China Speakers Weblog

China Speakers Bureau

2008-09-13T22:57:00.001+08:00

Accepting new speakers

2008-08-19T19:25:00.002+08:00

via Wikipedia At the China Speakers Bureau we are going to open up for new speakers again. Getting assignments in is our priority, but we also do not want to keep our gates closed for qualified speakers, as we have done in the recent past.
Do note our basic requirements though. We have a strong focus on China and China-related issues and are going to stick to that. So, when your strong points are in sport, innovation or technology, we are only interested if that adds value in the China context. The good news is: we do not care where you are actually located. Much of our assignments are coming from outside China.
Do have a look also at our current stable of speakers. We do love to get new speakers who add value to our current speakers. That means, we do have enough people who cover doing business in China a more generic way. The more specialized skills you have, be easier it will be for us to find assignments.
We also require a strong track record in giving speeches for a fee. Our business is based on a percentage of the speakers' fee, so if there is no fee we might lose interest.
There is more to say, but if you meet those basic requirement, do get in touch and we can start our discussions. Do get in touch with Fons Tuinstra at fons.tuinstra@china-speakers-bureau.com for more information.

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2008-08-18T21:31:00.001+08:00

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Doctoroff hits back: Paul French is wrong

2008-05-06T16:33:00.003+08:00

Tom Doctoroff

"China Guru Clash" Thomas Crampton has already baptized the discussion between Paul French and Tom Doctoroff on China's middle class - at least that is where it started. Yesterday Crampton posted a vitriol attack by Paul French on Tom Doctoroff, CEO of J. Walter Thompson for Greater China, today Doctoroff hits back.

Thomas,

I don’t know what to say. I believe the posting is unbalanced and the tone is bully-boy cocky.

How does one respond to a sweeping statement — at least my book, on the first page, warns of “generalizations” — that yours truly is “wrong about China.”
And then he rails against me, sarcasm dripping, for having the audacity to call myself a “pioneer” when Carl Crow had already seen “everything.” He’s playing a gotcha game gone bad.

Doctoroff denies claims French makes about him claiming to be a pioneer in anything and Doctoroff points out that his so-called "claim to fame", the market introduction of the Buick in China in 1999 was done by Bates, not his firm. The market has changed since the days of Carl Crow, French's hero, says Doctoroff:

He did not see a middle class boasting 150 million people and an auto market with 6 million passenger cars sold per year. He did not see a mass market — now penetrating the rural fringe — snapping up mobile phones and using them to transform their lives. He did not see multinational corporations setting up R&D centers and manufacturing scale on the mainland. He did not see that extraordinary release of energy that resulted from the embrace of capital markets.

More at Thomas Crampton's site.
Both Paul French and Tom Doctoroff are speakers at Chinabiz Speakers. If you are interested in hearing them speak, perhaps even together, do get in touch.

Has Carl Crow done everything before?

2008-05-05T18:27:00.000+08:00

Paul French

Thomas Crampton has been talking to quite a few of our speakers at Chinabiz Speakers. Here you can see Paul French, taking on one of our other prominent speakers, Tom Doctoroff. Paul French has been publishing a book on the journalist/entrepreneur Carl Crow, a Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times, and Adventures of an American in Shanghai.
French argues that Doctoroff is wrong in portraying himself as a pioneer in China and that all has been done before the Second World War, indeed by Carl Crow. Folowwing that argument, all honor should probably go to Marco Polo for opeing up China, although he did not yet arrive in a Buick.

Both Paul French and Tom Doctoroff are available as speakers through Chinabiz Speakers. Of course it would be a great idea to have them both together on the stage. Do drop me a line if you are interested.

It is naive to think Google does not sell its results - Lonnie Hodge

2008-05-05T02:42:00.001+08:00

Lonnie Hodge

Our speaker Lonnie Hodge was the guest of weblogger Thomas Crampton and sings high praise of China's search engine Baidu. Baidu makes money by selling its search results and asks brand names a million RMB (€100,000) to get associated with those results.

It is naive to think that Google’s results are not for sale?
Google may not be directly involved in the sale of their results, but Hodge pointed out that there is a reason people pay top dollar to search engine specialists. These specialists work for the wealthiest and savviest companies to skew results. “The average SEO specialist in the US with 5 to 7 years of campaign management can command US$100,000 to US$250,000 for his/her talents. That certainly indicates an uneven playing field exists and that the results are dubious at best.”
But the question remains: Are purchased search results unethical?
Hodge praised Baidu for only selling the top four results and putting a line under them and only allowing brands and government agencies to buy their own search results page.

