30. 12.

My 2009 Roundup

It's that time of year where we round up all that went down over 2009, and all that'll be surging down the pipe during Twenty-Ten. So here's a very short summary of the excellent year which was, and a few tip-offs about the promising year which is to come -- despite the obvious onset of worsening economic conditions wherever you live.

Notable milestones:

• China: So I finally managed to head on over to the People's Republic -- Beijing and Shanghai, specifically -- last month, the very two cities I'd been dreaming about since the beginning of the year. We didn't know where Vitamin C: Your Daily Dose On China was eventually going to lead when we'd commenced it during 2009's "Prague Spring," but it turned out to be quite the catchy little vidcast, except in China, that is, given its "Great Firewall." Even we couldn't access the best of what Vimeo and YouTube had to offer through our VPN in China. In any event, as of last count, we've completed almost fifty-five episodes, augmented by a handful of Vitamin C Road Shows in Romania and Switzerland which got us off our rubber butts for several weeks during 2009's spring and summer. I look forward to a packed 2010 for the moving image as we've recently upgraded our gear (now four machines and counting!) and juiced up our editing software (Final Cut Pro) that will allow us to take even more creative risks of the sorts you've become used to. I look forward to one additional China sojourn set to take place during early 2010 to -- Luke Skywalker-like -- tie-up some loose Chinese ends.


• Romania: With 2009 being the extensive travel year it was, we also managed to spirit ourselves away from the Romanian capital for a couple of weeks in September during our swing through the fabled (and positively breathtaking) Transylvanian countryside (Brasov, Ploiesti, Pitesti, Poiana Brasov, Sibiu, and Sighisoara). The trip will remain one of my 2009 highlights because it reinvigorated my passion for Romania's resolute, courageous folk and offered me some insights into the vast diversity of Romania's society outside of Bucharest and about how dastardly its dictatorship was. We kicked back with the locals as we enjoyed some of the rural culinary delights and libations (palinca, tuica, and french fries, Romanian-style). I was delighted to discover how some Romanians who might have otherwise emerged from the Ceausescu era with tremendous emotional scarring somehow succeeded in maintaining their positive outlook on life, an astonishing revelation given the stereotypes people still hold about this talented, but deeply scarred, Balkan country.


• Czech Republic: My love for the city of Prague remains fully intact, despite some autumn logistical setbacks with our creative studio. Thankfully, our local networks run very deep and the unplanned changeover lasted only a couple of days. A propos, too, I suppose, in light of what was taking place on the national scene as the money supply tightened and the Czech authorities announced an increase to the tax rate in order to stem the rapidly-swelling budgetary deficit. Some good friends lost their jobs, and other long-standing Prague expats pulled up stakes and left town. This otherwise placid Central European nation suddenly understood that it wasn't an island disconnected from the financial ravages of the rest of Planet Earth. Czechs sadly only woke up to this reality around March or April, and when it hit home, it stung with a bitter vengeance. I guess this means the end of eleven a.m. drinky-poos for all the local bureaucrats I see in the cafes who now suddenly realize you have to shake your moneymaker if you want to be somebody in this town. Prague will continue to play a part in my 2010, but on a drastically-reduced level. You shall, nevertheless, continue to hear from me my dear local friends. Our long ponderous chatty nights in our favourite watering holes and bistros will continue!


• Canada: Looking forward to putting the finishing touches on a small Vancouver Olympic project we're completing as I type. As such, my flying schedule shows no signs of slowing down next year and I shall sadly continue being that profligate airborne polluter -- the worst kind! -- which pushed me into "silver" standing in at least two prominent frequent flier programs (yay, business lounge benefits!). I can't wait to get up the new photos from some of the Olympic venues.

Some other notable highlights throughout the year:

• 1938 Media: Our association with Loren Feldman's 1938 Media was a great learning experience. Despite his shock-jock Howard Stern-esque style, Loren remains one of Web Two-Oh's notable celebs, with a keen eye on tech and business trends who sports a deliciously caustic tongue. I enjoyed spoofing him as part of his popular "Monday Matters" series this past Prague summer. We look forward to increased future collaborations.


• Theoretically Speaking: New York's Vincent Ferrrari has been nothing short of a sage-beyond-his-years debating partner in this new debating show we kicked off during the fall. We've only managed to pull off three episodes this year, but things once things settle down in 2010 we'll have some more for you. Check out this clever clip Andreea did with Vinny.


• 800-CEO-READ: Many thanks to the affable funnyman Wayne Turmel of The Cranky Middle Manager Show for introducing me to Jack Covert & Todd Sattersten's (formerly) truly excellent business book operation (go Milwaukee!). I'll be guest blogging for them from time to time on expat business trends as part of their new "8cr Global" series from Prague. If you're on my Facebook Wall or follow me on Twitter you'll be able to catch a few of those posts when they go live.


• Aktualne.cz: I continue to guest blog at the largest Czech group blog, "Aktualne" (or, "current events"). Nice to receive some local feedback on the events of the day.


• Blog: My website will be undergoing its third revamp early in 2010. Look out for more China stuff, more video, and more political punditry.

Wherever you are and whatever you've got planned, make sure to write down your 2010 goals and make them come alive over the coming year, and as always, I wish for you...the best of things...

29. 12.

Nixon and Mao

It's been a trying week chock-full of technical mishaps and PC operating system roadblocks that's prevented me from issuing daily dispatches, so kindly excuse the short delay. I've finally kicked the can and upgraded to Windows 7, and a very good riddance to the most annoying Vista! Since the summer of '08, I've experienced nothing but trouble with the latter -- from the very first week I'd been using it -- so I'm absolutely over the moon to see it go. How about you? Any Vista troubles you might care to share?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I was glad to crack open the mailbox recently to discover my Amazon copy of prominent University of Toronto professor Margaret Macmillan's popular Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World, a detailed account of the preparations leading up to the historical February 1972 summit between disgraced former US President Richard Nixon and Mao Tse-tung during the former's visit to the PRC after more than two decades of complete Sino-US diplomatic silence during the height of the Cold War.

In that familiar vein which only the New York Times bestselling author can, Macmillan doesn't fail to deliver this time either, just as she had in her groundbreaking Paris 1919, a definitive account of the heady times and swirling events surrounding the fabled Versailles Peace Conference which closed out the then-Great War, the "war to end all wars." Just a few pages into Nixon and Mao, and I can already spot those familiar Macmillan prosaic flourishes, sticking to the main throughline as she supplies a bevy of behind-the-scenes action about those seemingly small anecdotal bits which never quite seem to make it into the headlines. If you're curious about the sorts of outfits the various players were wearing during those fateful days, or in the surrounding chatter by the foreign diplomatic corps then-resident in China at the time, the sorts of details which weren't accessible during contemporary accounts of the day, this book is for you. As Macmillan laces a few of these together, readers will gain a more complete picture of the momentousness of the occasion. Historical narrative, at its best.

One of the first things I did when I slit open the packaging was to flip directly to the book's central photo section for a glimpse of several -- yet again -- rare behind-the-scenes images that weren't published in the newspapers at the time which show the US entourage being lead all around Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou, oblivious to the roiling ferment which had just recently died down during the worst three years of Mao's Cultural Revolution. The People's Republic of the 1970s was a nation living in abject fear of authority, evidenced by the diary entries of some key members of the US' travelling delegation describing the seeming other-worldliness of the Chinese people milling about the capital's streets during the early 1970s. Beijing of 1972 was a city full of low-rises, hutongs, and bicycles. Residents of the city were both forbidden from making eye contact with the motorcades speeding about the city, and from discussing things they might have witnessed as the Americans gradually reacquainted themselves with its former Chinese wartime ally which they had abandoned to her own Communist devices only two short decades previously.

