I’m writing this from the Worldcom Annual General Meeting in Shanghai.
What an exciting time to be in this city with our Worldcom partners from around the world. The World Expo has 400,000 visitors a day and the growth and development in this country is mind boggling.
James McGregor, author of “One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China,” was one of the presenters. He’s an American who has lived in China for more than 20 years and a former Wall Street Journal bureau chief in Taiwan and Mainland China.
Here are some of the interesting facts about China we learned from him as well as some of our colleagues from Asia.
China was not prepared to take on the global leadership role it’s been asked to assume since the world economic crisis. Because China has such aggressive ambitions for development in its own country, McGregor predicts that it will be challenging for China to “put what’s good for the world in front of its own agenda.”
The cost of Chinese goods and labor are increasing. China will not be able to continue to afford to sell goods as cheaply as in the past.
Traditional media are very vibrant here, despite continued control by the Communist Party. McGregor believes that governmental censorship won’t change for a long time.
Think the internet and social media aren’t important here? Think again. China accounts for 20 percent of all internet usage globally. While YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China, social media is alive and kicking. The Chinese have developed their own social networking platforms like QQ.com. Like practically every other global market, bloggers are growing in importance and the government is having a difficult time controlling their influence.
Chinese companies are eager to understand how do to business in Western markets but have a ways to go in learning the value of building a brand. Traditionally, they’ve focused on increasing sales and market share and consider the long term investment in brand building too “intangible.” While they understand the value of luxury brands, many manufacturers feel that a brand is only a “name on a box.” This is expected to change in the next 10 years and we have a fantastic opportunity to help our Chinese colleagues understand Western-style marketing.
But there are many upsides to this mindset. One is the speed at which things happen here. In the last two years, for example, the government has built 10 subway lines in Shanghai. And we’re still waiting for that Second Avenue subway line to be built in New York!
Here’s a simple — almost poetic — example of how a simple explanation can change people’s expectations.
Last Friday, as millions of Americans gathered around their television sets to watch the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics, there was one question on everyone’s mind: “How are the Canadians going to top what the Chinese did in Beijing in 2008?”The Beijing Opening Ceremony was a super-spectacular, eye popping extravaganza watched by 2 billion people. There were 15,000 performers and a budget of $100+ million vs. Vancouver’s paltry $25 to $30 million. Can you imagine what the guy tasked with creating the next Olympics’ opening ceremonies a mere two years later was feeling after Beijing?
Apparently just fine. As Vancouver ceremony mastermind David Atkins told Today Show’s Matt Lauer on the Friday morning before the Big Event, when he saw the ceremonies in Beijing he actually felt relieved. Relieved, he said, because he intended his design to go “in a different direction.” It would be more “intimate,” “personal,” and “emotional.”
He told viewers he wasn’t going to even attempt to out-do Beijing. That completely changed my expectations of the event, which, as promised, was beautiful and intimate and emotional (K. D. Lang’s rendition of “Hallelujah” is still playing in my head). By resetting expectations, Atkins totally diffused my “can you top this” outlook on the Opening Ceremonies. Maybe it was spin. Maybe it really was how he felt. But Atkins compelled viewers to see the event with a fresh perspective, on its own merits, without making comparisons to something he could never achieve.
I’m thinking he’d make any media trainer proud.
Every morning on my way to work at MMC I join other straphangers who have learned to finesse reading the New York Times on the subway. Afterwards, I throw the paper away. Before you judge me, I do recycle. But it’s still a waste of paper and energy no matter which way you slice it.
That’s starting to really bother me. Like many others, I am increasingly concerned about the environment. And, as much as I love reading all the other daily, weekly and monthly periodicals I get, I am increasingly concerned about how much paper I waste every month.
So I am anxiously awaiting new technology like wi-fi in the subway and better quality downloadable e-readers.
That time may come sooner rather than later.