Lonnie Hodge is a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. If you would like him as a speaker, please drop me a line.

Wishfull thinking by "The Economist" under fire

2008-05-04T05:39:00.000+08:00

via WikipediaI had to smile, when I saw this angry comment by Paul Denlinger, who goes at his weblog after the Economist about their attitude towards China. What is the argument? In an editorial The Economist - I believe Paul Denlinger gave up on the magazine after reading this introduction - the main argument is that the current nationalistic fever is quite likely to turn against the Chinese ruling party after it has dealt with the French and Carrefour.
The argument at The Economist:

There is no doubt genuine fury in China at these offences; yet the impression the response gives of a people united behind the government is an illusion. China, like India, is a land of a million mutinies now. Legions of farmers are angry that their land has been swallowed up for building by greedy local officials. People everywhere are aghast at the poisoning of China’s air, rivers and lakes in the race for growth. Hardworking, honest citizens chafe at corrupt officials who treat them with contempt and get rich quick. And the party still makes an ass of the law and a mockery of justice.

I agree very much with Paul on this issue: there is no beginning of an indication that this analysis of The Economist is more than wishful thinking. To summerize Paul Denlinger:

It is exactly this kind of argument which Chinese see as western hypocrisy and double standards. Of course there is anger at some Chinese government policies, but these are a separate issue. Please don’t try to change the subject!

Unfortunately, there is a trend in how "Western" media look to China (and the rest of the world). Lack of facts and too much wishful thinking is a major one. Mostly webloggers are blamed for having this same combination, but the traditional media have here also a longstanding tradition.
Paul Denlinger is a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers, and if you are interested in retaining him as a speaker, do drop me a line.

Crisis management at Carrefour: too little, too late

2008-04-28T17:54:00.001+08:00

Sam Flemming of the IWOM

Where would we be without the internet? Carrefour would not have had its national boycott and we would not have known how incompetent its management reacted on the fast emerging crisis. ESWN translates a piece at Sina, depicting the (lack of) crisis management. We follow (anonymized) PR-person Li Kuan of Carrefour in Shanghai, who smells after a few days that something is rotten:

After quickly looking up the earliest Internet posts, Li Kuan got worried. "Although Carrefour was not the initial target, this affair occurred under very special circumstances ..." But Carrefour headquarters did not give a clear explanation of the situation and its potential actions. This point was confirmed from another public relations worker at a Carrefour branch office. The branch office found out about this affair only on April 13, and they thought that April 13 was the first day when the Internet posts and mobile phone SMS went out for the Carrefour boycott. Thus, they were two days behind the headquarters in terms of awareness about the situation. It is not known what emergency meetings were held at Carrefour headquarters over those two days. But the slowness of communication was surprising. From April 14 on, the media began to descend on Carrefour. According to inside information, Carrefour did not have a consistent message when the media showed up. "The headquarters did not tell the various local public relations people what to say or respond. Everything was based upon their own careful handling by virtue of professional experience and guesswork!"

The power of the consumer emerged and has hit Carrefour by surprise. Only after a while counteraction started to emerge. One of the sound explanations is that Carrefour has been focusing on government relations since its start in 1995, when it faced major regulatory problems. It failed to understand fully the voice of the consumers, especially the internet word of mouth, as our speaker Sam Flemming of CIC would put it. Sam Flemming has been repeating his warnings as enterprise after enterprise found itself at the mercy of the emerging vocal consumers.
If you are interested in retaining Sam Flemming for a lecture, key note or otherwise, do get in touch with Chinabiz Speakers or drop me a line.

Beijing Olympic sponsorship is a waste - Shaun Rein

2008-04-25T16:19:00.000+08:00

Shaun Rein

I already praised Shaun Rein, first on our April top-10 speakers list, last night for knowing how to play the traditional media, and today he does it again in Forbes. The Beijing Olympic sponsorship is a waste of money, he says in another attention-grabbing contribution.
There is a lot of money going around, he writes:

Companies like Adidas and Internet portal Sohu have coughed up serious money to sponsor the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Estimates have computer maker Lenovo paying $80 million to $100 million to be the official sponsor of the games. Eleven global sponsors--including Coca-Cola and McDonald's--spent a combined $850 million to sponsor the Turin and Beijing Olympics.