Nixon and Mao is not a straight historical narrative play-by-play. Macmillan, as is her custom, furnishes the needed embellishing details about Nixon's concerted preparations in advance of his momentous journey, in addition to his on-plane habits and about the swirl of preparations as his aides funneled him as much data as the former President could handle while Nixon sunk himself into the material. The junket flew the trans-Pacific route in three stages (Mainland US-Hawaii-Guam) to ensure that the President would be as well-rested as possible for this history-making odyssey, the significance of which all present at the time were clearly aware. The 1972 trip was hyped in the media as being on a par with Marco Polo's 13th-century sojourn during imperial times.

If you're on the hunt for that unusual something to supplement your standard Chinese business reading, this could be it. So far it's been a page-turner.

I'll be back with more reflections as I make greater headway.

23. 12.

Marketing to the Poor

I just completed Max Lenderman's Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates and Oligarchs are Reshaping Business, which somehow strikingly reminded me of Vijay Mahajan's Africa Rising: How 900 Million Consumers Offer More Than You Think, a title I'd polished off earlier during 2009.

The parallelisms between these two longitudinal studies especially dawned on me during Lenderman's final chapters where he delves fulsomely into the novel ways multinational (MNC) marketers have begun appealing to rural poor market segments. He describes how these strategies can then be applied in marketing to more affluent sections of the consumer public, suggesting ways to enhance the overall purchasing experience for tired Western customers and for companies to boost their brand loyalty.

Lenderman kicks his book off with a bit of a scholarly build-up, and you've got to first run this challenging gauntlet in order to grasp the crux of his overall argument. But the basic angle is that brands are losing mega market share to their aspiring competitors who seem to be honing the art of "experience marketing," one of Lenderman's pet pasions which he previous penned an entire book about.

"Experience marketing" is the act of creating sales experiences which are truly "win-win," where marketers can be lauded for doing something good for society and the collective, not merely lambasted for self-interestedly flogging product. It's an area where marketers can demonstrate their corporate social responsibility by taking active interests in the difficulties their customers might be facing. A good examples is the 2008 pilot project initiated by carmaker Hyundai to extend full money-back guarantees to their owners who were unable to meet their monthly payments on cars purchased under financing plans. Rather than being deluged by a raft of returns and a gargantuan loss of market share, Lenderman writes how the Koren automaker's gesture landed the company an immediate 2009 Q1 2009 15% upsurge in sales for the brand, far exceeding the manufacturer's gloomy conservative expectations.

Rural India, to wit, has become the battleground for many of these unusual "experiential" campaigns.

For instance, there exists the rural Indian fascination with all things Bollywood. Indian product marketers have thusly taken to the road in what are called "brand vans," complete with hired actors who re-enact famous Bollywood scenes or newly scripted encouters which are staged in front of expectant village throngs, actively making use of the product being marketed by demonstrating how the product comes come to the aid of the "hero" or "heroine" during the skit. Since rural Indians prefer to be shown how a product works, standard product appeals to its features or benefits are too abstract for this segment.

While this might seem gimmicky or inauthentic to a Western audience, in India this unconventional marketing technique has netted nothing short of windfalls for Indian consumer product companies, with examples listed in the book.

Lenderman understands that this marketing technique need not be taken verbatim from the Subcontinent's context applied directly to the West, but he hughlights the kernel of consumerist wisdom in what's going on down in India. If marketing interactions in the West can be tailored more personally and inclusively, disaffected consumers in developed economies might feel less put-upon. This new way of thinking about Western marketing, he explains, might be just the needed boost of genuineness to these otherwise contrived approaches. If marketers can somehow plant the seed of an idea that "this is how this helps us, but, moreover, this is how this helps you" it could convincingly shatter today's marketing and branding ennui. Shipwrecked as we are during these current economic crisis conditions, there is little doubt that brand-induced rigor mortis has firmly set in.

The author offers up a few prescriptions for how marketers can diversify their current approaches to break through the logjam:

• marketing departments (along with their ad agency cohorts) need to brainstorm ways of selling stuff more personally to their target customers. Anything smacking of falsehood or inauthenticity will be immediately dismissed by a savvy 21st-century marketplace.


• brands who do embrace the sales-marketing "win-win" will benefit in multiples, given the viral nature of social networks.


• financial constraints which contrain the purchasing habits of poor market segments (egs. in India, across Africa, and in other parts of the developing world) from buying their way into more affluent lifestyles represent an opportunity, rather than a threat, to product manufactuters. Resource limitations can sometimes represent an advantage, as it forces brand leaders to do much more with significantly less.


• marketers must appeal to the 2B-plus poor, underdeveloped, members of the planet, who shall quickly constitute the lion's share of their future sales. With the latter's rising affluence and aspirational lifestyles, class upgrades will be demanded, and product floggers who understand this will be there when the bell tolls. In observing the poor, their buying habits, and by understanding their unqiue situation, it will inspire creative new branding approaches.


• marketers who opt to ignore this message will likely not survive the coming decade's market reshuffling.

Both of these books are quick, though deep, reads, and I highly recommend them.

If your marketing strategy is currently dry and lifeless, you might want to generate some radical new thinking with these two provocative titles.

22. 12.

Bomb It!

It took me an extra couple of days over this year-end Holiday Rush, but I finally managed to catch the entirety of Jon Reiss' BOMB IT!, an independently-produced, guerrilla-marketed documentary about the phenomenon of "tagging," "piecing," and grafitti writing all around the globe (US, The Netherlands, Germany, France, the UK, South Africa, Spain, Brazil, and Japan).

Truth be told, I never intended to watch this film -- in fact, I was somehow gently persuaded into forking out a "combo price" for the non-bootlegged DVD when I snatched up my copy of Think Outside of the Box Office, a new title on guerrilla film distribution -- also by Reiss -- a propos to something we're working on in China at moment.

Was I in for a surprise, and to think of all the special features I would have missed! By the second minute of the audio commentary, majordomo-ed by Reiss and Tracy Hanes, his very fetching producer, I had already whipped my Moleskine out and was furiously scrawling notes about aspects we'd like to put into play on our own project, such was the strength of the piece. Stefano E. Bloch, himself a "reformed" tagger, featured masterfully in a bonus section extended interview (positioned in front of a bookcase I'd give an eyetooth to own) waxing staggeringly eloquently about themes like urban gentrification, graffiti murals versus random senseless tagging, gangbanger pieces and sigs, making a living from your gallery fine art, and how all of this comes to a nexus in most large American cities.

Reiss and Hanes, in their own right, describe their own odyssey in the run up to getting the film green lit and "in the can" and about the cascade of tribulations they faced in the various cities they filmed in, sharing with us their experiences of:

• feeling the rush of heading down into São Paolo's sewers in full Hazmat gear to record to graffiti writer Zezao speak about the blissful peace of mind he enjoys painting metres below street level and about the life prospects for one Brazilian family living amidst the gargantuan metropolis' human fecal matter.


• sitting with expatriate Swedes Pike & Nug talk about their "bombing raids" in Berlin's Uenterbahn -- with a funny original clip showing a drunken Nug defacing a pristine German underground station using a basic can of black spray paint.


• befriending some of the veteran Bronx taggers of the "Wild Style" crew (featuring Tkid), and what a quotidian existence was like in the Big Apple before New York tidied itself up, making public defacement of property into a felony offence with a 15-year jail term attached.


• heading out into the São Paolo white night with resident favella graffiti writer Wagner, as he climbs up a towering billboard sans harness to apply his name on the advertisement's fluttering canvas margins.
  

Let's just say I devoted a whole mess of time to this single otherwise unassuming disc...

The takeaways were many, the lulls were few, and I felt completely justified in my purchase. I suspect Jon's book will be equally as engaging, and I'll be back with more insights on my read just as soon as I'm done.

And if I don't speak to you before then, PF 2010 (for my Czech readers) and Happy Holidays and many joyous, healthy returns for my friends, colleagues, and loved ones around the Globe.

