Entrepreneur – ???

Beijing Diary Issue X 23 April 2006Entrepreneur – ???This was a week when I started to mix more with other entrepreneurs, interviewed candidates and experienced the
Inner Mongolian deserts attempting to suffocate Beijng in a blanket of fine sand.

The Chinese word for entrepreneur is???(qi ye jia), the first two words are the same as business, but interestingly with the addition of the word 'jia' or 'home' it becomes a pronoun for all those seeking to prove that they have the next hot idea – a linguistic clue perhaps that all Chinese have business on their mind and in their homes. On Wednesday I went to the China Entepreneurs Forum at which 90 plus hopefuls listened to Fritz Demopoulos[1] and NickYang[2] speak.The mix of people in the room interested me, an equal number of local Chinese, expatriates and those who should profit the most, the returning Chinese."This forum would not have been possible even two years ago," said the founder Eric Smidth, "because the market in China has changed so rapidly to embrace entrepreneurship." Now as individual cities and even city districts compete to get new companies to register with their commercial department, the costs and improving transparency have made entrepreneurship viable. In Chaoyang district the EASWEST WOFE will cost US$4,000 and take some 3 months to process. Still a far cry from the 7 day and US$600 fees ofSingapore or near instant registration in Hong Kong, but for entrepreneurs, the footsoldiers of a country's economic army, it is possible to enter the fray.

One of the comments that Nick made was that success = effort/expectation[3] and I found this a useful way to evaluate my first 3 months in Beijing. To date I have rented an office, set up an IT network, undertaken two client projects, started the translation of the website to Chinese, attended multiple networking events and interviewed 8 candidates. I feel that my successes have been few for the efforts. Above all, I haven’t won a client in
China yet – and this is the acid test of my entpreneurial vision. In low moments I counsel myself to re-evaluate my expectations – but have still institigated the ‘no client – no couch’ policy which keeps me at the desk or in my bed, with nothing soft inbetween. The difficulty with being an entrepreneur is that by definition, one has to start things and believe that they will be a success. Another word from Nick rang true "If you follow the pack, you are not an entrepreneur. If you run counter to popular opinion and are right you are a visionary. If you are proven wrong then you are an idiot."Hoping to be proven right in my expectations after reading the candidate questionnaires Nicole had sent out, I engaged in the time intensive task of interviewing this week. I found the quality of English staggering – both in the written replies to my 4 page questionnaire, but also in the articulation of concepts and expression of a desire to be in a company where the candidate can learn and grow. Each and every person, graduating or already in work, expressed a need to work in a company that would teach them new skills, and those who wanted to leave present employers would do so not only for the money, which the cynic in me didn't believe entirely, but because they felt they were not growing. 26 year olds who had studied Master's degrees in the UK were asking for RMB5-6,000 (US$625-750)[4] The decision that I have to take now is which is the right person to hire first, a decision between a Beijing university graduate from Guandong who studied in Leeds or a Beijing women who studied a Masters in Surrey.  In amongst the candidates were some expatriates, often with little Mandarin, expectating salaries three times that of Chinese graduates – I couldn’t help but see the parallels with the message Hu Jintao was telling the American press while in Seattle, it is not that the Western economies are uncompetitive in absolute terms, they are just uncompetitive in relative terms to the Chinese costs and hunger for development.To see how a young Chinese business is developing, and with a view to some Internet tools that we need, I went to visit my friend Guosheng Qi[5] and his company, Gridsum[6]. A group of graduates from Tsinghua
University under the considered guidance of Qi, they are offering Internet consulting, search engine optimisation and internet development. I am not an expert in development, but in the tidy office on the 6^th floor of a grey, but buzzing, building I think I saw the engines of China’s present growth. Qi showed me how they could use an English language crawler to download an entire site and extract key text, while anonymously sitting in Haidian district in north east Beijing. Apparently English language Internet searching yields 3 times the content that Chinese language searches do, because English is more precise, with Chinese sentences having potentially several meanings, depending upon context. Ironically the complexity of English makes it compelling and essential for the Chinese to learn for communication, commerce and even as the source code behind their internet. 

