Quick! Name the Country With the Lotus-Shaped Building?

Dubai, or India or China? Incorrect. Hint: The Lotus is the country's national flower - and it's not Thailand either. Read all about it here at TMR

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my other blog: A Suspension of Disbeliefs

Facebook, who needs it? - WWED Reporting for The Morton Report

600 million on Facebook? Big deal. That still leaves 6 billion 400 million people who don't use it. Brazil, Russia, China, Japan, Germany and Vietnam all have their own social networks. Read all about it here at TMR.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my other blog: A Suspension of Disbeliefs

Want the news in China? Speak English

According to Ad Age Magazine in the US:

"Sometime during the week of Oct. 11, the Chinese-language websites of the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal disappeared."



But the English language versions remained, as did the Chinese versions outside the country - so the message to students and digerati in censored countries the world over remains clear: If you want the whole story, read it in English.

"It's not clear exactly why the sites went dark, but the suspected reason is because the WSJ and FT covered in depth an open letter written by a group of retired Communist Party members that called for greater openness in media and less censorship. The letter was published briefly on various Chinese sites before being censored."

But the thing about the Internet is this: Once it's out there, it can still be found - maybe not on the front page of your local daily but it has already entered the mindset of the populace and there the discussion begins - although a discussion is exactly what the authorities were hoping to avoid.

"As the economy has gotten stronger, you might think China's media censorship would relax more, but it hasn't. The timing of the letter is likely tied to a meeting held this week in Beijing to discuss the party's next five-year plan."

As the economies in Asia move more towards trying to build a sustainable middle-class that supports their countries internally, as opposed to being primarily export driven, governments may look more towards joining the conversation as opposed to trying to squelch it - after all, isn't it a lot easier to just pick ones battles and fight the ones that matter, rather than trying to stop a billion farmers from going to a billion fences and having a billion conversations they're going to have anyway? Seems to be. But nobody has ever accused any government of being logical, or sensible.

"China hasn't blocked the English-language sites and it's highly unlikely it will.

'They're not going to go and piss off all of the expat business community, that would be going too far,' Peter Herford, a former CBS news producer who's now a journalism professor at Shantou University, told me by phone. 'But their own citizens, hell yes.'"

As Thailand endures its travails with Democracy and French 20 year-olds overturn and burn cars in protest of a retirement law that won't affect them for 40 years, it's hard to say that Democracy works better than other more authoritarian forms of government. "It's a perfectly lousy form of government" - but, as I have been able to see over the course of my overseas work, I still come up on Churchill's side when he said, "But it's the best we've got".

Last week we were fortunate to have a WWED story linked in the WSJ. I guess they just won't be getting it in Chinese :)

A War of the Words - But Who's Words?

Fresh from a week's worth of Facebook blackouts, the helicopters of the resistance flew over the CBD dropping leaflets with reverse propaganda decrying the propagation of the other propaganda. A ballsy move for sure but a move aimed at infecting the masses with the new media message that the more the powers that be try to suppress and control information, the more information will behave in the manner of a thousand one-celled animals and simply multiply - exponentially.

This cartoon by Stuart McMillen juxtaposes the views of Aldous Huxley & George Orwell. In short, Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information (The Chinese model) whilst Huxley feared those who would give us so much information, that we would just drown in our own bullshit (The American model). And who's to say who's right? Both models suck - and in a perfect world we would get all the information that is valuable to those of us chasing the pursuit of happiness with all of the chaff filtered out from the wheat of knowledge that we need. But it's not a perfect world, is it? See the ministry's circular below.
Ministry of Manifestos. Distopian Soup

For all those in the intelligencia here in Vietnam who decry the blocking of Facebook every time the party convenes for some important meeting, there are a few million more who cry out over Facebook's apparent lack of concern for our privacy in the US. So who's to blame? "We have seen the enemy and it are us", it is said.

For all the 'freedom of speech' rhetoric we are like to hear from our liberal comrades in the west, we never thought that freedom would extend to people whom we do not know, and who care not a goddamn about our privacy but are more interested in the area of exploiting our information towards the dissection of a market that can then be sold to the highest bidder. Yes, people will actually pay to reach brains dumb enough to let all of their private parts hang out on the digital clothesline for all to see. "Hello moron. Need some washing powder - fabric softener?"

And so, all of a sudden, the protection of that information, that we so willingly put out there, becomes of paramount concern. I Tweet, therefore I am - vulnerable. And I am also a member of who knows how many other services, that I may not have daily activity with, but they're still distributing my information - like Freindster, Gravatar and MySpace. For all the countries that are trying their damnedest to suppress information, the greater lot of us are just throwing it out there like there's no tomorrow. It's a Brave New World all right. But none of us should be so brave as to go into it naked.