(as originally appearing at http://www.adamdanielmezei.com/?p=795)

21. 12.

Panda Huggers vs. Dragon Slayers

Panda hugger? Dragon slayer? What in tarnation am I on about?

Well, it's connected to one of my long-standing pet projects, a field I've been spending a considerable amount of time on these past few months: the Sino-US relationship. Through my humble efforts, this here crazy Canuck is trying to help the two sides see clear through to each other's intentions in the lead up towards what's shaping up to be this century's new policy of détente.

Look, it's no secret I get most of my good ideas during exercise. Mornings, preferably, and ideally on the stationary bike. Like any garden variety ISTP on the Myers-Briggs Type Index, I don't waste too much free time faffing around doing idle stuff, so having said that my book du jour is Serge Michel & Michel Beuret's China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa, a tale of China's expansionist policies on the majority Dark Continent. I've spoken about this book recently here, but the premise of China Safari is so mission-critical I felt it warranted an encore post.

Michel and Beuret make frequent references to the China "hawks" and "doves" in the US State Department. There are some leading Americans who feel a more robust global engagement with China is indeed unncessary, that softer methods are more appropriate in an effort to cajole the PRC into modes of behaviour which align more closely with US political interests in Africa (read: realpolitik). On the other hand, there are those hawks who claim that the People's Republic is surreptitiously ekeing out key global territorities in a reprise of the sorts of proxy wars we and the Soviets used to trifle with back in the day.

Let's deconstruct this, shall we?

Panda Huggers:

The name stems from China's popular zoological export. Such an individual has the following characteristics:

• believes that China is a reasonable interlocutor and can be persuaded via "soft diplomacy" to cease encouraging or otherwise inducing chaos and bloodshed amongst Africa's warring tribes and nations (egs. Ethiopia-Eritrea, Chad-Niger-Sudan, Darfur, the Congo, etc).


• believes that China retains a global competitive and sovereign right to prospect for oil and mineral resources around the world as part of its "peaceful rise" and that the developed nations have no right to interfere in this given their own abhorrent polluting pasts.


• accepts that China is not altogether forthright about its ultimate political aims in Africa but as it simultaneously improves its African client states' overall infrastructures (egs. roads, airports, bridges, ports, and schools), China hardly mimics former European rapacious imperialism.


• dimisses the global scaremongering about China's all-pervasive influence in African conflict zones, given that at only 4 to 5% of the total global trade in fatal small arms (compared to the US' approximately 25%), the PRC is hardly the dastardly Grand Game player as the US' hawks will readily claim.


• likes to cite the overall "win-win" relationship in China's dealings with rogue states like Sudan, Chad, and Liberia, whereby the latter are raised up several societal notches through China's fiscal generosity through interest-free loans and/or outright credits. The classical, "Yeah, but look what China's done to improve..." excuse.

Versus...

Dragon Slayers:

This term finds its root in China's fortune-bringing mighty fire-breathing talisman. Such an individual has the following characteristics:

• realizes that China has been aggressively hyperanalyzing European colonial history since the PRC's Reform and Opening Up period, and, as such, is aware that China has rather employed a decidedly more magnanimous approach to the "rape" of the African continent which effectively obscures the rising juggernaut's stated superpower aspirations.


• understands that the US, bogged down in its Iraqi and Afghanistan military odysseys, has been devoting scant resources to its African Command (presently based in Stuttgart, Germany!) and is essentially powerless to stop China's African rollout.


• knows that China is the living embodiment of Sun Tzu's classic dictum of "giving in order to bring your enemy closer...to make him unaware...only then can you strike." Dragon slayers know that China has been spoiling the Sudanese, the Nigerians, the Angolans, the Zambians, the Ethiopians, the Sudanese, the Egyptians, the Algerians, and many of the forty-nine other African states which China maintains official diplomatic relations with rotten, in order to brazenly buy its way into exclusivity situations for oil, uranium, bauxite, and other precious resource deals. Slayers also know that China desperately needs Africa's resources to ensure its resource security into the foreseeable future, given how the French, Italians, Dutch, British, and Americans have crowded the PRC out in their traditional Middle Eastern fiefdoms.


• laments the fact that the US is once again "sleeping at the wheel" in Africa. Meanwhile, China has staked out all of the best claims and is winning friends and influencing people all across Africa and, consequently, in the UN. In comparison, the US will eventually seem like a carpetbagger when it awakens to the ongoing realities and will be only too late to put a stop to things.

The Final Word:

As I fashion myself as something of an amateur Sinologist, I'm tending towards siding the Dragon Slayers who seem to have a firmer understanding of the entrenched realities and the hunt for untapped oil.

Given what recently transpired at #COP15 in Denmark during the Climate Conference, what with the groundbreaking all-encompassing document the G20 somehow knew would never be inked in Copenhagen and how it only reiforces the West's seemingly incurable addiction to carbon-consuming technologies, China's leaders seem to have their collective heads screwed on properly. With China's annual market just for automobiles set to exceed 11 million units in 2011 and beyond and with a national market of over 100 million cars, China isn't taking any prisoners (nor chances) with its petroleum destiny.

So which are you? Panda Hugger or Dragon Slayer?

Of course, please let us know in the comments below.

18. 12.

Chinese African Carrots

For the world's China watchers, like myself, there's a new dynamic duo in town, the Swiss authors of Serge Michel & Michel Beuret who have recently signed their John Hancocks to their fresh-off-the-press China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa.

So I've got the book and I've been meticulously working my way through it.

Safari is another of those stark assessments of China's involvement on the African continent, an investigative look into a region where only the world's most intrepid journalists and truth-seekers dare set foot. Amidst this ailing continent of near-permanent depravity, rampant corruption, easily-treatable chronic disease, and on-again off-again brutal, bloody war, there tread the seeming bravest of the brave: China's nouveau riche. Numbering in the thousands, these are the hopeful men and women who have cast out into the wide world in search of their fortunes across two massive continents to heed former Chinese supremo Jiang Zemin's call to "go abroad and make money."

Well, the jury is indeed out on China's questionable activities in Africa. There are those who laud China's efforts to raise the living standard of a people who find themselves repeatedly sidelined and babied by the planet's developed economic powerhouses. Others resent the Chinese for being less than candid about their real African aims, with the PRC dangling juicy carrots in front of the salivating self-interested African dictators and pseudo-democracies who are only too pliant to trumpet the PRC's apparent munificence while China uses the opportunity to further sink its tentacles deeper into the resource-rich African soil.

These competiting -- yet equally valid -- impressions of China's African master plan is what makes their involvement there at once so marvellous and terrifying.

But, tody, for the uninitiated, I supply a brief overview of what these two competing narratives entail, both for the Chinese and for Africa:

The "Pro-China" Benevolent View:

We live in an open world where even the most Machiavellian Chinese businessman or bureaucrat wouldn't deign to brazenly perpetrate the most crass of moneymaking schemes without at least fearing the censure of the globe's Africa watchers. This is the wellspring from which The Benevolent View derives its strength.

Basically, this view contends that since the late '90s, the Chinese people have heeded their leaders' calls to resume the nation's former leading role in the colonially-ravaged continent by spoiling their former "brethren" with financial incentives and infrastructure gifts as a means of uplifting the African people. This is the Chinese version of "big brother."

It's clear that the Chinese have an interest in perpetuating this porous myth, since it benefits them greatly. The staggering number of exclusivity contracts and resource concessions which African governments have offered up to the PRC on a silver platter as the latter have bequeathed their "no strings attached" cosmetic improvements and financial incentives to them have made Chinese mega-tycoons out of former paupers. In defending the actions of the Chinese, this is what Africa's leaders are wont to refer to as the China-Africa "win-win," or China's "sympathetic capitalism," which is 180-degree opposed to the way the Great Powers used to press their colonial influence in a former era.

