There have been a number of interesting articles about doing business in China as well as the general state of the Chinese economy. Here are a few I found worth mentioning:

• India and China Business Offers Double Digit Growth
• For Closer Business Ties
• Infosys Sees Multinationals Driving China Business
• Do’s & Dont’s in China’s Business
• “Guanxi” in the Chinese Business World
• Starbucks’ Schultz Tells Seattle Times China Business Growing
• China’s Economic Oligopoly And Political Monopoly
• China’s Foreign Trade Growth Rate to Slow to 15% Next Year - Report
• Equity Firms Face Choice: China or India?
• Chinese Language Grows in Popularity as Nation Rises
• Ominous Developments: Photographer Says His China Pictures Illustrate What Consumerism Can Do to the Environment

TAGS: China | Business | MBA | Asia

China has been the hot topic for some time now, showing up as a meaty subject for business publications and also as common cocktail party fodder. It’s starting to pique my interest as well, though for different reasons…

First, as part of the MBA program I am in (at Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business), we take a two week trip at the end of the program to officially wrap everything up. Second, the more conversations, articles, lectures and experiences I am exposed to purporting China to be the “next” big thing, a huge opportunity, a new frontier, a business gold mine, or any other catchy hyperbole, the more important I think it is to promote dialogue about the darker side of the massive country, in addition to all of the good things as well.

Unfortunately, there are many troubling things happening in China today (and the rest of the world, the US included) that are simply being overlooked or otherwise ignored by the press and the majority of society. My intention is not to stand behind a podium and point fingers, but instead to hopefully get people’s gears turning and conversations flowing about these very important issues.

I’ll post articles, links and any other tidbits that I come across that I think are related to this topic. Feel free to send me anything you come across that should be posted here. I’ll post the good stuff and the disturbing stuff. Hopefully the latter will be the sparser category!

TAGS: China | Business | MBA | Cal Poly

Here’s some very interesting news that we spotted on SiliconBeat today:

“Speaking of Stanford, the university has announced an agreement with Apple to produce free podcasts of lectures, student music, play-by-play of its football games and more. There’s already a ton of content in the iTunes store, including lectures from the Technology Ventures Program.” [more...]

I think this is a fantastic idea and found a number of great lectures and speeches from the Stanford site to keep me busy for a while (here’s the link to visit the site). If anyone from Wharton, Kellog, Sloan, Anderson, Haas, HBS (I’ll stop the list there – it would take me days to list all of the business schools I’d like to see content from) is reading this, myself and probably a million other individuals would love to hear a select number of your lectures as well. Kudos to Stanford and Apple for leading the way (although, I think MIT beat them to the “open education” punch, but we’ll ignore that for the moment).

I wonder if Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business has any interest…

TAGS: Stanford | Apple Computer | iTunes | iPod

I won’t give you the context of the quote below (I don’t think it is necessary to feel the weight of the statement) but I wanted to single it out for importance nonetheless:

“I think students become better managers when they understand that their decisions carry profound impact on other people’s and future generations’ lives.”
~ Dr. Haw-Jan “John” Wu

(For those of you from Cal Poly, Dr. Wu is going to be leading the China trip next summer.)

TAGS: Business | Ethics | Management | Integrity

Wal*Mart is in the news again for trying to look like a good corporate citizen. There are a number of articles that surfaced today about the massive company, most of which covered their new ‘environmentally friendly’ initiatives. Saving energy, reducing packaging, cutting fuel consumption, strong-arming suppliers… stuff like that. Here are a few to check out:

• Wal*Mart: Good Corporate Citizen? (There is an interesting discussion in the comments section of this post on BusinessPundit.com)
• Wal*Mart Launches Environmental Drive
• Wal*Mart to Seek Savings in Energy
• Wal*Mart to Expand Health Plan for Workers

Oh, but wait a minute, there’s another one:

• Wal*Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Cost

Here’s a few juicy nuggets from that article:

“An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart’s board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer’s reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.

“…To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for ‘all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering).’”

Sweet.

TAGS: Wal*Mart | WalMart | Ethics | Benefits

I rarely see anything about J.Crew in the news, or during my daily life. I don’t get their catalog, nor do I shop in their stores (not as a matter of protest, I just don’t). Yet, for some reason, today I’ve been seemingly inundated with news and tidbits about the company…

First, I was blown away by the PETA videos that seemed to be directed at J.Crew, and only J.Crew, and second, I came across an interesting post on customer relations (from Church of the Customer) and how J.Crew really has their act together in that department.

I must admit, I think I am still shaken by the gruesomeness of the PETA videos (rightly so) and am probably letting myself become ever so slightly biased against J.Crew because of it. The truth is, if the situation were reversed and I had seen the post about customer relations earlier today, and the PETA videos just a few minutes ago, I definitely would have had a much more positive reaction to the customer relations post. It’s an interesting problem, and one that I am not sure how to deal with.