The source of the blanket of sand over Beijing this week was Inner Mongolia, one of 11 such storms to hit China this year. On Sunday alone, the big winds from the northern province brought 10 tons of sand per square kilometre[7], a small fraction from the 1.74m square kilometres of desertified land in the country, accounting for 18% of China’s land area. At Jian Wai SOHO, painstakingly architected in fabulously impractical white, an army of cleaners was dispatched to sweep and scrub, and I saw one woman tasked with uncovering the hundreds of white marble pebbles that lie at the base of the each tree within the SOHO plantation, armed with a washing up brush. It is a serious issue for
China that the capital city is essentially being encroached upon by a large and irrestible desert. There are some 838 days left to the Olympics, and the herculean task of holding back nature to allow preparations must surely be an opportunity for an entrepreneur with vision, assuming that with all this sand in the air, they can see clearly.

---

[1] Currently running travel site www.qunar.com, formerly CEO of Shawei.com, a sports internet company. After securing investment from Intel, Softbank and IDG, Shawei was profitably acquired by Tom.com. [2] Founder of Nasdaq listed mobile content portal www.kongzhong.com started with US$500,000 in capital raised from selling their Internet portal, Chinaren, to
SOHO

[3] Attributed to an American academic

Sloan
School

[4] Taxi drivers in
Beijing earn RMB3000 per month.

[5] Second from the left

[6] See their new logo as work in progress – an indication of the emphasis being put on marketing

[7] Source: china daily 21 April 2006 page 3

“Cash for coverage”

Beijing Diaries. Vol. II. Issue. IX (16^th April 2006) Easter Sunday 

“Cash for coverage”

This was a week when the largely academic and logistical challenges of starting EASTWEST in China became superceded by practical issues of sifting through resumes, the moral dilemma of ‘cash for coverage’ and the realization that even some simple tasks are open to misinterpretation.  In response to our 4 page questionnaire that I use to filter job seekers, Nicole and I received some 15 replies, not all as expected. Raymond, a 35 year old Vice General Manager apparently at a local PR firm replied: ‘hi Nicole,i hate waste too much time to answer those questiones.i am not a usual guy..here is
beijing china,the clients are wating special company and special man…pls just schedule a time to meet next week if you want to know real market or forget it. good luck, raymond’  Good luck indeed Raymond. This terse response was quite a contrast to the many extremely polite and considered answers, not all of which were spell checked, as one candidate elegantly named ‘Snow’ replied to the question, ‘what do you understand a PR firm does’ as “Go Pubic” for the clients.” Of course it’s not fair to poke fun as I wonder if Haier or Lenovo ask American or British candidates to answer questionnaires in Mandarin.   My goal is to find a recent graduate who can help me to build the network of contacts I need. Last year some 3,380,000 young people poured out of the 2,210 higher education institutes[1]. Apparently 25% didn’t find jobs and so someone must be available. What has impressed me from the questionnaires has been the keen desire of all the applicants to learn, and the honesty with which they declare their ignorance, but take adventurous steps defining how we can build the business. Public Relations is seen as a new and emerging profession, and while Raymond’s delivery may have not been so diplomatic he identified the real opportunities and challenges that I face.  In
China there is an entirely different approach to PR. While in Europe and America, and in Singapore, there is a tacit agreement on the separation between advertising and editorial, in China this line doesn’t exist. In other words, agencies pay journalists a ‘transport allowance’ to get coverage. I have dealt with this previously, but always through our partner agencies. This week I had a call with a potential client selling properties in Mongolia who want coverage in Beijing and Shanghai newspapers. Delighted at the prospect of a client, I am also hamstrung by my inability to call the journalists myself, and by a realisation that I will have to navigate the ‘allowance’ negotiations.   The ‘allowance’ ranges from RMB100 (US$12.5) to RMB1000 (US$125) depending upon the merit of the news release. In a way I can see the logic of this arrangement – the media own the channel through which one distributes information, just like a middleman takes a commission when selling fruit or furniture. Why should they pay for journalists, layout, printing and postage to help promote another company’s products? It is a moral dilemma for all agencies in that as long as ‘cash for coverage’ exists the profession will struggle with it’s reputation as paymasters not perception managers; the poor brethren of advertising agencies. For me it presents practical issues of how much, how to disburse but also what precedent it sets for EASTWEST as a new arrival.Nicole, arriving on Monday for one month to help at the office, couldn’t empathise with my dilemma and assumed that ‘cash for coverage’ was how PR works, one of a few areas of miscommunication. Nicole is my former language coach from when I was in the Beijing Culture Language University in 2004, and I asked her to come and work with me as I trust her implicitly. On Wednesday a courier company made a delivery and I asked Nicole to take a note of the courier company’ phone number and she called them requesting pricing information. On Thursday morning I asked her to send a document and the 12 photos for the company registration to Ken Lee by courier. At the close of the day I asked her why the document was still on the desk. “What’s a courier?” she sweetly enquired. Slightly incredulous, I recounted the previous day’s activities. “Oh – I wasn’t sure if you meant this letter had to go to Korea, or it had something to do with my career, and tell me, what is a courier?” I know and trust Nicole – I spent 3 months with her teaching me Chinese – and here we were sitting no more than 2 feet away from one another with the simplest of tasks completely misunderstood. Nicole promptly picked up the phone and had a man take the document and deliver it. That evening Nicole went to Ikea to source more office furniture – seen here looking at career enhancing shelves made in Korea that could be delivered by courier.   
Today is Easter Sunday, and I have failed to celebrate. Lent’s forty days have passed, the fifty days of the Easter Season has begun. The last forty days have meant going without a number of things, including heating, and I am praying that the Easter season, although of course not recognized in secular China, will bring me some salvation in the form of a bright, bi-lingual graduate who understands the difference between a person, a vocation and a country, and who is good at negotiating transport allowances.  