What's generally hidden in all the cash-lending hoopla are the gory details. Few realize that agreements inked between Chinese and Africans stipulate that 70% or more of such infrastructure contracts -- including, among others, the improvement or wholly-new construction of bridges, roads, and rail lines -- must be helmed by Chinese construction firms, a non-negotiable condition before any aid or interest-free loan money can be deposited into African treasuries or before the first spade breaks dirt.

The second -- less pernicious, though equally exclusionary -- aspect of Chinese business in Africa deals with the workers themselves, imported, like the construction materials themselves, straight from China. Laborers are customarily holed up in secluded quarters, under 24-hour lockdown, with their passports stowed away under lock and key and away from the prying eyes of locals and investigative journalists alike (there is even photographic evidence of this in China Safari).

The "Anti-China" Villanous View:

China has made it patently clear that it aims to become the world's second superpower, and conducts itself apprpriately.

Africa plays a key role in their universal strategy, given China's resource scarcity for certain key resources -- namely crude oil and uranium (yellow cake) -- and watch as the Chinese ladle out aid and advantages in copious sums as a means of quite literally bribing their way into Africa's good graces. With the Americans, French, and Italians already having scooped up the key Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf territories, China aims to "hit 'em where they ain't" (sorry for the Babe-esque baseball analogy) in going after Africa's goodies. As the Chinese have come bearing (Trojan?) gifts, the Africans have been only too happy to award them with keys to the castle.

But all is not golden.

In Algeria, the Chinese are referred to as "Ali Baba" (you decide whether this is for their generous nature or for their thieving ways). In Senegal, Niger, Cameroon, and across other regions of the former Francafrique, frequent protests erupt and there are on-again, off-again boycotts of Chinese-owned shops and Chinese-dominated shopping districts, in addition to spates of kidnappings as the have-nots have been simmering on the sidelines as the Chinese have had their way with things.

In meetings with Africa's cabinet-level ministers and presidents, the Chinese have torn a page out of Sun Tzu's ancient playbook: keep thine "enemies" closer than thine comrades. Here's one example how the Chinese will typically attempt to endear themselves to their interlocutors during negotiation sessions: a Chinese delegation member will usually be assigned to study the preferences of their African opposite numbers. In one storied case, a Gabonese minister who was a fan of architecture and Greco-Roman history was shocked to receive a phone call from his Chinese opposite number shortly after the conclusion of a successful meeting discussing these very topics, with a exclusive invite to a European architecture exhibit the next time the minister was in Europe.

The "anti-Chinese" viewpoint explains that this is all a calculated attempt on the part of the Chinese to approach their ultimate aim, which is to overtake Japan as the world's second largest economy.

So which weltanschauung wins? Well, it's paradox. For even if the Chinese are as mendacious as some experts claim, the majority of Africa's population is gaining tremendously as it becomes -- yet again -- an unwitting pawn in a global game of realpolitik. The Chinese want this badly, and they're willing to do anything they can to secure their position in the world and they're in it for the very long haul. Free loans, scholarships, planes, trains, and automobiles. Whatever it takes to get to the top.

It's just that with the world being as open as it is today, it's becoming harder and harder to hide the harm and damage their "peaceful rise" is leaving in its wake.

17. 12.

#COP15 While the Ads Are Still Shilling

What delicious irony!

So I'm working my aging muscles at the gym this morning, buzzing in my zone, collected within my own thoughts and space, when on the overhead radio blares the news from the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark and then...followed by a sound bite from the Secretary of State -- Ms. Clinton -- about how "climate change not only affects the environment, but it affects our economy and our security."

Okay, fair enough, so her obsequious speechwriters and assorted other sycophant hangers-on are dutybound to sprinkle in the usual perfunctory claptrap and one-offs, the stuff of political doubletalk, and I can totally accept that. Like any dyed-in-the-wool political cynic, being compelled to listen to this aural rubbish is one of the tradeoffs of membership in an affluent society, a function of the daily Faustian bargain we make with our benevolent leaders in (insert your nation's capital) for all of the lavish goodies that are as near as a phone call away.

But today struck a chord within me. That Clinton sound bite I just mentioned? Well, it was immediately followed up with news about local discounts on monthly financing for SUVs, then another blurb about a 14% hike in prices at the gas pump -- y-o-y -- after the inflation rate rose 1% during November 2009, then another series of interminable ads about discounts on the iPhone 3G and 3G Plus if consumers only "act now" and avail themselves of a special rebate and the one about taking out a new cellphone plan before the Holiday Season in order to receive a $50 gift as a bonus.

I think you're getting the picture.

But this pithy complaint of mine hardly does the situation justice. The Guardian's George Monbiot was positively eloquent in his spot-on biting description of the global state of affairs in his scathing j'accuse against Western governments (and China, tangentially, what with its "peaceful rise") with his column entitled "This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity" from this past Monday.

Until we stop hearing molasses-like ads like this luring us to appease our junkie-like buying habits, that big show over in Denmark -- what with the daily talking heads, pontificating Western political blowhards, and cameo appearances by popular heads-of-state -- matters not a toss.

Agreed?

(as originally appearing at http://www.adamdanielmezei.com/?p=769)

16. 12.

What Matters Now, an eBook

In between the other stuff I'm doing, I've been gradually scrolling my way though an excellent new Seth Godin eBook entitled What Matters Now.

It's another one of those savvy Godin-esque compilations of short, meaningful entries from a veritable who's-who of the interwebs celebesphere that I'd heard about at Twitter and threaded within the folds of a recent Twist Image blogpost and podcast hosted by ueber-media maven Mitch Joel of Montreal, Canada.

Despite the work's brevity -- clocking in at a mere 82pp -- I find myself being somehow unable to just breeze through the posts as would normally befit something so tight. Sure, the sentences might be punchy, but the message is profound. I've observed myself reading a couple of paragraphs then suddenly leaning into my hardbacked chair exhaling, then pondering the universal significance of what all of it means.

You of course realize there's a delectable art to conveying something pregnant with such gravitas within the narrow confines of 300 words or less. It's quite a remarkable feat for those who can do it.

Which is why Gaping Void's Hugh MacLeod's contribution on "meaning" really had me going (now marking my third reading of it), but first a bit about the man behind the message.

Hugh's a cartoonist, so his preferred choice of conveying heavy ideas is through simplified graphical representations of what might take other creatives paragraphs of wagon-circling to describe. Rather than encapsulate some pithy, schmaltzy inspirational kudo in three tight paragraphs, Hugh's page ten of Seth's PDF depicts a nifty little cube with the following slogans forming the symmetrical sinews of a square. Here's a sampling:

• "If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you."


• "You have to find your own shitck."


• "Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this Earth to climb."


• "The best way to get approval is not to need it."


• "You are responsible for your own experience."


• "If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being 'discovered' by some big shot, your plan will probably fail."


• "Power is taken."


• "Put the hours in."


• "The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props."


• "Allow your work to age with you."


• "Write from the heart."


• "Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually."

This novel take on a tried-and-tested technique moved me enough to share it here with you.

I'll be done with the rest of the PDF today and promise to share again if something busts through the haze once more.

(as originally appearing at http://www.adamdanielmezei.com/?p=764)

UPDATE: If your setup prevents PDF downloads, you can always view the eBook online here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23711234/What-Matters-Now

15. 12.

Madame

What might China have been like had the KMT had won?

What if Chiang (Kai-shek) had played a slightly more offensive role than his traditional defensive game and taken the fight to Mao's Communists instead of laying back in wait, following Bruce Lee's famous dictum about water:

"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend."

Well, I've been delving into this kind of thinking over this past week while reading The Last Empress, by Hannah Pakula, a new tell-all about the life of the illustrious grand-dame Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the famous Generalissimo of the same name. It's turning out to be one of the definitive biographical accounts of the spirit of the interwar period, in my limited reading experience of the era, and I'm enjoying every turn of the page.