So get out your keyboard and type the following: Rapportive & Rapleaf. See what they've got on you, and then go back and do a little revisionist history. It will certainly be no worse than what the communist states are doing by not letting it out in the first place. Orson Welles envisioned a War of the Worlds where aliens would come and envelope the human race - and what it seems to have come down to is his title, minus the letter "l", where the world envelopes itself by the words it chooses to use or not use. Just remember, we all decide which words are used about us.

What price freedom?

The answer is not a series of integers with a dollar sign in front, and the question is who said it? And in all my Googleness I can't find the original quote - and even I had appropriated it and used its spirit in an advertising campaign for GameBoy at one point in time. But the question goes deep into men's hearts when it comes to the freedom one has in one's daily life - to choose the cigarettes one likes, or to smoke at all - breasts or butts - tall or short - secrets or transparency? The only way to understand one's freedom is to have it taken away, or to allow yourself to get to a point where you have unwittingly surrendered it.

"Men want the same thing from their women that they want from their underwear:
a little bit of support, and a little bit of freedom."
~ Jerry Seinfeld

A friend of mine said recently that the advice in my friend Hugh MacLeod's book, Ignore Everybody, had come too late in her life because she had long ago "sold out to corporate America". Another person described her idea of freedom as "going wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted". Freedom means different things to different people. The less of it you have, the more of it you want - but the more of it you give to others, the more of it you get from them. Interesting.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The question of freedom has come up recently in regard to politics. The Chinese can't have Facebook, but they can have a Mercedes. The government in Vietnam doesn't like Facebook either, but they love Bentleys, because you can't really organize much of a protest with a Bentley, but you can with Facebook. And with less than 5% of the world's population, the United States houses 25% of the world's criminals, many just for possession of marijuana, and one in four, a black man. What price freedom, for sure. And what name do you give it? Communism, Democracy, Monarchy or anarchy?

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

And so another birthday comes, 54 this time, and it will be nothing like the last one. This one will leave me with the greatest gift of all - the freedom to think beyond.

None but ourselves can free our minds.
~ Bob Marley

Big Dreams, Big Plans, Small Money, No Commitment - How Not To Market in Asia III

Watching someone's dreams go up in smoke is never easy, especially in business. It makes you wonder why they were dreaming such things in the first place. This happens often, especially in developing markets. People dream things that are beyond their grasp, usually because they don't like the grasp they are already in. It was conveyed recently to me that all Vietnamese are controlled by somebody; a parent, a marriage partner, a business relationship and so in response to this relationship, they seek to control somebody else, a friend, a lover, a supplier - maybe employees - and in so doing this, seemingly release the pressure they are already feeling from the situation they are already in - and thus, compounding the situation they are already in. What you don't want to be is the last man on that totem pole, because when things go wrong, you or your company will be blamed for all of it, and used as the scapegoat for why the whole deal went sour in the first place.

I've seen it countless of times in Asia. From Korea to Vietnam to Singapore and China, so the syndrome is not just uniquely Vietnamese - it stems from the family business model that is so prevalent in all of Asia.

As many of you will recall, this series started with a patently ludicrous request from a client looking to bring in a blimp in to Vietnam for advertising purposes, just before the Miss Universe competition in Vietnam, last summer. Even before any plan had been written it didn't seem to have dawned on anyone that blimp shots of a beauty pageant were not a particularly saleable commodity. But I dutifully plodded through an 8 page checklist of questions for the client to ask the people who had purported said hot air, just to get the ball rolling - and then I asked for my standard fee. Ball stops rolling. Blimp implosion ensues.

Probably the quickest way to kill a bad deal is to ask for money up front, which means, to get all your expenses covered, before you even get on to the playing field. For even writing plans in Vietnam, that fee could be as little as $500 just for doing a basic proposal, to much, much more should you need to expend cash, or risk life and limb to enter the deal. I was recently told of a business deal involving the shipping of tons of wood to the United States. The business owner was now complaining that the shipping company was now holding them accountable for freight charges because the shipment had been declined by the purchaser in the US (Global financial crisis blamed for causing drop in furniture sales). "But wait a minute", said I, a man with an art degree, to the MBA close to the deal, "Shouldn't all expenses have been covered first in the contract", before anything was shipped? Of course they should have. Standard logistics company contracts require that all the money for a purchase of this nature be deposited in a secure account in the country of the purchaser and then released to the supplier upon customs clearance of the shipment. Essentially, the shipment docking pays the bill - thereby keeping skinflint buyers from balking in the middle of a deal. Looking just in a cursory fashion at someone who allowed this to happen, makes you wonder about all sorts of things.