Man zou                       

---

[1] http://www.moe.edu.cn/english/index.htm 

‘Commuter’

 

Beijing Diaries. Vol. II. Issue. VIII (9^nd April 2006) 

 

‘Commuter’

 

 

This week I made progress in transitioning the Jianwai soho unit into an office, started the recruitment drive and felt what it is like to commute between cities, a fatiguing experience destined to be the fate of a growing number of mainland Chinese.

 

 

On Tuesday Guosheng Qi, a serious young IT graduate of Tsinghua university, came in a cream linen suit followed by sweating minions who delivered the hand assembled computer and HP printer.  Qi, whose email address alludes to his sense of optimism at jubilantocean@yahoo.com, told me of his desire to work with international clients as foreigners ‘understand that software can add to the business process and not be a cost that must be avoided.’ Qi sees most Chinese firms not paying for software but rather installing it without an understanding of what it can accomplish. Ironically when I had asked Qi about purchasing MS Office he told me that this was not the custom in
China, where some 92% of all software is pirated.[1] Qi would answer emails at all times of day and night, seemingly working around the clock, keeping pace with the 24 construction of
Beijing.

 

There is a sense in
Beijing that to stop working is to be left behind. Jian Wai Building 10 is an island of finished construction surrounded by a road receiving rails, a power sub-station being deconstructed, two acres of settling soil awaiting the piling cranes and the white lines being painted in the car park of the new International Trade Centre building. In the office across from mine the young entrepreneurs at the glamorously named XianTu Design Centre kip on the couches, their aging Xerox machines spitting out copies and RMB while they slumber.

 

This prevailing sense that ‘now is the time’ keeps me driving forward, and the next part of the plan is to find people – considered to be the hardest part of setting up in China. I placed an English language advert on the Shui Mu Qinghua[2] bulletin board at 10.00 on Monday morning. Eden, who kindly did this for me, told me “be prepared for the rain.” By 16.00 I had 35 applications and 4 phone calls from people with email addresses including ‘rosiedream’, ‘hope’, and my favourite, ‘maximisechina.’ Within 24 hours I had 65 applications. A complete mix of people applied, some considering their experience as an organizer in the Youth Communist Party to be critical, one their computer skills and one lad named Jack, just felt he should be given a chance. Overall the bi-lingual written skills are high, and I look forward to discovering who actually wrote their resumes themselves and who paid English competent friends for the favour.