Admittedly, I scooped up the book less for its rigor and verifiable historical authenticity -- though indeed it has been giving me something of a workout on my familiarity with modern Chinese history -- and more for insights about "Madame," as she has come to be known over the years, a rock of a woman who could be said to be as influential as England's Queen Mother (mother of the reigning monarch, Elizabeth) during WWII, a formidable figure in her own right who the dastardly Hitler himself even referred to as "the most dangerous woman in all of Europe" because she refused to leave London during the Blitz, visiting the pock-marked ruins of recently bombed-out buildings, thereby inspiring Londoners to resist the Luftwaffe's continuous onslaught. Madame seems to have been similarly influential in that she successfully convinced the US Administration at the time (under President Truman) to transfer billions of dollars in aid to Nationalist China -- I still haven't discovered what became of all this cash -- in an effort to resist the Communists surge, and ultimately failing effort. She was the eminence grise behind her husband in shaping the US' approach to the country the Generalissimo was lording over at the time.

Overall, I'm a huge fan of biography, though these sorts of books, being the meisterstuecker of the people who compile them, generally come in the two- to three-ton varieties. Hardcover, bound, chock-full of scintillating photography and fresh paper-scented crisp pages, are not exactly built for portability, mind you, so it's hard to tote them around for a quick read on the subway or bus or while in transit, therefore I'm loathe to buy one unless I know I'll be in a given place for an extended period of time.

As I make more headway in The Last Empress, I'll keep you posted of my gleanings -- of which I'm positive there are going to be many.

(as originally appearing at http://www.adamdanielmezei.com/?p=761)

14. 12.

Brand New World

Global brands like Nike, Apple, Adidas, Burberry, Gucci, and Tag-Heuer are justifiably very concerned about Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, and Brazilian product piracy, but according to author Max Lenderman, they shouldn't be all that concerned.



Really?! What's this, you say?

Lenderman does the yeoman's work in his new book, Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates, and Oligarchs and Shaping Business explaining the nuances of another way of looking at the whole counterfeiting plague that will shock most mid- to large-tier brand manufacturers. Rather than suffer heart palpitations due to how much revenue brands might be leaking to the shanzai (Mandarin for counterfeit) collectives in places like China's notorious Silk Street Mall, they should rather revel how their brands are receiving even more exposure than they might othewise receive through standard marketing techniques and budgets.

In a recent brands study furnished again by Lenderman in his stellar book, Nike, Burberry, and Microsoft were showing whopping revenue gains of 45, 68, and 57 percent respectively since 2001 as a result of their greater "market mind share" from the proliferation of their knockoffs in Chinese and Indian consumer markets.

These are truly startling figures for what Lenderman refers to as no more than a handful of twenty-five MNCs who admit in statistical studies to being most concered by pernicious brand piracy. So the new consensus opinion seems to be: rather than scramble to bite their collective finger- and toenails down to nubs, brands should salute -- if not outright gooily embrace -- how their goods are proliferating throughout developing markets with a reach and depth not even their tried-and-true marketing efforts could ever achieve.

These remarkable gains are a fortunate consequence of the absolute Chinese disregard for intellectual property protection, and I doubt any MNC marketing wing could run scenarios which could accurate account for this phenomenon. Tell me the last time when a major brand marketer could tabulate metrics on revenue their firm might directly receive from rampant piracy?

If any of this is remotely interesting to you, I've been gaining all sorts of insights this past week from Lenderman's truly engaging study, his call to action for global manufacturers and marketers to stop, sit, and listen to the several other ways they might successfully counter the priacy threat, which in any event shows zero signs of abating.

In fact, in the case of Chinese shanzai violators, the more aggressive an international brand is about policing their universal brand equity, the greater the incentive is for the Chinese pirates to abuse it, almost akin to children cruisin' for a bruisin' from their parents. What Lenderman seems to be saying is that it's far from a lost cause; there are ways of working in concert with pirates, rather, by utilizing their rampant audacity as a kind of high-octane boost to the millions of dollars in marketing budgets already spent by mega-brands. With this reinvigorated perspective, suggest Lenderman, brands can cease burning through their scarce resources currently spent on global policing efforts to better spent them on doing what MNCs do best: rapidly innovating and prototyping, bringing exciting, useful new products to market quickly.

Brand New World is welcome infusion of pure oxygen during these current crisis times. Rather than despair at those who wantonly disregard your brand's inherent equity, there exist alternative ways to work alongside the violators by bolting your pre-existing efforts onto theirs, turning their profligate efforts into direct advantages for you, the innovator, changing the rules of the game yet again.

A coup even the likes of Sun Tzu himself would appreciate...

09. 12.

Futuretainment

Twitter's great because it acts as a kind of triage mechanism for new books I'd like to read. Several of my friends are avid readers -- surprising given their time commitments to their professional and family duties -- and one of them based in Shanghai recently suggested I have a look at Mike Walsh's Futuretainment.

Futuretainment isn't your typical sort of read. For one, it's issued by boutique publisher Phaidon Press, and weighing in at 274pp and boasting decidedly non-standard binding, heft, and colour design, it's a work not for the faint of heart. On a recent flight in from Europe, I likely made myself and the people sitting around me slightly high from the strong page odour, heavily-scented as it was with ink preservative and "new page smell."

As for style, if you're expecting the long-form prose of a how-to DIY sort of book, don't be.

Each page is tastefully adorned with a photo from Walsh's sharp Flickr collection. The copy is spartan but contemplative. In its brevity it's well-organized, the kind of material you inhale within a couple of minutes but which you think about long after you put the thing down, or at least that was my feeling.

Walsh indeed dives into lot of subjects, but one of my main takeaways was his discussion of micropayments and how these are all the rage in Asia -- especially in South Korea and, more lately, in China. Walsh posits that the next new internet payment mechanism -- on a PayPal scale -- will emerge from the Asian tiger economies, much of it emanating from virtual gaming communities where users are encouraged to purchase virtual currencies and other "commodities" that they can then trade between themselves for real currency. It got so bad in China in one famous case, that the Chinese government was concerned that a parallel shadow economy was rising up in its place.

If a system can be established, says Walsh, whereby transactions can occur at the touch of a button for miniscule amounts -- five cents, ten cents -- amounts that currently don't caputre the interests of the large payment processors like PayPal but which -- on massive turnover -- can be of interest to an emerging Asian payment processor catering to this vaster market to make this profitable on volume, a five-cent, ten-cent model could actually work well.

Walsh sticks to his knitting throughout the read: his throughline is that traditional advertising is dead and gone. Television advertising maintains its chokehold on the market only in areas where there exists only a single-channel broadcasting outlet, otherwise it no longer has the monopoly on the consumer's front of mind of awareness as it had in times past. He even proposes many new and novel techniques -- not all of them his, but summarized nicely for the reader -- for marketers to generate increased awareness for their products and services, for example, by lurking in places where their various communities congregate, spending more time with their targets. Now that big brash ads are tuned out in a nanosecond, consumers are looking to be a part of the overall advertising process -- even assisting in making a company's ads (i.e. crowdsourcing) and getting word about their products, turning the entire industry on its head in a way even the legendary David Ogilvy himself never could have envisioned in his seminal work ON ADVERTISING.

If you pick up the book for any reason at all, it will be to enjoy the photos and Walsh's media wisdom. His many perspectives on Asia are particularly a propos for all China Hands -- both aspiring newbies and Old China Hands alike. The book is a trove of tips about emerging media trends, online advertising, crowdsourced campaigns, and is slapdashed with Walsh's many historical perspectives and several intriguing factoids which he successfully sprinkles throughout.

Again, thanks to Marc in Shanghai for -- again -- being the stimulus for this purchase.

06. 12.

So How Antisocial Are You?

