
Amateur: You aspire to be professional and have a bit more experience or training than do most of us in the amateur ranks
Professional: You get paid for your work, but are willing to share it with us at OMBW and the Dreablogue so we can raise a few dollars for charity
We will try to post new pictures once a week on Friday. The rules:
Make the photos as Web-friendly as possible: No more than 450 Pixels wide please. If you win we will ask for the high resolution file.
Include the following information with your email:
- Real name
- Division
- Province where picture was taken
- Name of Photo as you want it in the ALT tag
- Your location and email (not to be published)
- Your desired screen name for voting and picture tags
- A short statement giving us permission to place the picture on OMBW and The China Dreamblogue during 2006-7
- Your blog or website URL, if there is one, to which we should link the photos
There is no limit to the number of photos you can submit….
Look for the first photos next week!
Posted 22 May, 2007 in SEO, SEM, Seo China, Chinese Internet, New Blogs, The Internet, Search Engine Marketing, Travel in China, China Photo Contest, Photo Contest, 中文, Heartsongs, Chinese Media, Charity in China, The Great Wall, Yangshuo China, Intercultural Issues, Expats, China Expats, Greater Asia Blogs, Top China Blogs List, Hong Kong Blogs, Teaching in China, The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, Top Blogs, 中国, Tibet, Photos, China Photos, China web 2.0
The Sinocidal History of China (0)
The funniest guys in the China blogsphere have a must-see post for you guys. It has been up for a few days, but is timeless. A preview:
2500 BC: Chinese scientists rename the fatherland “the motherland” after determining the sex of China.
1600 BC: The great Yu, last of the Five Legendary Rulers, promises to eradicate bad habits such as spitting and queue jumping within the next five years. “China is a developing country” he reminds critics.
770 BC - 476 BC: The Spring and Autumn Period occurs in China, and is only brought to an end by the invention of Summer and Winter by Chinese scientists.
1969: The dreams of Man are realised as Neil Armstrong takes his first step on the moon. China responds by stating it too will place a man selling lamb kebabs, t-shirts, and musical lighters, on the moon by 2040.
June 4th 1989: According to the official records of the CCP, on this day the sun was shining, so Deng Xiaoping decided to have a nice picnic with his friends out in the countryside. On the way home, he saw a cute kid selling homemade lemonade by the roadside, so he bought six glasses for only one yuan each, and then gave the kid a shiny button to take home.
Enjoy….
Posted 25 March, 2007 in New Blogs, Chinese Internet, Blogroll Diving, 中国, Top Blogs, Top China Blogs List, China Expats, China Humor
China Photos (6)
Gil Azouri has posted China Photos worth much more than a thousand of my words:
Posted 17 March, 2007 in The Great Wall, New Blogs, 中国, Photos, China Photos, Asia
SEO CHINA (20)
As many of you know I have been doing search Engine Optimization and Search engine Marketing for about six years. It started as a harmless hobby and now has a life of its own: running and screaming naked down information highways in search of higher ranks for all manner of search terms like: Professor Lucky Pants, The Handsomest Poet in China, Blog Prostitute in Guangzhou American Professor…..
I began blogging when Andy Naughton, the genius behind Cyberglass, told me that I had to quit clogging his box with long-winded emails. He convinced me that I was in desperate need of a blogging forum. That was the start of OMBW and my experiments with weblog SEO. OMBW, early on, was a platform for web trials, but now that it is back to being my writing refuge, I would like to pass on some of what I have acquired along the way to to those of you in search of an audience or a product customer base.
Unlike some SEO information give-aways there is no hook here: I won’t be asking you to sign up for a newsletter, buy my book on the Internet According to Khan or anything designed to MAKE MILLIONS WITH A HOME COMPUTER!!!! It is just a chance for me to download to the blog page a bit of what I have learned via a virtual school of hard knocks. I won’t scoff at offers of business, but I do get a fair number of calls as I am (more seriously) listed–as should be YOUR SEO consultant–in several engines for SEO work in China: China Blog SEO, SEO Consultant China , Seo China, SEO Specialist China, and so on…. I have done work for small and large concerns ranging from Shell Vacations (#1 in Family Vacation Club and 200+ other keywords), and Altec Corporate Training (#3 after three weeks for Corporate Training China), to smaller concerns like Blogger News Network (#1 out of 100,000,000 for Blogger News) , and Yangshuo Mountain Retreat (Now #1 in dozens of keywords such as Outdoor Team Building China)….