Shaun Rein Market Research Group decided to figure out how effective this money is being used and helps to increase the brand awareness of those sponsors and they conducted hundreds of interview in ten different Chinese cities.
Result: most consumers had no clue who the Olympic sponsors where. In the case of sponsor Adidas, non-sponsor Nike ran actually away with the honor:

Ultimately, 40% of respondents felt that Nike was the official Olympic sponsor, vs. 50% for the actual sponsor, Adidas, and 10% for Chinese brand Li Ning. Despite a great marketing campaign featuring the Chinese people carrying China's Olympic stars on their shoulders and an emphasis not only on the events but on China's entrance onto the global stage, Adidas has not made their sponsorship stand out.

Brands are better off when they target for the long-term, not short term hits to convince the Chinese consumers, Rein writes.
Shaun Rein is a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. Are you interesting in having him as a speaker? Do drop me a line.

Most sought speakers - April 2008

2008-04-24T21:21:00.007+08:00

Shanghai via WikipediaThe shortened holiday is around the corner and many readers seem to be already packing for different holiday destinations. So, before everybody's mind is on other things, we have an earlier edition of the Most Sought Speakers at Chinabiz Speakers for the month April.
As I already predicted in the top-10 for March 2008, Shaun Rein's march to the top will be upstoppable. This month Shaun has driven long-term winner Tom Doctoroff to the second place with a pretty huge margin, based on Shaun's diligent way of working with the traditional media.
Biggest surprise is Rowan Gibson on the third place, coming in from absolutely nowhere. He is the first speakers without clear China-credentials getting to high in our rankings. We have added Rowan Gibson to Chinabiz Speakers, because he is a leading expert on innovation and some of his authoritative books will appear this year in Chinese. Obvious, that was a good choice.
Also in the tail of our top-10 five remarkable newcomers, also because we have a shared 10th position for both Maria Trombly and Mark Schaub.
What helps very much to go up in the rankings, is getting into the media. In those terms also Jeremy Goldkorn is fast gaining celebrity status; Rupert Hoogewerf had already that status, but has been working hard to get the 10th year anniversary of his Rich Lists in the publicity. I'm using Twitter and can follow so Isaac Mao's international endeavors: also very impressive.

The April top-10 (March in brackets)

Update: Meanwhile I have joined the China Speakers Bureau as a principal partner. You will find our celebrity speakers now at their new home.

Lonely Chinese kids drawn to the internet

2008-04-21T05:29:00.000+08:00

One of the reasons for the popularity of the internet among China's youngsters is the one-child policy, says William Bao Bean in a video made by Thomas Crampton.

Growing up in a one-child household makes Chinese children lonely and keen to connect, hence the obsessive use of the Internet by China’s young generation. Chinese, Bean says in this 2-minute video, are much more likely to connect with people than their counterparts in other nations.

William Bao Bean, partner at the Softbank China & India Holdings, is also a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. If you want to retain him as a speaker, do drop me a line.

Replacing some widgets

2008-04-13T21:02:00.004+08:00

Image via WikipediaAs you might see at your right hand, I have been replacing the Google chatback-service with a public chat service by Skype. You can also connect to the service by clicking here. The Google tool was not often used and pretty troublesome: you do not have to download any software, but you do have to click three or four times on different interfaces before I could actually talk to the person who wanted to chat. In three out of four times, those people had already given up, because it took so long.

China's exploding online market

2008-04-11T16:49:00.001+08:00

Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo is doing a commendable job at Ogilvy's VergeCast, where he is speaking, moderating and blogging at the same time. Here his notes on a key note speech by Tencent's S.Y.Lau, executive Vice President of Online Marketing Services and Corporate Branding.
Lau illustrates how the recent National People's Congress used internet services to engage the over 220 million internet users in the country.

From a macro political perspective, for the first time Chinese Internet companies were asked to collect questions posted online for the National People’s Congress. 730K questions were gathered! The netizens are very political — not necessarily savvy, but very interested and engaged. Out of these questions you get a lot of questions.
Ecommerce has grown from 120 billion RMB in turnover back in 2001 to 1,020 billion in 2008.
Traditionalism still makes its way onto the Internet. The CCTV Chinese New Years show was broadcast by Tencent online and had 30 million online viewers!
Social phenomena are being reported first on the Internet: the citizen journalist phenomenon is really taking off in China. People are using the Internet to organize to hunt and locate missing persons, etc. And the Internet will provide a digital platform for everyone to enjoy the Olympic Games this summer — he largest non-television audience in history.