I've been slowly making my way through Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's superb Trust Agents over this weekend. From what I can make of the book so far, the key to increasing the amount of trust people place in you online revolves around how much stuff you put out there. By being a prolific content provider and by demonstrating how competently you speak about a particular topic online goes a long way to building a loyal online and offline following.

This is particularly true in Brogan's case.

On most days, I'll receive an email blast from his mailing list containing at least three separate entries which he writes himself, each of them chock-full of juicy tidbits that I note down and usually put into play on the spot. The kinds of things which can help you to improve your daily productivity, the kinds of subjects which you can then discuss with your friends and colleagues or use as conversation starters at a party, or even as fodder for your own weekend posts (wink, wink).

Given how prolific Brogan appear to be -- it's no secret he's one of the fifteen most read blogs in the world, according to Google's analtyics engine -- and I usually sit up and listen when he expresses his opinion about something of relevance to the online (and offline) communities.

Which is why something's been lingering with me all weekend long. It's a topic Brogan contemplates often, the concept of "but isn't this whole online thing making everyone more antisocial?" Brogan and Smith devote an entire sidebar to refuting this idea in Trust Agents, so I'd like to riff off with a few remarks of my own since my own online activities and work place me squarely within this surprisingly not-so-uncommon territory.

The authors' answer to that question is a resounding "no," and I tend to agree with them.

"No" because spending time online is no longer the exclusive purview of the geeks and the nerds as portrayed within most eighties films now that people can spend upwards of ten hours per day in front of their Mac or PC screens. Rather than causing netizens to become more antisocial -- what with he countless hours consumed puttering around on Facebook, Twitter, and/or chat applications like GTalk -- the connections established during online time are leading to an unprecendented raft of healthy, successful interactions in between all of these professional tech and social media events than ever before. Being online is the key, say Brogan and Smith, to improving your offline professional and social lives, and I'm a living example of it.

Here's how: during our most recent trip to Beijing and Shanghai, our entire social calendar was planned in advance over the net. Prior to our departure for Asia, I was able to make heads or tails of the influence peddling hierarchies within the twin expatriate scene of those two mega-cities, connections which then lead to some dinners, several helpful coffee meetings-cum-advisory sessions, and even a spirited Tweetup -- my first ever -- in the Chinese capital. It was there where I managed to forge five new contacts, people I'll be definitely be seeing again during my next swing-through the country. Moreover, these are the sorts of folks who I am in daily contact with from wherever I am in the world today, as we help each other complete our respective small, incrementally important, little tasks. They also happen to be some of the more interesting people I've ever met, and given how long I've known them, this is even more remarkable.

For example, we met a guy in Beijing who had an otaku for Chinese public transportation. Agreeing to meet at our hotel prior that Tweetup, the first thing he did -- before even sinking into the obsequious banter -- was to hand us two "Beijing transportation cards" plus a fistful of receipts which we could use to take Beijing's subway or other mass transit networks. Later, how showed us how his computer was stuffed to the gills with relevant subway timetable spreadsheets, cutoff times between the various stations on Beijing's sprawling undergound lines, sharing with us his secret why he knew how long -- down to the minute -- he would arrive in our lobby to fetch us, even allowing for a couple of minutes in the walk between the station and our hotel (ask Andreea, I even felt terrible that we showed up three minutes late for our rendez-vous there, and all it took us was an elevator ride down eight floors).

Speaking of China again, did you perhaps know that most of the dating activity occurs through online ads and chat? To Western ears, this might sound repugnant, but I'd seen and read about this happening often enough that it doesn't seem quite so foolish anymore. Bonds are made and broken in an almost routine fashion in that massive country over the internet, and ever since the Internet has become the mainstream means of communicating and entertaining oneself in that gigantic country, online is fast becoming the sole way of making social connections. It holds true for other nations where direct approaches in public aren't societally-acceptable.

So is online a waste of time? As you can see from the above examples, hardly.

On the contrary, I don't think I could live as well in the absence of the amount of time I devote to Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Somehow, life wouldn't be nearly as rich or fulfilling as it is with it.

A huge thanks to Brogan and Smith for reminding me of this over the weekend.

04. 12.

Twitter Propagators, Community Builders, and Follower Transfixers

Jeremy Gutsche, head honcho at Toronto's Trend Hunter, recently published his company's 50 Top Interviews of 2009. Interviewees ranged from new media to old media types, women and men responsible for generating memes and spotting trends who provided brief but candid responses to a series of repetitive questions asked -- with minor variations, according to their respective industries -- by Gutsche's Trend Hunter team.

My several gleanings from the read are too numerous to distill into just a single blogpost, but one interview with Ignacio Oreamuno of Ihaveanidea massively resonated. Oreamuno suggest three possible new media/Web 2.0 job titles that I'd never seen in print before, and as my eyes blew down the page I wondered whether any of them might be apt descriptors for the sorts of things that I myself get up to online.

They were: Twitter Propagator, Community Builder, and Follower Transfixer.

Let's break these down individually...

Twitter Propagator

Oreamuno describes how companies who flog product -- both MNCs and SMEs -- are cleverly leveraging Twitter to generate more sales, and that's hardly news. What is news, however, is how over the next two years we shall likely see the advent of Twitter "propagators," people whose sole obligation it will be to spead and seed the word out about new products and services into the Twittersphere.

Take this analogy, for instance: the bouncing beach ball at a college frat party.

If the inflatable ball represents a company's new product and its prospective customers are respresented by the punch-drunk students frolicking in the mosh pit, then the lilting of that multicoloured ball and it diffuses throughout the crowd -- as it's tapped, sometimes violently, from one end of the room to the other and back again -- is like the Twitter Propagator's job. Like the swaddled Moses in his mother Tzipporah's proverbial reed basket, the Twitter Propagator will gently lay down news of a product into the fast-moving Twitterstream and attempt to coax along the current, hoping that it will be picked up by a "Potiphar" and shared with the "powers that be" and "elevated into a position of prominence."

Okay, so you don't like my Biblical analogy, but I think you're cottoning onto the idea.

In a sense, all of us on Twitter -- those of us who aren't geeks or speciality interest groups -- are propagators in our own right, to some extent. Sure, there are still those who deeply lament the commercialization of Twitter -- nay, the commercialization of the entire web -- yet product placement is a direct outgrowth of the "gathering spaces" phenomenon which is an organic outgrowth of where the web is headed today.

Each of us -- in our own way -- is trying to lay down out our "reed baskets" in a sense, to introduce our delicate fledglings and babies into the wide world. Twitter is just one of the latest and best ways of doing so.

Community Builder

The Community Builder is a cherished slot because at the end of the day it's people who make things happen for you and people who help make you money.

As people gather, things happen. Things like commerce. For example, if I have bread, you might have iron. Someone else might have apples, while I might have cloth. You've got meat, and I've got milk. We agree to meet on a Tuesday at the market in the town square and swap goods at a fair rate of exchange, with both parties walking away satisfied as they load up their respective wagons and roll on back to the homestead, eyeing their cache of new goodies with a wide grin.

It all works, in theory, but someone has to first map out the trading area in the town square. Someone has to establish the market stalls which will eventually lead to hundreds and thousands of spontaneous interconnections that will lead to successful business transactions, and that's why the Community Builder's position is so pitvotal.

With the exponential explosion of online business, with people freely purchasing goods and services and flinging their credit card numbers over websites with wanton abandon, it's the Community Builder that sets the tempo of all this sales activity.

Several companies and organizations have already allocated budgets to hire separate "social media evangelizers," appointing point persons to somehow get a handle on what's going on in the wild woolliness Web 2.0 space. If you've ever spent any considerable amount of time on either Facebook or Twitter, then you already know how extraordinarily time-consuming this effort at wrangling the both of those down can be. Empowering someone to exclusively handle this looks like an increasingly bright idea.

