Onemanbandwidth: An American Professor in China

This year the Internet through Google, email, and social networks brought me the news of my brother-in-law’s death to Bubonic Plague, my sister’s natural surrender to age, the tragic suicide of a gifted student, the devastating loss of a long time and dear friend’s young son, cancer afflictions and dozens of other tragedies and triumphs. Sadly, there was more of the former than the latter. It is a part of  getting older; life passages and a developmental stages and not   easy ones–if there is ever such…

I learned yesterday of the closure of my old church in Pueblo, Colorado. They celebrated the last mass at St. Patrick’s Church this year. It was then that I looked up the names of two of its pastors in the 1970’s: Dan Maio and Jerry Varrone who later left the priesthood. They headed up the diocesan youth programs there. Both were young, bright and wholly narcissistic enough to relish the power and authority that can come with being clergy.  Varrone was just arrogant and an unwitting accomplice;  Maio was an evil, unrepentant pedophile.

I also read that Maio died not long ago. There was no mention in his obituary of the fact that he was once a man of the cloth. Too, there was no mention of the fact that he introduced many of us to drugs and alcohol for the first time–though that was the most benign of his sins. I don’t wish suffering, trauma or early demise on anyone, but I am delighted that Daniel C. Maio is no longer on this planet and hopeful that his passing may begin the healing process for some of his victims.

I was watching a documentary about memory and a woman who had congenital eidetic recall. Horrible memories are stored in areas of her brain that others of us do not use for information storage. For her, anything bad that has happened to her is still alive in her mind as though the trauma just occurred. while most of us like oysters ( a metaphor from the show) and smooth the rough sands of experience in our lives, learn to live with the past and sometimes even create pearls of those times, she cannot. For the victims of sexual predators it is often the the same. Trust does not easily return and hundreds of everyday items, smells or sounds can trigger anxiety, depression or rage for many years.

Several years ago I asked my two daughters–distinctly opposing temperaments and personalities–how they would deal with the advances of a predator. My eldest was unsure and confounded by even the question. Her younger sister was quick to reply that she would “kick him in the balls and then call the cops.” I lectured them both, but never told them why the subject was profoundly personal for me.

A recent article on a social site said one of the many rules of “good writing” was to never speak ill of the dead. Well, you have endured it so far and it is about to worsen.

Maio used his position to solicit and recruit sex from an alarming number of young boys in Pueblo.  He carefully targeted the troubled, delinquent or sexually curious youths in his charge as a barricade against any allegations that might come his way. He did indulge in sex with underage boys who had declared their sexual preferences, but he preferred those who had not. Even after leaving the priesthood to take over his family’s printing business in Colorado Springs he volunteered his home for years and supplied overnight stays to mentally ill boys at the Colorado State Hospital. It never occurred to the staff there that an increase in bed-wetting, autistic withdrawal and rage were symptoms of sickness visited on them by Maio. He was a coward, and a dangerous one as were those like Pueblo’s Bishop Buswell and others who did nothing when told about his crimes.

I wrote a poem many years ago that was widely anthologized about my experiences as a teenager in Pueblo. My father’s injuries in Vietnam and the subsequent debilitating grief of my mother left me angry, dazed and homeless; my foster placement with Maio terminated any trust or respect I might have for authority for years to come:

A Mystery of Faith

There were other boys who knew the sound of  black patent leather squeaking down the hardwood hall. the nuns like Mary Elizabeth, existing on a belief in simple answers, would never feel the drool, or smell the musk or wince at the late day stubble tearing at their cheeks. Maybe she came here to answer questions I now asked: How do women forget the making and breaking of their spirits? How do they wash away the incense of  aggression? When does grown-up flesh release its hold on small bones?

How do women stand it? None of us can forget a single turn of the cold brass, stillness rushing from the room, prayers taking us out of our bodies into the rectory’s stained ceiling, being yanked back by the horrifying rituals of the familiar: The thin vinegar of communion wine, his tiny cruciform medallion rapping against flesh, vapors of toxic celibacy coming from the god who saw to it that he was a delinquent’s last chance on earth.

Sometimes we thought we knew more about being a woman than did Sister Mary. And we longed for her easy answers , but none of us risked asking questions that can change a faith forever. When do accept as she seemed to, the wind as God, one who polices the night, rattles doorknobs, whispers to us, assures us, that we can finally close our eyes to the dark?