I headed back to Singapore mid-week on CA 969, one of an average 932[3] flights leaving
Beijing airport daily. A herd of country people were being rounded up for flight 1991 to
Vancouver, and I thought the flight number was synonymous with the year that these folks were emerging from. One 20 hour flight to ‘Hongcouver[4]’ would carry them through 20 years like a scene in ‘Back to the Future.’ The plane to
Singapore was full of ‘commuters’ like me, mostly asleep before the delayed take off. China Air planes don’t have in-flight entertainment, save the distance screened movie, and flight 969 ressembled a flying dormitory for the
China hopefuls.

 

The hope for
Singapore, now that it has arrived in the future, is to become a great sporting nation. The Rugby Sevens were being played this weekend here, and I was fortunate enough to be invited by my friend Tim to hear three rugby legends talk – John Eales, Willie John McBride and Martin Johnson. An audience of nearly 1000 expatriates heard these men talk of their exploits, and bid some S$140,000 for memorabilia, money that would go to replenish the coffers of the Singapore Rugby Union after executive Steven Lee absconded with S$300,000 of club funds last year.

 

John Eales former Australian international said, “Leadership requires humility, composure,…,having faith in the plan, the people, and the opportunity.”

 

As I prepare to commute back to
Beijing tonight, to start interviewing people who will become EASTWEST China, I continue to have faith in the plan, the Chinese and the opportunity that lies in middle Kingdom. It is the inescapability of commuting that requires humility, and efforts not to display fatigue that require composure.

 

In response my end rejoinder of Man Zou, long time friend and IT support guru, Jin Chong commented that “Man Zou” is used mostly when you meet people whom are going back, a smaller version of “Bon voyage”, in most cases, conversational. As I commute it seems as though Man Zou is what Jin should be saying to me.  

Although pretending his Mandarin is rusty, Jin suggested I say “Zhen Zhong Zaijian” 珍重再见Translated as “Very seriously I wish you well for the future” – or less seriously as “take care”。Interestingly enough the alternative spelling of Zhong is Jin’s surname Chong – some people will do anything to get into the Diaries it seems. After all the commuting I think I still rather like the idea of man zou慢走, walk slowly. 

---

[1] Source: Trade Secret Theft. Computer World. Nov. 15 2004. 92% of the software installed on computers is pirated, according to a recent study by IDC and the Business Software Alliance.

[2] One of Beijing’s leading universities

[3] Source: http://www.bcia.com.cn/en/investor_data_1_filelist.html

[4] So called because of the number of Hong Kong people living in
Vancouver

‘Blooming Beijing’

Beijing Diaries. Vol. II. Issue. VII (2^nd April 2006) 

‘Blooming
Beijing’ 

‘Springtime is seen as a season, growth, renewal and new life. But it is also a time when chronic diseases break out’[1]

This has been an excellent week, one in which I secured first ever coverage for clients in mainstream English language publications in China, gave EASTWEST it’s Chinese christening and avoided all Spring related illnesses.

I started the early part of the week in Shanghai working with our local partners at a press briefing for our clients the Asia Public Real Estate Association[2]. Enveloped in the 5 star luxury of the 4 Seasons hotel it was easy to believe one was in New York, but when I went back to the 168 Budget motel past the rows of pink-lit massage parlours masquarading as hair salons, and was accosted by children and their begging mothers outside expatriate watering holes, it was clear that in Shanghai the streets are not paved with gold. Our press briefing on the Monday secured coverage in the Shanghai Daily and China Daily, discussing the lack of transparency that exists in China for property investors and the need for international standards to enable Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) to be safe investment vehicles for international fund managers. A day later Giorgio Armani arrived in Shanghai to announce opening 40-50 stores in China over the next five years – the finer detail of lack of property title transparency less appealing to the publishers than the sight of the Dorian Gray of fashion surrounded by spring chickens of the catwalk