Follower Transfixer

For the holder of this lofty title to be successful, one first has to gain a loyal following. That process alone is a lengthy process indeed, because it's all about trust. Some questions to be answered on the serpentine road towards dedicated follower-dom might include:

** Do you always deliver on what you promise?
** Do you churn out content which is relevant and helpful to your following?
** Are you charismatic enough in your oral and written deliveries, or are you more plodding and technical?
** Can you break things down into lowest-common-denominator speech to make things more accessible for the Average Joes who -- like anywhere -- comprise the bulk of your audience?
** Who else can vouch for your bona fides?

Prepare to devote a series of concentrated months to gain the trust you seek and need.

For those with their online followings already in intact, what are you doing to astound and transfix this audience? Do you speak and/or write well and convincingly?

An ever more undesirable position is to keep a community, but not do much with it or for it. This should never be you.

There's more legs, or permanence, in community, truth be told. Twitter may come and go -- or morph into something entirely different -- while followers tend to be flighty when confronted with more dazzling, telegenic competitors, but communities are always self-propagating and self-sustaining in a way. Since it's always a many-to-many interaction, one person isn't always in control. One person doesn't set the tempo, and, moreover, one person can't dissolve a community by fiat or make "executive decisions" to imperil a community.

Ultimately, I'd like to give more energy at becoming a better Community Builder.

My thanks to go out again to Jeremy's Trend Hunters for inspiring today's post.

03. 12.

A Crisis Economy...But the Service Still Sucks

It's great to be back in Prague again after a long stint abroad and on the road. China and Romania were superb, as always, but there's nothing quite like home...I think?

A couple of interesting interactions upon my return to the Czech lands that bear mentioning here, stuff that had me scratching my head whether it was just me or was it the place in which I found myself that was causing such things to happen? So for the past twenty-four hours, I've been mentally parsing out what (or, more appropriately, who) is the common denominator in all these cases.

So let's have a closer look at these, shall we?

Apartment Hunting:

I've been on the slow lookout for a new apartment for a couple of months now. Over that period, I've been cultivating relationships with local property agents and landlords, promising to take as much time as possible before signing a new lease so I'm not forced into a pressure decision by landing something not as close to my liking as possible.

I have no qualms, unlike several of my colleagues, of working with local agents. In general, I think agents render a service that's for the most part helpful to renters. That is, if they're doing their job properly and well and aren't johnny-come-lately sorts, there's a value-add to their service. But I've also had experiences -- during some recent agency interactions -- with agents who seem to have succeeded in landing their jobs simply because they could string together a few barely comprehensible English phrases (the default expatriate lingo here).

To me, for an agent to do their job well, they must maintain good relationships with a roster of property owners so they can suggest appropriate properties off the top of their heads for serious buyers and renters. Drop of the phone kind of access. Landlords enjoy working with agents because the latter do all of those necesary triage that will eventually lead to a rental or sale. Since property owners can't be bothered with the incessant phone calls and false promises which is the miserable reality of the rental market, agencies deserves ample compensation for ferrying prospective renters and buyers around town in the hopes of a deal. In an ideal scenario, agents know the right questions to pose and have the necessarily procedures in place to separate the true renters from the ones who are perpetually "just looking." The chaff, in other words.

All of this comes under the rubric of "service."

Look, I don't mind paying for an extra month in fees -- the standard agency ding -- if a job is done well and I can walk away satisfied. It's not a matter of money, as I can quite afford to pay. However, like most practical types, just because I have it doesn't mean I'm simply forking it over to some agent because "that's simply the way things are done in Prague."

Several agents I've recently held meetings with think their fee is simply coming to them...just because. When their service doesn't meet my expectations, I find myself openly asking them: "so what am I getting for the money besides a few clicks of your mouse and a couple of emails and phone calls?" If you drive me around town, then you might have an argument, but if you ask me to meet you, then why do you deserve a full month in fees just for placing a couple of calls? That's what you call service? With Prague agency fees running anywhere between 500 to 1000 euros a pop -- higher for luxurious addresses -- where do you get off being flip or acting gruff with me as I ask for justification? Wouldn't you do the same thing?

Again, I don't want to undermine the value of a fee. Agencies indeed have overheads and the Prague market is fiercely competitive, triply so under crisis conditions. Some expatriates can also be downright nasty with agents, treating local Czech professionals (mostly women, admittedly, although there are several males operating in this space too) like hired hands, playing off several agencies at once in their relentless search for the absolute lowest rent. All told, this horse trading results in a rather jaded housing market, creating a sort of love-hate pas-a-deux between locals and foreigners with the former's resentment growing knowing how expats are basically their bread and butter. Few Czechs have either the inclination or the disposable funds for an extra 800 euros on rental fees -- especially given how they can crack open a newspaper or browse a few onlines listings in the vernacular -- so agents need expats to meet their monthly sales targets.

When I got back to town this past Monday, I contacted the two agents I'd been texting and emailing with all the way from China and Bucharest.

One young "student-y" girl who was previously quite gung-ho to have me as her client texts me to tell me she's leaving her agency permanently. When I'd asked why, she replied that she was jumping ship for a better position elsewhere, and I immediately speculated on how badly the financial crisis was beginning to cripple Prague's economy. One week before during our China-Czech Republic text/email exchange, everything was hunky-dory. The apartment I'd visited during October and liked was still available for a two-year rental, and there was hardly any hint of trouble. One week later, she was gone. Here today, gone tomorrow. Call it a premontion, though I suspected there might eventually be trouble with this agent the very day I'd met her, given that her business card was one of those standard issue impersonal jobs bearing an info@... email address. Her news that she was cutting loose didn't shock me as much as it caused me to say "I told you so."

I took it as a sign that this was to be the end of the line with my agency search. While the girl assured me that "her colleagues" would still be able to assist me, by then my heart wasn't in it.

The silver lining: I've now switched tacks and am working with a private landlord directly. My new (hopeful) place is a gorgeous converted wine cellar with an adjoining terrace and parquet floors. It's being readied for residence and our lease will be signed shorty. I found it after posting my own internet listing and by working the phones. Perhaps I should my new landlord ask for a month's discount as part of my "agency fee?" Don't I deserve it for pressing "send" a few times and for dialling a few phone numbers?

And then there was this...

Restaurant Service:

I'm a man about town and like most cafe denizens, I tend to complete a fair amount of work in restaurants and bistros. Something about the presence of other bodies sharing a communal space -- interacting and breathing as one unit -- somehow helps to jog my memory and boost my creativity. I've even completed books in cafes!

There's a cafe I've been patronizing for years here in the centre of Prague. I must have spent tens of thousands of Czech crowns in food and beverage charges between myself and my colleagues over the years, witnessing more staff turnover at this place than some of the girls presently working there have even held down jobs.

Yesterday, I reach this place at my usual appointed hour, beelining for my favourite seat, but something was out of place. There were too many bodies present, abnormal for that hour of the day. I quickly learned that a corporate event -- for which there was no signage -- was underway.

The floor manager, normally an affable chap, barked at me that the place was closed. I glanced at my watch, looking at the early morning hour, and then looked back up at him to acknowledge what he had just told me, clearly displeased. I left shaking my head, alarmed at how he'd spoken to me so dismissively given that I'm one of his ten best regulars, but chalking it up to locals just being their usual local oblivious self-absorbed selves.

I wasn't offended so much as I was aghast that a) a private affair was being held on a busy weekday business morning and b) the guy didn't smile as he informed me the place (not his, by the way) was closed. Was he being too familiar, I wondered? If so, then perhaps I wouldn't have to pay my bill the next time because we were just friends? Bet you that wouldn't make him smile.