The "How Not to Market in Asia" series continued with a story of a man who thought he had sold a TV show, but just needed me to write a demographic profile for him over the weekend to seal the deal. "What?" I asked myself. "This is a potential $20,000 initial pilot program and you think you've sold it but it lacks a demographic profile?" Bullshit. Having not been able to get any sort of plan or PowerPoint on the deal thus far, I simply asked for the $500 and the ball stopped rolling. Unfortunately I was barraged by a bizarre negotiation that went all the way down to $50 at one point and shots of me rolling around on the floor laughing during the protracted telephone conversations. I have no idea what ever happened to that deal but since it involved a bank sponsorship right at the media height of the global financial crisis, earlier this year, I suspect that nothing is the correct answer.

And so to the current meltdown. A deal this week, valued at just under $10,000 went south just because a $292 contingency cost couldn't be met? Bollocks. The basic plan was $1500 over budget before leaving the starting gate and had far more risk in it (99.9% for me) than $292 dollars. That small cost was just my red flag warning as to what might happen should things have gotten rolling to much further down the line. A fair call for avoiding possibly massive pain in the future.

I was once told to avoid at all cost, second generation Asians from seemingly wealthy families. Their parents worked hard, planted rice, ran green grocers, built buildings or whatever and then sold off the family fields or store to wealthy Taiwanese real estate developers or just socked it away, day by day dollar by dollar, making maybe millions. Then they sent their children to Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford or some other prestigious International university, thus producing offspring who have no idea at all of all the hard work it took to have made the money in the first place. So I've learned to watch out for this. When you see a person who's sending out all the outward signs of being well tended and well educated, look carefully and make sure they have the go-to spirit that made their parents so successful - or have they just learned to rely on others to do all the real work while they go on maintaining the face that is ever so important in these societies.

Hugh Macleod, in his book "Ignore Everybody" puts it this way "Put the hours in - Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina. Stamina is utterly important. And stamina is only possible if it's managed well. People think all they need to do is endure one crazy, intense, job-free creative burst and their dreams will come true. They are wrong, they are stupidly wrong. Put the hours in, do it for long enough and magical, life-transforming things happen eventually." When evaluating any potential business deal with another party, simply ask yourself, "Yes, but are they willing to put in the hours like I do?" That will tell you more than any contract, budget, pedigreed degree or business plan ever will.

This week, with the help of a friend, I was able to get my book proposal to a more than relevant agent in New York. "A Rock Star" agent, as she was described to me. And what made the week for me, was that - not the idea that I might ever actually get to publish the thing, but that one more small link in the chain had been set in what might be the longest chain I have ever tried to assemble. I've done the work. I've publicized the work. I've put in the hours. And continue to do so with every letter I type on these pages. It all adds up, in little ways, sometimes.

A few weeks ago, the person with the ten thousand dollar deal had dismissed this blog and the Wild Wild East book as, not realistic - a long shot. And probably, from an outside reviewer's standpoint that's partially true. But you not only have to believe that long shots can happen - you have to put in the hours to make them happen. Dream real. And do the work. That's my Infinite Wisdom for today.

Boom, Boom, Boom, Baby! The Education Market In Asia: WAZZALA WINS!

A few weeks ago I referenced Nick Marx's Wazzala site as a site to watch in the TechCrunch50 and here we have it: Wazzala has made the first round cut with my buddy Nicholas Marx at the helm. Wazzala is an idea that helps Asian students prepare for English college entrance exams and if you have any understanding of the 30 billion (that's a "B") dollar worldwide education market, you understand how bright, and right, this idea is. Here's the letter they sent to him, informing him of Wazzala's forward motion: Way cool.

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"So I got this email inviting me to an interview from the TechCrunch50 conference. Even if I don't make it, I know now my idea has legs." = Nick

Dear TechCrunch50 Applicant:

We hope you're ready! Would like to invite you to select a time to demo your product using use the link below: With our Final notification date coming son on august 11, these are our final 3 days for Round I demos so we thank you for making yourself available. This will be a very brief, 10 minute demo overview where we would like to see your technology demonstrated using a web conference, screenshots or video of what you can do. The total time is 10 minutes, so please use your time wisely. Your Reviewer will contact you at the appointed date and time so also make sure the contact and demo information are correct on your Application under "How to Access your Demo" section. Also, please use all time slots available, no additional times will be released past Wednesday. For help in preparing your presentation, visit our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page at www.techcrunch50.com or e-mail us at Schedule@techcrunch50.com


Good Luck!
The TechCrunch50 Team

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...and good luck Nick! I'm just gettin' warmed up for BarCampSaigon!