In a tumultuous week for the publishing industry, Condé Nast has pulled the plug on four magazines: Gourmet, Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. Already there is talk of enhancements to the digital versions of these magazines. And in several weeks, a partnership that includes Time Inc., Hearst, Condé Nast and several other major publishers, will launch a joint initiative to create a new digital reader that is more newspaper and magazine friendly than Amazon’s Kindle. They also plan to create content compatible with Hewlett-Packard and Sony devices, and the new Apple reader when it is available.
I say, “bring it on.”
It’s inevitable that magazine, newspaper and book publishing will go digital. And when it does, I will feel so much better about my voracious reading habit because I won’t be constantly wondering about its environmental impact. I will be willing to pay for the content, as I do now. And I will be far more loyal to the publications I read.
So
let’s get going publishers. I’m ready. And I know a whole lot of other folks who are ready too!
Recently I took a “creative sabbatical” to visit my son at the University of Chicago. The purpose: to help his dorm win an annual U of C competition called “Scav Hunt.”
Scav is not so much a scavenger hunt as a state of mind. Held over four (sleep- deprived) days, teams compete on tasks, which include performances, construction, arts and crafts, research, travel and finding obscure objects. My son’s dorm, Snell-Hitchcock, had won this competition for the last two years. He and his dorm were determined that this year’s outcome would be the same (they won with a 600-point lead).
It was delightful and refreshing to observe a group of (really brainy) students conceive and create 268 items with speed that would give a typical agency person and her clients a heart attack.
Here’s a sample task.
“They say the Scavhunt brand is growing stale and they need a swell new ad campaign to really push the product. Get the boys down in Creative on this, pronto!”
And here’s how much time it took the team to develop the winning campaign: 10 minutes
It was the best campaign on campus. (Fair balance: I’m slightly biased). It was fresh and aspirational with that quintessential U of C sarcasm. A series of four ads asked, “What Do You Scav For?” with droll responses and illustrations relevant to previous Scav events. (“I Scav for The Animals” referred to last year’s Scav where they used chicken carcasses laced with razor blades to conduct “chicken fights.”)
The team did not invest in research, hire experienced consultants, orchestrate big brainstorms or deliberate in exhausting creative sessions. They relied on intuition for insights and developed the creative within an hour of conceiving the idea.
There’s a lesson here for us experienced professionals. Especially those like me who love nothing more than pouring through a pile of data to find that one big “aha”: sometimes that first spark of an idea really is the best. Some of the best programs I’ve ever seen have been conceived before the client has finished presenting the brief. Of course, in the “real world” we need to do a little more work to substantiate it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t explore those early ideas. Some of them might be winners!
I recently made a delicious dish for a family dinner braised beef ribs with pomegranate sauce. Recipe – Braised Flanken With Pomegranate – NY Times.com It was a recipe I’d seen in the New York Times and, since there are enthusiastic beef lovers in my family, I thought I’d try it out.
The recipe seemed simple enough. Sauté various vegetables until caramelized, add pomegranate juice and red wine and reduce the liquid by half. The recipe said the reduction would take about two minutes. I thought they’d made a mistake. How could you reduce that much volume in two minutes? But a few minutes later, I did indeed have a beautifully reduced sauce and proceeded on with the next steps. The final product was tender and savory with a hint of sweetness. The family gobbled it up and took home leftovers.
A few days later, it occurred to me how similar this particular cooking experience was to my job at MMC. As Chief Business Strategist, I spend a lot of time digesting and analyzing research from many different sources. At the end of the research process, I have to boil everything down to an actionable insight and a clear strategy. That’s the point where I get up from my desk, get a glass of water, check how the Dow is doing and see if I have any interesting emails. It’s the moment where I wonder how am I going to synthesize all of this complex, sometimes conflicting information into a clear recommendation that will be meaningful to a client’s business?
It requires a bit more work than stirring ingredients and watching the liquid evaporate. But that’s the fun of it. You have to discipline yourself to pare everything down. Focus only on what is fresh, meaningful and actionable. At the end the “reduction” is down to the essence and hopefully there are no leftovers!
I’m not sure cooking is always going to teach me something about strategy. Maybe next time I’ll find inspiration from my next vacation, business meeting, or shopping excursion. I’ll let you know.