Some of us are smoothing the sharp edges of memory into something useful or beautiful, some of us will forever wish we had killed him before he could escape justice.

Daniel C. Maio: Do not rest in peace.

Heartsongs(t) , Chennie Xue(t) , NON CHINA RELATED(t) , Human Rights(t) , Violence(t) , Personal Notes(t) , cartoons(t) , Writers Blogs(t) , Poetry(t)

For the majority of Netizens in mainland China without proxy services Facebook has been blocked. Facebook lists some 180,000 registered mainland users. They a  can iinterface with a handful of Facebook applications , but are unable to navigate to mail, profile pages or groups.

One social media pundit jokingly surmised that a recent addition by SLIDE, creator of many applications (such as   known to most Facebook users was one of the straw-breakers for cyber-censors in Beijing. The company has one program interface that allows users to “throw sheep at”, “hug”, “tickle”, “party with” or,  beginning this week, “give independence to Tibet with” a member of your friends list. Where I seriously doubt that one of Slide’s more insensitive viral greetings triggered a ban on Facebook, I considered for a moment that the mention of our Northwestern neighbours could have triggered one hell of a keyword block by the strict and unforgiving Net Nanny. A keyword block is one where only the article or post with offending words is censored while the remainder of the site remains open. That too is doubtful as even pro-China groups like “I Love China” and the charity and earthquake relief support areas of Facebook were inaccessible.

Another guess was made by a more cynical Internet consultant in Beijing who thought the move was a reaction to the possible exodus of CCTV’s Yang Xiaoyan:

“China Central Television (CCTV) brand director and blogger Yang Xiaoyan resigned from her CCTV posts on June 30, reports DoNews. Yang said she would be taking some time off before starting on any new projects, and would neither confirm nor deny rumors that she intends to join US social networking site Facebook. Reports out earlier this month said Facebook had chosen Yang to be its China CEO without citing sources.”–Pacific Epoch

The consultant to major investors in the Chinese IT marketplace said he viewed it as akin to holding maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait as a show of force and a warning that Yang was far from free of the myriad restrictions heaped on content managers and creators of the state run enterprise.

More credibly, one reporter who recently told me that his profile was intermittently “keyword blocked” on Facebook due to his involvement with pro citizen journalism groups and pro China dissidents, Beijing may be gauging the impact of a shut-down of service to a major social media site. So far there has been few signs of protest as opposed to the recurring blackouts of YouTube or Wikipedia. I see that as Facebook being reagrded less a political than an entertainment online venue for westerners. Beijing might think differently.

Facebook crowdsourced a recent translation initiative and can now be read in Chinese. Recent visitors from the mainland were force-navigated, by Facebook, to the Mandarin version and then had to change language preferences once inside. Maybe that looked a little too promising to the powers that be….And with the Olympics nearing, internal protests and disharmony more evident than ever before here, and with video, chat and clositered, even secret groups available to the 100 million other users of the service it is possible that the Chinese government saw it as a threat to social stability.

And then again it may be nothing more than bandwidth problems or a cyber-hairball in the Internet’s throat. The few critics out there may be titlting at  virtual windmills. whi knows?

What concerns me, more my inability to get to the site, is the lack of numbers of posts ablut the issue and the absence of palpable gravity in comments by press and citizen journalists about the situation. The visa issue, about which I have written too, seems to be take up a lot more bandwidth. The Facebook outagein China rates watching as it could makes liars of all of us who tout social media as an agent of humanitarian change.

Human Rights China(t) , Taiwan(t) , China Law(t) , Beijing Olympics(t) , American Professor in China(t) , SEM(t) , Chinese Media(t) , Charity in China(t) , Beijing(t) , Faceboook(t) , PR 2.0(t) , Sichuan Earthuake(t) , Social Media(t) , Cross Cultural Training(t) , China Blog(t) , China Censorship(t) , Net Nanny(t) , SEO(t) , Internet marketing China(t) , China Cartoons(t) , China Business(t) , China Olympics(t) , China Editorials(t) , Expats(t) , Greater Asia Blogs(t) , Asia(t) , Intercultural Issues(t) , Confucius Slept Here(t) , Personal Notes(t) , China Web 2.0(t) , The Internet(t) , Chinese Internet(t) , Entertainment(t) , The Great Firewall(t) , Tibet(t) , In the news(t) , Videos(t)

 Over the last three weeks I have said farewell to more than a dozen long-term China expatriates. Most of them weary of the old and new visa restrictions and the impossibility of  ever obtaining a permanent resident’s card. They hail from education, entertainment,media, high-tech and other sectors. No one has immunity in the newest immigration rout.