This will be the start of an Internet Marketing Tutorial for those doing general cyber-business or blogging in China. I will do a post a week for the next year about how to build traffic and high search engine visibility. I will start with U.S. engines like Yahoo! and Google and then move on to China. Feel free to ask me any questions along the way.
SEO services in the U.S. and China are vastly different. Chinese companies usually charge by the keyword. A top ten listing for a “cool word” (one with low result returns in Google) might cost you 8,000 RMB a word per year; a “hot” word/term like English School China with 85,000,000 returns could cost you 20-30,000 RMB per year. If that were the case for me I would have someone ghost-writing this blog and I would be having my feet massaged in first-class on Singapore Air.
I hope I save you a ton of money and aspirin…
Next week I will introduce my first lesson.
Posted 16 March, 2007 in 中国, cartoons, Confucius Slept Here, Guangzhou China, New Blogs, Internet marketing China, Seo China, The Internet, China Business, China Cartoons, Asian Humor, China Humor, Humor, Greater Asia Blogs, Asia, China Editorials, Intercultural Issues, China web 2.0
The Bloggie Awards (3)
The results are finally in:
Best Asian Weblog
Tokyo Girl Down Under
The Finalists for Best Asian Blog all deserve a look. They are wonderfully diverse. Unlike Tokyo Girl they are truly Asia based:
And OMBW ( I was an also-ran)
Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog
Best African or Middle Eastern Weblog
Best European Weblog
Best British or Irish Weblog
Best Latin American Weblog
Best Canadian Weblog
Best American Weblog
Best Photography of a Weblog
Best Craft Weblog
Best Food Weblog
Help I have a Fire in My Kitchen
Best Sports Weblog
Best Weblog About Music
Best Entertainment Weblog and
Most Humorous Weblog
Best GLBT Weblog
My condolences to the other finalists who are truly representative of GLBT culture, humor, politics, llifestyle and celebration. This is my only truck with popular vote contests. Perez Hilton is to GLBT blogs what Rush Limbaugh is to political radio: entertainment! Visit the finalists:
Best Writing of a Weblog
And this guy can shape a story! Waiter Rant!
Best Group Weblog
Best Community Weblog and
Weblog of the Year
One of those “I wish I had thought of it” blogs that takes you through the full spectrum of emotions evry single visit!
Best New Weblog
Best-Kept Secret Weblog
Confessions of a Pioneer Woman
Congrats all….
As a postscript: I hope the folks over at The Asia Blog Awards revive their contest. They had the best formula in the blogsphere: Popular vote, Technorati rank, Distinguished Judges scores ….
Posted 13 March, 2007 in Top Blogs, 中国, New Blogs, India, In the news, Japan, Top China Blogs List, Hong Kong Blogs, Asia, China web 2.0
CHINGLISH SIGHTINGS (0)
Found at The Humour Page :
Found at Rojacks:
Beijing sign: Forbidden: Prostitution, gambling and drag abuse!
Someone should tell this Bollywood guy:
Posted 8 March, 2007 in Bollywood, New Blogs, India, 中国, Chinglish, China Humor, Asian Humor, Photos, Humor
Good Golly Miss Bolly! (1)
There is a new blog in town.
Another friend has decided to turn her obsession into another obsession and blog about Bollywood–two addictions for the price of one. And is Good Golly Miss Bolly a great name or what? Some of the rejected titles were: Bombay is Reeling, Bollywood Boulevard, Macau’s Dehli….
Bollwood is a hot item these days. It has become mainstream western fare Bollywood stars are popular poster picks for American teens.
I am a closet Bollywood fan (I guess this post effective outs me, huh Scott?) and pine for the days of big budget movies, orchestras and happy endings that only India and China can afford to produce now. Bollywood is dancing and singing and near smooching and dancing and near smooching and near smooching and singing and dancing….and all very sensual because lots is still left to the imagination, the mystery is intact…
Take a stroll down Bollywood Boulevard, and watch Bombay Reeling with Arizona native and Macau expat, Miss Bolly.