More at Kaiser Kuo's weblog.
Kaiser Kuo is also a speaker at Chinabiz Speakers. If you are interested in having him as a speaker or moderator, do drop us a line.

Beida produces most rich business people

2008-04-08T18:22:00.000+08:00

Image from WikipediaPeking University has most rich business among its alumni, according to Rupert Hoogewerf's China Rich List, says this report at Sina.
Hoogewerf has analyzed the alumni lists and the results were released by was released by the China University Alumni Association, which produces the annual Chinese college and university rankings.
Beida had 27 alumni on the Rich list, followed by Zhejiang University in Hangzou with 17, showing how this university has climbed up in the Chinese business world.
Following were Tsinghua University(16), Fudan University(15) and Renmin University(13).
Rupert Hoogewerf is also one of the more popular speakers at our Speakers Bureau. Please click here if you are interested in having him as a speaker.

Tips for picking a great speaker (7)

2008-04-07T03:25:00.004+08:00

Image from WikipediaShould we compensate our speaker and how much? (2)

In the previous entry we mainly focused on the market for unpaid speakers, who would at best ask a compensation for their expenses. Many of the speeches, seminars, lectures and contributions in panels are given for free and for a good reason: in most cases there would not be a viable market for professional speakers. Here we are going to focus on those professionals and the reasons to choose them.

First a short note about the so-called celebrity market, as we did also for the unpaid speakers in the previous entry. This is most certainly the market that catches most of the media headlines and the fantasy of potential speakers. Speakers like Bill Clinton can ask huge fees and - although most of it is going in the case of Clinton to his charities - it is still the market most people know. Getting a celebrity status is very much determined by culture, a subject we will cover later on. Of course, Alan Greenspan is also a celebrity in China, but among the foreigners there are only very few who can claim that status also outside their own country, including the related price tag.
Getting those celebrity speakers is certainly possible, but you would have to take a long lead time into account and the additional burden. Even a former US president does not come alone and we would be talking here about a major operation.

But most of the speaking business is much more mundane.
When would it make sense to start thinking about a professional speakers from outside your own network? As we have seen unpaid speakers can have a problem. No-shows is not really a problem with professional speakers. In most cases you would sign a contract with them of a speakers' bureau and you can be pretty sure this speaker will show up. Of course, no contract could stop emergencies, but speakers' bureaus would have larger resources that would allow you to find alternatives on the same level pretty fast. Although, in our experience, we never had a speaker backing out after the signing of the contracts.
So, when you cannot allow yourself a no-show a professional speaker makes sense. But there is more.
Also, when you need a speaker who is going to deliver an agreed message in stead of an easy promotional talk, you would have to think about such a professional speaker. Speakers are standing on the stage with an intention and when you do not want a speaker to solicit assignments on stage, you might have to think about a professional speaker.
When you need a specialist to cover a rather specialized area, you might have to asked specialized speakers. For specialized assignments some of the speakers' bureaus have specialities to cater for specific niche market. You might use need just like you need headhunters when you have special needs for new staff.

Of course, you can do this process internally too and mostly in China this is still done internally. You can assign one of your capable and highly paid manager to get a qualified speaker. But we see that especially the larger companies cannot afford to do this highly qualified search internally, because your good people tend to be rather busy anyway and this is not the job you want to leave to somebody who has actually nothing better to do.
Of course, the need for a professional speaker has to be there: your board is visiting, crucial customers get together, your organization is in the middle of a change process, there are many occasions when a professional speaker is a great help. Often, in larger conferences, the professional speakers are just a part of the action. They would deliver a crucial key note speech, while other speakers would come through other resources and do their work often for free. It is a delicate decision making process and just like in any other urgency, you have to make a timely decision on when to get professional help for your challenge.