The paranoia that I feel this type of scenario can lead to has the potential to make me question everything, from the computer I am writing this on, the shirt I am wearing to the companies my clients work for…

…as it should. I think the difficult thing is that this type of questioning, and the general discomfort that arises about things we take for granted, is sorely needed. It is far too easy to go about our daily lives blindly consuming without giving too much thought about what we are consuming. I am certainly guilty of spending far too little time considering what I am inadvertently accepting every time I fork over some money for a product, and while I make a strong effort to make more conscientious decisions (organic produce, fair trade coffee, supporting small businesses vs. multinational conglomerates, etc.) it is incredibly easy to fall back into an ambivalent and uninformed purchasing pattern.

The unfortunate reality is that no matter how disturbed the PETA videos may have made you and I, without some serious commitment and far-reaching consumption changes, chances are, we are actually perpetuating the situation in one way or another. So what’s the solution? If everything seems so futile, why bother?

Because change is possible. And because action is better than ambivalence, even if it creates the need for more action. Dialogue is the beginning of action and at least brings the topic out from the back of the closet, even if only for a short time. And if that ends up making a difference, then it was worth it.

TAGS: J.Crew | PETA | Ethics | Consumption

Warning: The links I list below contain shocking (in my opinion) videos, graphics and other content relating to animal cruelty. At the time of this post, the videos embedded on the linked pages do not play automatically. I first stumbled across the ‘dog & cat’ video on a site where the video played automatically and was extremely disturbed by it. Please proceed only if you are comfortable viewing such content.

I was checking out a few blogs this afternoon and stumbled across some very disturbing, sickening and depressing videos of animal cruelty. I am sure this kind of thing doesn’t bother everyone, but it made me sick to my stomach and deeply sad. If you care about these kinds of issues, I urge you to check out the following links (while heeding the warning I posted above, please):

• China’s Shocking Dog and Cat Fur Trade: The first video I saw.
• J.Cruel’s Dirty Secret: (direct link to the “campaign tools” page — view the video and check out the other info on the page).

I won’t comment right now, though I think my feelings about this are obvious. Perhaps when I’ve recovered from the initial shock I’ll write a little bit more.

TAGS: PETA | Fur | China | Animal Rights

Ugh. As if I needed one more reason to loath marketing and the advertising industry… Check out the post, “Sex Sells” over at BrandAutopsy as well as the linked PDF from Adweek. I’d love to hear people’s opinions on this…

TAGS: Sex | Advertising | Marketing | Manipulation

There’s an interesting article over at the New York Times about Cendant breaking up (Cendant, Business Conglomerate, Announces Radical Breakup) that is definitely worth reading. In an era of big companies constantly striving to multiply their girth (exponentially it seems), Cendant is making a radical move to do the opposite.

Cendant, the $18 billion conglomerate that was built through the acquisitions of dozens of the nation’s most prominent businesses like Century 21, Avis, Days Inn and Orbitz, is planning a radical breakup into four different companies.

The move, which company announced today, is perhaps the most vivid acknowledgment that the latest era of conglomerates built through mergers and acquisitions may be over.

Under the plan approved by Cendant’s board Sunday, the company will be divided into four parts - one each for Cendant’s real estate, travel distribution, hospitality and vehicle rental businesses. Each unit will be spun off into a separate publicly traded company. Current Cendant shareholders will receive shares in each and will continue to receive dividends. For customers and employees, the change should mean little, at least in the near term.

You could argue, though, that splitting an $18 billion company into four leaves us with… 4 huge conglomerates still. Even so, it’s an interesting step forward.

TAGS: Cendant | Conglomerate | Merger | Business

A healthy majority of internet users have heard of Google’s highly successful AdSense program, and if they haven’t, they’ve most assuredly come across one of the contextual text ads at some point and not realized it. Such a level of ubiquity and implementation is enviable and difficult to challenge. So why would anyone want to go up against Golaith with a competing product? Because they think they can do better…

Enter Chitika.

If you search around the internet a bit, not only will you find that the company has been around for a few years, but that the general sentiment amongst content publishers (a somewhat small and obscure group, I suppose) is that the technology trumps what Google offers. I’ve also seen claims of a payout 4 times higher than that of Google’s AdSense. So what gives? Why haven’t we seen more of Chitika? Why haven’t we heard more about them as well? If they truly offer a better product (and one that provides 4x the incentive for content publisher’s to implement) why don’t we hear play by play accounts of Chitika vs. Google?

All interesting questions, none of which I can offer definitive answers to. I can say, though, that the “battle” (doesn’t a battle require that both sides are aware of the skirmish?) is a good one to watch if you are curious about the David vs. Goliath scenario in business. We don’t get to see such battles that often as they rarely warrant wide-spread press coverage. It’s a shame, as we can really learn a lot from them. I recently read a blog post about Richard Branson (on BusinessPundit) that citied David vs. Golaith scenarios as a something the eclectic company founder actually looks for:

How does Richard Branson run 300 businesses? He gave some insight into his methods. He typically spends 3-4 months investigating a new opportunity. He likes businesses where Virgin can be the David to an industry Goliath. If you make an extraordinary amount of money, Virgin will come in and challenge you.

If it works for Branson, can’t it work for you and me? (My guess is yes, but only if we don 120% of Branson’s charisma and innovative nature…)

What does this new contextual advertising look like? Here’s an example:

TAGS: Chitika | Google | AdSense | Branson