Spring is officially here, because the heating is off. I arrived back to SOHO to a chilly apartment. Tired and fractious after a days travel I felt the intense frustration of being completely unable to influence my surroundings – the radiators were stone cold and the all-in-one aircon/heater units appeared to have no electricity to them. November 15^th to March 15^th is apparently the period during which Beijing residences receive heating – regardless of temperature or personal choice. One person somewhere on the grid apparently flips one switch and we are all driven to reach for sweaters, scarves and duvet. Today it was 22ºC. The temperature[3] gains a mean 8ºC during the month of March, rising from Hi/Lows of 7ºC/-4ºC at the start of the month to 16ºC/3ºC at the end of the month.  Mercifully because spring is officially here, the same hand that turned off the heat is turning on the water giving life to plants and grass, and flowers in gratitude are bursting into bloom. Nature’s contribution to Spring is the big wind that she uses to scour construction sites for cement and dust the city with a fine grey grit.

According to Chen Zhi Yong, a Traditional Chinese Medicine expert, springtime is one of growth and renewal but also the potential for sickness is high, not least due to this large wind which causes the barometer to rise and fall, affecting one’s Qi or life force. During winter our bodies, like trees, store up energy which forms the essence of Qi, but also toxins. In the springtime these toxins flow as evil Qi that poison our systems, causing illness and skin diseases. Springtime is considered the season of the liver, the cleansing organ, and the organ that is responsible for ensuring the smooth flow of Qi as it takes its passage outwards towards the extremities of the body giving healthy activity. The warmth of spring has also brought health concerns about avian flu, H5N1, and this week government officials were vaccinating pet birds in the park as 16 people in
China have been infected so far, of whom 11 have died.

The numbering of Avian Flu got me thinking about names and the impact of a name on success, a concern this week as I had to christen the China Company. Chinese people, admittedly mainly girls, have adopted English nouns to make their names easier to pronounce for foreigners but also because it sounds cooler. I have met girls called “Rain”, “Ocean”, “Seven” and at the press briefing a journalist with the Shakespearan name “Ophelia[4].” Jessica of ‘Lee and Lee’ devised some nice names which had both the sound of EastWest and a meaning of ease and listening. The problem with translating EASTWEST directly is that while Dong (东) means East and Xi (西) means West, when spoken together as EASTWEST /DongXi (东西) they mean ‘thing’. “Thing PR” seemed a little inarticulate.  We settled on Yi Tong[5] （易通） – which means easy communication, but in this language blessed with ambivalence, can also mean ‘easy to go through.’

Spring is coming to Beijing and with it many blooms. Tomorrow I am having delivered a new computer, printer and router which will create more of a sense of this space being an office and not a weigh station for my adventures, and with posting an advert for the first member of staff I am working to create a team that can connect with the team in Singapore and the Beijing community. The main challenge that everyone has told me they face in Beijing is that of recruitment and then retaining staff. The young people that I have met so far have been extremely earnest and keen to please, but then they have been seeking a placement and it may different once they have the rights of an employee. Now that it is officially spring time, the added concern is that potential candidates are not suffering from an imbalance of the elements of wood and earth, or H5N1, and of course that they like my new company name, Yi Tong易通

Man zou (take care)

H5N1 bird flu virus has infected 16 people in
China, of whom 11 have died

Ophelia is the submissive daughter of Polonius, a chief advisor to the new King Claudius, in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is deeply loved by both Hamlet and her brother, Laertes. … upon in the play

---

[1] China Daily ‘How to stay healthy in Spring’. Page 12. March 22^nd 2006

[2] Aprea.biz

[3] Thanks to weather.com for precise, unbiased view of the weather

[4] Ophelia is the submissive daughter of Polonius, a chief advisor to the new King Claudius, in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is deeply loved by both Hamlet and her brother, Laertes. … upon in the play

[5] Tong was the character that I originally chose for my logo in 1995 and therefore has sentimental connections while also remaining true to the vision of the company.