Now, what kind of prices are we talking about? Let's first focus again on the top-end of the market. Mostly the figures celebrities make are proprietary information, but in some cases we can use public sources to get an idea. Bill Clinton made, according to the information Hillary Clinton had to file when she decided to run for the US presidency, an average of US$200,000 per standard speech. For speeches in the US that would be up to US$150,000, but when he goes abroad, you can easily add another US$100,000 or more. Clinton would belong to the top-league, but he is certainly not alone at the top.
That mechanism works for most speakers: when you fly them in from another continent, prices would typically at least double.
The event organizers would also have to carry the costs that would come additionally, at least a return business class and a decent hotel and the "Blue M&M's" as one of the US firms called that, for the time of his or her stay. That could add considerably to the expenses, also because some of the top-end celebrities would demand (and get) a private plane. By working through a speakers' bureau you could try to reduce that kind of extra expenses through bundling different speaking opportunities, although as a rule the speakers' fee is non-negotiable.

Most of you will not invite the Clinton's for you party, but some of the game rules remain the same. Those fees would easily double for trips abroad and business class flight is considered to be the minimum. It is always the speaker who sets the fee and a speakers' bureau would get a percentage of that fee. Clients do not have to pay additional for the work of the speakers' bureau. That means that you cannot negotiate about the speakers' fee with a speakers' bureau. What a speakers' bureau can do if a speaker is too expensive for your budget is suggest alternatives, but the more expensive speakers ask mostly their fees for a good reason. Even quality speakers, you can have on different levels.
What is your cut-off rate, was one of our standard questions in the many talks we had with other speakers' bureaus before we took off in China. When are you no longer interested in dealing with clients or speakers? Nobody wanted to do deals below US$3,00o for a standard speech and we have taken over that benchmark. Most of our speakers are well above that level.
Are you shocked by those prices? You would not be the first one, but then you have to ask yourself whether you are looking for a professional speaker or not. As we have seen in the previous entry, when you play your cards right, you can even get speakers paying you. But we would not guarantee their quality.
In short, you need a professional speaker when they are crucial for your operation. You also do not hire McKinsey to clean your windows, do you?

Tips for picking a great speaker (6)

2008-04-06T21:22:00.002+08:00

Image from WikipediaShould we compensate our speaker and how much? (1)

One of the hottest issues we encounter - both in our talks with professional speakers and our clients - is the matter of compensation. Of course, we are running a speakers' bureau, make a living from a percentage of the speakers' fee, but the market for professional speakers is much bigger and it makes sense to differentiate. Not in all cases getting a paid speaker is the best solution.
We divide the market in three larger segments: 1. the market for speakers who pay to speak; 2. the free speakers; 3. the paid speakers.

You might have started to laugh, when you read that some speakers are willing to pay to speak, but for some event organizers this is a serious business model. What you have to do is create an event with an audience that is so interesting for - mostly - companies, service providers, law firms, auditors that they are willing to pay sometimes huge fees to address that audience.
Now, this fine as long as it works for all the stakeholders involved. But all too often I have attended this such conferences (as a journalist I got often free access) where the quality of the speakers was less than sensational and the audience was bored to death with promotional talks. Even more often, the audience was regularly not the one that was promised to the speakers. The organizers would then not only collect speakers' fees, but also fees from sponsors in all sorts of degrees.
I trust that both other market segments are more interesting for the readers of this entry. When you are organizing an event and looking for a speaker, you have to make a clear choice for either of them, both have huge advantages and disadvantages that go beyond finance only.

Most of the speakers would share they knowledge and experience for free. That is not because they do not want to be paid, but because they cannot ask for money. That might be for a range of reasons. Let's first look at the top-end of this market, say, the celebrity market.
The former British prime-minister Tony Blair can be an excellent speaker if he is really into it, but he could not ask for a compensation when he was still in office. When he left he joined the Washington Speakers Bureau and can ask for a fee. That is mostly a rule for public speakers belonging to governments or larger companies: when in office, they are for free.
It is of course great when you can get the Shanghai mayor Han Zheng to deliver a speech at your conference, especially his appearance alone means so much more than what he is actually going to say. There are some drawbacks too. First, these people are very, very hard to get. You would need to have an excellent case to convince them to come. That counts double for Chinese politicians, who have over the past few years become very careful in accepting invitations from companies or otherwise events that even could have a commercial smell. Corruption might still be a problem in China, but unlike the booming 1990s politicians take much more care to keep their reputation spotless. Even the possible suggestion that money is changing hands, might be enough for politicians to back out.
A second problem in this league - and that goes beyond the politicians - is that of the "no-shows": your main speakers does not show up. My feeling is that the problem in China is bigger than elsewhere, but that might be because if have seen so many desperate event organizers who have to tell their audience, they have a problem. People's priorities shift so fast here in China, it is very hard to stay on the top of anybody's priority list for a longer period of time.