The government has largely sold the move as an attempt to secure the Olympics and prevent a terrorist attack on Chinese soil. From my vantage point it doesn’t seem to quite make sense as a deterrent to an international drama.

In the place of one-year multiple entry visas, China is allowing shorter term permits–one to three months– that now encompass the dates of Olympic competition. I doubt that an instigator of intrigue or trouble cares about his subsequent ability to return to China and barter for a Mao watch at the Great Wall. These new restrictions and the doubling of prices for a travel document (note: they now match those of most other countries) are also suspect as security tools. Business and tourist visas now cost more and they must be renewed more often. The motivation doesn’t seem to be safety.

And the citizens of 33 countries (America is not one of the countries targeted)  now have to return to their homeland to get a visa renewed. Before it could be done in a neighboring country or Special Administrative office in Macau or Hong Kong. Most disconcerting is that many of the countries targeted have severe pigmentation, rather than ideology, differences with Beijing. In the African Quarter of Guangzhou, near the home of one of the country’s oldest Mosques not destroyed by Mao, there are bright LED signs riveted to walls and flashing warnings to foreigners in multiple languages (Arabic, French…) about violationg country laws. I have not seen these signs posted anywhere else in Guangdong. The general feeling among Africans is that the new rules are merely a convenient way to rid the city of a long unwanted ethnic element.

Many of the people I know that have been affected, and yes, this is an anecdotal assessment, come from trade companies that have done business in China, some for over a decade. With the new cost of travel and the time lost to red tape these small businesses will have to amortize the financial impact, It is causing some to look toward cheaper or more internationally receptive markets like Thailand  and Vietnam.

Teachers were affected about a year ago when the government stopped processing visa renewals and work permits regionally.  Now, all education hires must be processed outside of mainland China. In Guangzhou, a highly qualified business visa holder could once have lectured at a college or university and bypass myriad education ministry rituals meant to ensure teacher quality with their “foreign expert” certification requirements. But the police searched records this year and several local colleges were forced to let go of instructors, some in the middle of  their teaching semesters. Ironically, the new rules have not upped the standards, but have driven institutions scramble and they solicit anyone (anyone white) and with a pulse for positions. And because institutions know that the new teachers won’t be around for long, especially now, the foreigners are generally saddled with mind-numbing oral English classes even if they hold credentials or have experience that qualify them for other jobs.

And there is virtually no hope for a foreigner who hopes to dedicate his career to pedagogy in the Middle Kingdom. Guangdong has long had a moratorium on resident visas and as I have written many times before: the number of “Green Cards” given to just Chinese immigrants to the U.S. in a two day period exceeds the total number of cards given to all successful foreign applicants in the whole of China in an entire year.

So far the travel and visa hassles have caused an estimated 20% overall drop in tourism income. That means that the amount lost to the economy exceeds the billions raised world-wide for earthquake relief by roughly a factor of three. What a waste.

And this week I volunteered my time to a new NGO that asked me not to recruit too many expats. They expressed concern that if too many foreigners became a part of the relief efforts in Sichuan  that the government might revoke their politically fragile charter.

I do love China. I hope I am able to stay and contribute personally and professionally in a heartfelt and meaningful way to my adopted home.

Education in China(t) , Beijing(t) , China Censorship(t) , Beijing Olympics(t) , China Expat(t) , Chinese Media(t) , Chinese Education(t) , China Blog(t) , China Product Sourcing(t) , Sichuan Earthuake(t) , China quake(t) , Cross Cultural Training(t) , China Resources(t) , Executive Training China(t) , China web 2.0(t) , Travel in China(t) , Chinese Internet(t) , China Editorials(t) , China Sports(t) , Teaching in China(t) , Expats(t) , China Expats(t) , Intercultural Issues(t) , China Business(t) , China Olympics(t) , China Web 2.0(t) , The Internet(t) , Censorship(t) , Holidays(t) , Confucius Slept Here(t) , In the news(t) , Asia(t)

…does not seem to be good for the Gander.