So my takeaways from these two interactions were as follows:

** Prague property agents render poor service for the high rates they are typically paid. They think their fee is simply their due, a kind of "taxation without representation," as far as I'm concerned. I've even mentioned this to several agents in the past, but it doesn't register. They somehow can't comprehend the concept of the value proposition...yet. Why should I pay for something I don't receive, I ask? Give me some service, and I'll gladly compensate you. Treat me like a number -- or worse, like your idiotic foreign mealticket -- and I'll tell you to take a hike, quick.

** Even after twenty years following the dismantling of the Czech Communist system and the frequent arrival of foreign tourists and businesspeople to the Czech capital, Prague Czechs continue to behave unacceptably in the service industry. In a competitive market, the money is automatically not coming to you, dear locals. If you give me poor service, I will walk and you will lose my business (and more, because I will tell all my friends and colleagues how bad you are at the click of a mouse).

** Give excellent service, and I will return to your place of business -- day after day. Rest assured that I will spend all of my money there because you are doing something your peers haven't the inclination nor the ability to do.

Yep, to survive in this town, you gotta grow a thick skin...

02. 12.

On Rotten Podcast Guests

Most of my listeners and viewers are already aware that I began my Web 2.0 "career" as a podcaster (and here). I'll still occasionally record an audio piece when I have something interesting to say (hehe) though these days I remain an avid supporter of others' online works. Lately, my show selection is limited by the amount of time I have available to listen to longer-form material in light of how much of it I've lately been devoting to perfecting my video craft. Being thusly hogtied, I try to remain abreast of a compact A-List of shows which never fail to deliver, like Ian Kath's Your Story Podcast (YST).

I had the amazing good fortune of finally making Ian Kath's acquaintance during the Summer of 2008 as part of his European Swingthrough. Ian's a sensational guy and an intellect par excellence who started off as my Twitter friend (yes, it happens!) and who I now consider the genuine article.

I can't say enough good things about YST, though.

I've watched how Ian's come into his own after forty-six episodes of his show, and if you've never caught one of them before then prepare to be blown away. I've enjoyed observing (or rather, hearing) Ian find his spoken rhythm, having been there with him from the outset. His mastery of delivering genuine Q&A and the facility with which he unhesitatingly interviews his guests speaks volumes to his mastery of podcasting. The proof is in the engaging answers he elicits from his guests. You can almost feel how Ian establishes a rapport with his guests throughout the course of a show, and his knack for maintaining this level of sympatico for the duration is indeed a special gift. Other Aussie podcasters like the sometimes-controversial yet always educational Cameron Reilly have convinced me there's something unique to Aussies, what with their advertising-rein public broadcaster -- the Australian Broadcasting Corporation -- and their geographical distance from the rest of civilization, which make them such skilled conversationalists. If that could ever be bottled, then I'd want to be the first in line to swig a taste of it.

But back to podcasts...

The mark of a good one is if it moves you in some way. Ian's Episode 46 indeed did, although this time it rubbed me wrongly so I'm up early here in Prague banging out these lines because I couldn't sleep thanks to it.

Doug Gresham, his latest guest, and a relative of late storyteller C.S. Lewis -- yes, that C.S. Lewis, author of The Narnia Chronicles -- bothered me. After one hour and five minutes of show material I was disturbed by the man's smugness and self-righteousness, and I was ready to throw my computer out the window. When it was over, I kept tossing and turning thinking about how I was going to frame this morning's entry, such was the level of my discomfort. Hopefully what I'm about to say makes some sense.

So that my remarks don't seem entirely out of context, Doug is (in his own words, always suspect, if you ask me) quite well-off. The Narnia blockbusters have landed him healthy profit-sharing windfalls while he apparently maintains several abodes around the world as he jetsets for his executive producer's and other creative responsibilities during the various international Narnia shoots. I suppose his wealth affords him a considerable degree of clout plus the security of knowing he can occasionally spout off about complicated matters that mere mortals might think twice about before pontificating on. Eager Doug seemed to harbour no such hesitations during the show, however. He spoke fervently and passionately about his ideas which he claims find their wellspring in his devout Christian faith. Full disclosure: I can tolerate fundamentalist Christianity, yet Doug's smug responses to Ian's otherwise humble questions bore such a high level of faux-expertise bombast that I nearly shut off the podcast mid-way through, like I said above. It would have marked the first time I didn't make it from pole to pole at YST, yet I soldiered on...

Something tells me a man of Faith -- even the occasional preaching man like Sir Doug, who once helmed his own faith ministry in Ireland -- should learn to be more humble. Getting your pesonal Jesus-on by doing your own sort of "sermonizing from the Mount" is offputting in the extreme. I found myself questioning why Doug's continual need to call attention to himself by shooting back absolutist type knee-jerk responses to Ian's questions, statements that left no quarter for equivocation. I also resented how Doug -- unlike some of Ian's past guests -- kept cutting the poor guy off in his zeal to steamroll over Ian's very next question with even more ultra-irrational quasi-religious hooey about the righteousness of his Cause, and that's saying a heap seeing that I myself am a religious person.

Heapful kudos to Ian for keeping it all together, as is his wont. Doug's episode resembled less a run-of-the-mill chinwag "between blokes" and more of Doug waiting to pounce like a puma atop Ian's very next question, more audacious debate than friendly banter. The basic idea of a podcast is that folks convene to conversate. Doug failed on this count because he kept wanting to get his preach-on.

Like the next guy, I hardly mind a good contretemps. It helps to refine my own beliefs about a subject by clarifying my views on things, so Doug's combative stance on the majority of softballs Ian lobbed his way -- yes, it was that obvious -- didn't offend me. I wouldn't need a "Doug" to agree with me always -- and neither, it seems, would Sir Doug, given his oft-repeated reminders about how he was raked over the coals during his American sojourn for his utterances about potentially-divisive topics like the US' education system or its stance on abortion. If everyone's ego were paper-thin, our world's more monumental endeavours might never have gotten off the ground for fear of cracking eggs. Mavericks are good for society, but is Doug a maverick, or is he rather an overly-opinionated unswerving blowhard who's somehow been tremendously lucky -- yes, lucky -- in life through his many creative projects (= money) and as such can evangelize about life and The Afterlife, devil-may-come what effect his sometimes caustic views might leave upon his listenership? What Doug doesn't seem to grasp, IMO, is that a preachy, finger-stabbing, utterly-convinced-beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt speaking style isn't for all and sundry.

My verdict? Doug only humours Ian during the show because if he wouldn't permit Ian to at least have a couple of words in edgewise we might otherwise think he's missing a few cards in the proverbial deck of fifty-two. If he didn't stop to inhale now and again, we'd all eventually just tune out. Doug's (apparent, not independently verified) wealth has somehow convinced the man he has a right to keep up this abrasive approach because, I suppose, were this not the true way to be "then the Good Lord wouldn't have blessed me with all this Bounty," or some similar self-righteous spinmeistering.

Lest you think I'm another one of those gadfly, dandruff-flecked, shadowboxing, can't-get-a-date-if-my-life-depended-on-it boozy journo types with a stack of bones to pick who enjoy sinking tobacco-stained fangs into a good upturning of the established Tammany Hall pecking order...guess again, Frankie.

Doug's money doesn't phase me in the least and it's not that which I resent -- God bless him for (allegedly) having scads of the stuff, evidenced by the engaging cinematic product he helps churn out for the global filmgoing public, though his oft-reminded Maltese jetsetting lifestyle at once reminds me of the good upbraiding Denzel Washington's American Gangster protagonist, Frank Lucas, would give to his on-screen brother for committing the sin being "the loudest man in the room...who is the weakest link the chain." What bothers me, rather, is that I believe a man like Sir Doug with ample means must also be a man with ever-plentiful humility, not a black-and-white believing chatterbox. A man of Doug's stature must be a contemplative person whom others won't instantly dismiss within five minutes of having met him, not some inflexible motormouth.

So FAIL, Doug. Big FAIL. You forgot that this was Ian's bag, not yours.

But I'll keep listening...