"No-show" is much less a problem in the lower leagues of less famous speakers and you would need more often need them. How often are you thinking about inviting the British Queen-mother for a key note? In stead of the Queen-mother, you can invite her representative, the ambassador. There is a whole league of excellent speakers, who are happy to give their presentation for free, because their and your motives are compatible. They might see in your audience a group of potential clients. Or they have already a relationship with our company, as a supplier, a service-provider or even customer. They are often all to happy to solidify an existing relationship and there is no reason why you should not use that trigger if it is available.
Another category are the so-called membership organizations, chambers of commerce, business association, but also neighborhood committees who would combine a smallish budget with excellent resources of expert members, who can be gently blackmailed into giving presentations for free. A lot of these membership organization have a basis in sharing knowledge and experience and they would mostly rely on their membership and only in exceptional cases rely on external speakers.
In many of these cases, the market value for these speakers would be rather low. When they would ask for a fee, the market would disappear. These meeting are just to valuable to let them disappear for financial reasons alone.

(I will stop here, since it is getting already pretty long. In edition 7: reasons to pick a paid speaker.)

Taiwan's future vice-president to Boao Forum

2008-04-06T18:13:00.000+08:00

Image from Wikipediaanother expected guest: Hu Jintao

Next week's Boao Forum at Hainan Island is going to get a guest that has become more interesting in the past few weeks: Taiwan's vice-president elect Vincent Siew, report media in Taiwan. It shows that the future Taiwanese government is going to move fast in reestablishing ties with the Mainland.
The Boao Forum is an ideal officially private platform for this kind of informal exchanges on a high level. Its main organizer, Long Yongtu, the former negotiator for China at the World Trade Organization (WTO) is in an excellent position to act as an intermediary between the central government (who is expected to be represented by a large number of people, including president Hu Jintao) and stakeholders in all kind of business issues.
At our speakers' bureau Chinabiz Speakers, we can facilitate speaking engagements for Mr. Long Yongtu. Do get in touch if you are interested.

Watch the young consumers - Shaun Rein

2008-04-03T19:53:00.001+08:00

Shaun Rein

The Chinese urbanites under 32 are the consumers to watch, says our speaker Shaun Rein in Business Week. Lazy branding techniques of the past whre companies successful products from elsewhere in the world dumped on the Chinese market do not work anymore, pointing at Wal-Mart as a larger company who got it wrong in China.

As selling to Chinese consumers becomes more important to multinationals' bottom lines, the key to winning in China is to understand the needs and motivations of Chinese youth. Many multinationals find their core target market in China is much younger than in other countries. Companies, therefore, need to rethink the products they introduce to China, the sales channels they use, and the marketing-communication strategies they employ. It is no longer acceptable to take what worked elsewhere and transfer it here. China is too important a market for such lazy localization.

The online market in China is much more important than in the US, Rein says, while Chinese youngster hardly watch TV, a trend we have signaled more often here.

For companies to be successful targeting young Chinese, they should focus marketing efforts where their consumers are. Males often play online games from Netease (NTES) or Shanda (SNDA), and buy DVDs and electronics on Alibaba's consumer-to-consumer site Taobao. Females navigate to blogs on Sina (SINA) or Tencent's portal QQ to track their favorite celebrities.

Digital marketing plays a critical role in China and most companies should allocate more than the 5% to 10% they do in the U.S. Right now, most foreign companies' efforts have focused on Internet advertising. In the near future, mobile-phone advertising will become critical as the number of mobile-phone users in China grows to 600 million by the end of 2008, well over 50% of the world total.

More at Business Week.

Tips on how to pick a great speaker (5)

2008-04-01T20:21:00.003+08:00

Image from Wikipedia

In most cases, you want to achieve something by inviting a speaker. Those targets might be rather diverse. For an incentive tour it might be to entertain people, but when for example a speaker is delivering a key-note speech at a dinner of the visiting board of a Fortune-500 company, the task might be less entertaining.

Both kinds of assignments can be tough. Explaining China to an audience that has little clue about the country is, speakers tell me, often harder than addressing an audience that has already a background in China or in an industry where you can relate to. But it is very important to set clear, rather measurable goals.

Measuring the success of a speakers is already tough, and our feedback forms are often forgotten when people rush of for dinner or other activities. But by setting a target before selecting a speaker we create a moment where we judge the feasibility of our clients’ plan. Every now and then we conclude we have to shift the target. Although, it does not always work.

An interesting moment was when a middle-sized company asked us for a speaker on innovation for an internal conference for their managers in China. It had to be somebody who would turn the heads of those attending the conference. We thought we were up to the challenge: we have some pretty famous people in our portfolio, although some celebrities do not want to be on our website.

We came with quite a lot of suggestions for speakers that would for sure turn the heads of the Chinese managers of this European company, but then we met a problem: the mainly foreign decision makers did not knew any of our famous speakers. The Chinese employees who were part of the decision making process were very enthusiastic when we discussed our proposals with them, but they did not call the shots and were actually not willing to challenge the opinions of their foreign bosses.

That selection failed, because we were unable to explain that the target that was set initially was very hard to achieve in a multicultural setting: very few celebrities in China are known outside China.

I'm not sure whether our client has draw the same conclusions, but for us this was a good lesson in setting sensible targets.

Facebook prepares for Chinese market

2008-04-01T02:05:00.002+08:00

Jeremy Goldkorn

The popular social network Facebook, claiming 39 million users, has been making moves that suggests it is ready to enter the Chinese market very soon, writes Times Online. That is going to be an interesting move where so many of its online predecessors have failed, for almost every reason you can imagine.
Not surprisingly, the article also features two of the speakers at Chinabiz Speakers, Kaiser Kuo of Ogilyvy and Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei. Jeremy Goldkorn:

"I don't think they'll fare well - there's not a single foreign internet company that has managed to dominate its sector," said Jeremy Goldkorn, editor of danwei.org, an English-language site that tracks the Chinese media industry. Mr Golkorn cited the example of Google, which still trails Baidu.com, the dominant Chinese search engine, despite launching its Chinese language site in 2006, and Yahoo! China, which is not as popular as local portals such as Sina.com and 163.net.
"It's also a cultural thing," Mr Goldkorn said. "Facebook is based on people using their real names and being honest, whereas the Chinese like the ability to be anonymous. E-mail addresses will rarely include a person's name, and on bulletin boards a lot of the posts are anonymous, so I'm not sure the Facebook model will work."

William Bao Bean - a new speaker

2008-04-01T00:24:00.002+08:00

William Bao Bean

As promised, we are not going to bother you with every new speaker we register at our speakers' bureau Chinabiz Speakers.
But for William Bao Bean we gladly make an exception. The current partner at Softbank China & India holdings is already an eminent speaker, as we can for example see in a report by Thomas Crampton at Adtech, where William was a key note speaker.
If you are interesting in William Bao Bean as a speaker, do let me know. He profile is not yet online, as we wait for a revamp of our website, but available on request.

Update: A podcast with one of William's performances at Ad Tech2007 in Beijing.

Most sought speakers - March 2008

2008-03-26T23:34:00.003+08:00

Largest jumper: Paul Denlinger on 4

The end of March is nearing and that is traditionally the moment to publish the most-sought speakers according to Google Analytics of Chinabiz Speakers in March. The top positions remain unchanged, but in the number of points Shaun Rein is clearly closing in on Tom Doctoroff, after Shaun showed up in the February listing for the first time. Shaun has been rather quiet at the beginning of the year, but he has this great way of putting himself in the limelight through the more traditional media.
Biggest jump from de lower ranks into the fourth position has been made by Paul Denlinger. He had been missing from earlier listings, although he is becoming increasingly an well-known online critic of how companies do business in China. I expect this is because his fame is mostly rising in the vocal online community, while traditional media forces are still more influential, as the case of Shaun Rein shows.
The rest of the list looks pretty stable, but the differences at the bottom of the list with speakers who just fell out of the top-10 are not that huge. We find there big shots like Rowan Gibson, Arthur Kroeber and Kaiser Kuo.
For the coming month a few predictions. Rupert Hoogewerf will do even better. His efforts of tracing China's rich will enter its tenth year, as he told me a few days ago. That will create a lot of extra activities and publicity. And, yes, next month I do think that Shaun Rein will take the first place.

The March top 10 (February in brackets)

1. Tom Doctoroff (1)
2. Shaun Rein (2)
3. Zhang Jun (4)
4. Paul Denlinger (-)
5. Radha Chadha (7)
6. Warren Liu (-)
7. Rupert Hoogewerf (10)
8. William Overholt (6)
9. Jeremy Goldkorn (8)
10. Bill Thompson (3)

Tips on how to pick a great speaker (4)

2008-03-26T22:33:00.001+08:00

Image from Wikipedia

How does the organization of your event looks like?

You are probably familiar with that famous children’s game, where children queue up in a line, a message is whispered into the ear of the first child and is passed on till the last. In almost all cases the original messages has been changed profoundly.

In business conversation with longer chains of command, we have seen similar processes, especially when the organization of an event is not rather straight forward, for example because there are third parties organizing the event.

You have to be aware of the organizational setup and be alert for problems that might trigger off. We try to be as close as possible to the targeted audience, and try to find out as direct as possible what they are actually looking for to avoid misunderstandings. It does not always help.

Sometimes we see that the ideas of the audience and the organizer clash, in different ways. Speakers are then sometimes being asked, five minutes ahead of their speech, if he or she is able to change the topic. Most of our speakers are professionals and very knowledgeable in their fields and mostly it does not provide a problem.

Although dealing with this kind of challenges of rather diverse decision making processes is one of the elements that make our work interesting, finding a harmonious solution on a timely basis is better. Often, direct contact with the audience is hard to get, when embassies, consulates, PR-firms and travel agencies are the intermediaries. Making the communication lines as short as possible is very important.

Sometimes we see very complex processes, for example where a business school is organizing events for corporate clients. Then not only the professors and the company involved make the decisions, but the participants, often high-end executives take actively part in the process.

Earlier entries:

1. Introduction

2. When to look for an outside speaker?

3. Who is in the audience?

Tips on how to pick a great speaker (3)

2008-03-26T21:59:00.001+08:00

Who is in the audience?

For us it is the first question: who is coming to an event? It is the first question we ask during a client briefing and it might most easily be the most important question to ask. All too often even this basic question is met with blank stares.

First, is the size of the audience. We have done everything between speeches for one thousand and briefings for five, but our speakers do need to know a bit about the size in advance, so they can prepare themselves well.

Who is in the audience? Most of our professional speakers are rather content-driven and - it is an obvious issue – want to know what the audience already knows about China or a specific industry. We are dealing sometimes with high-end experts, business executives who are in an event to have their traditional conventions about China challenged. The other day we are dealing with an incentive tour, where most of the audience has just figured out where on the map they can find China.

All those different audiences need different kind of speakers, panels, formats. Sometimes, especially during business visits, we have to be able to change a program or its settings pretty fast, because changes in those trips do occur rather frequently.

Finding the best match for your event is as serious as dating: both partners have to know each other as good as possible to make it into a success.

A few special guests our speakers would like to know of when they give a presentation. Are there any Chinese officials present. In general, you have to adopt your speech according to the cultural background of the setting, but having official in the room would take some extra measures.
Also, the question whether journalists are presents matters to some of our speakers and, additionally, whether those journalists are based in China or just visiting. While all journalists are able to misquote people, the danger is larger when they are not familiar with China. A small selection of our speakers wants to be sure their viewpoints are off-the-record, meaning that speakers cannot be quoted.
Nowadays everybody can be a journalist and post - even during the session - reports on their weblogs, mailing lists, twitter and other social media tools. It is important that - depending on the insight of an audience - you set the rules of the game clearly before the show starts, if a speakers wants to speak off-the-record.

Creating opinion leaders

2008-03-25T03:01:00.002+08:00

Christine Lu

Christine Lu is up to rather sensational things and last week I had a rather encouraging meeting with her in Starbucks and later a Korean restaurant. Because of the ongoing change in the media, the tools of creating opinion leaders on different issues would be done by the old media. But since they are lacking in these days, and especially for the English-language business scene in China, both Christine's China Business Network and my Chinabiz Speakers are trying to join forces in creating new thought leaders.
While we cannot change the media industry as its old features fall apart, we can try to slowly build an alternative. Christine's network now includes active chapters in New York, Washington DC and San Francisco and we will actively push a few of our key speakers for this special program. More will follow as the first engagements will become more solid.
Meanwhile, she took also the opportunity to interview me. Also here is more to come, including more features with some of our speakers.

Update: And here are more clips online. My advise to people doing business in China, the role of foreigners in China, and common misconceptions about China.