On March 2, 2008 Beijing “…voiced objections against linking the Olympic Games with politics on Sunday, saying that innocent athletes would fall victim if the sports event were politicized”

I have written numerous posts echoing the same sentiment and lamenting, as did Clarence Darrow, that the one thing wrong with history is its repetitive nature. Once again Olympic players are accomplices to political acts for which only the they, the athletes, might be punished.

Tibet’s party leader Zhang Qingli started off just fine yesterday with : “We are convinced that the Beijing Olympic Games’ torch relay in Lhasa will further inflame the patriotic spirit of the people,” but went on to defy both the IOC’s hopes, and the Chinese government’s own alleged wishes, by asserting that the party’s well orchestrated run to the Potala Palace would “smash the scheming of the Dalai Lama clique.” Too bad there is no gold medal for shooting yourself in the foot. Beijing has expert marksmen for the event.

I am weary of “kou mi fu jian” ( Honey in the mouth, sword in the abdomen) like machinations of late: Visa restrictions, ostensibly meant to protect internal security, have turned into racist licenses to force residents of 33 countries, many of them African and Muslim, to return home before they can renew long-held business travel documents; there has been a tightening of Internet controls in a reversal of earlier stated policies; and I am most troubled that the everyday Chinese citizen who now is suffering from these policies via a resulting drop in tourism dollars at a time when China needs external assistance and foreign confidence to augment and solidify  a new sense of national pride.

The genuine world wide outpouring of love and charity, offered up in the wake of recent natural disasters, was also politicized and companies and countries were targeted for their lack of generosity. These new developments are man-made tragedies, their epicenters are in Beijing, and the devastation can now be seen, even by the myopic western press, as far away as Lhasa.

彦志

China Expat(t) , Heartsongs(t) , Chinese Media(t) , Travel in China(t) , Beijing Olympics(t) , Human Rights China(t) , olympic torch relay(t) , Earthquake in China(t) , China Charity Blogs(t) , China Censorship(t) , Chinese Internet(t) , The Internet(t) , China Business(t) , China Sports(t) , China Cartoons(t) , China Editorials(t) , China Olympics(t) , Confucius Slept Here(t) , The Great Firewall(t) , Censorship(t) , Tibet(t) , Asia(t)

It has been a dream-like two years since I first encountered David DeGeest. I met him shortly after he volunteered to come to an exchange program’s rescue at the last minute. He travelled to China to replace a teaching fellow who could not accept the annual honor. Note: The fellows from Grinnell College, one of America’s top liberal arts schools, are competitively selected by Grinnell’s office of Social Commitment. To be able to come, David surrendered admission to a law school in America and joined Grinnell’s long tradition of International service– unequaled in numbers by any college of any size.

Within a few months of arrival David was forced by local immigration laws to leave his duties because host and parent institutions had failed to make the proper arrangements for his visa. He spent four months of uncomfortable nights on my sofa in Guangzhou waiting to return and finish what he had started. During his layoff David made use of his time in ways that would soon change him, and those around him, forever.

“Dawei ” as he fast became known by his admiring students, fervently studied Chinese, gave freely of his timeto help an insecure translation student edit several hundred pages in a world-class set of books on Chinese Penjing (the parent art of Bonsai), served as an administrative assistant for he interim CEO of China’s top corporate leadership training company, studied Taekwondo with and befriended Macau’s Olympic Team players, wrote articles on his experiences in China for the Blogger News Network and became the beloved “American Son” of the Unsinkable Ms Yue the cancer survivor who, along with The League of Extraordinary Chinese Women, would become the inspiration for this dreamblog.

During his stay in Guangzhou his association with Ms Yue inspired his voluntary, and uncompensated, co-teaching of college classes on blogging, SEO and International e-Business. It was in in concert with his students that he co-developed the Dreamblogue and helped write and promote the Onemanbandwidth blog to a win as Best Blog in Asia in the annual Weblog Awards.

By the time he returned to Guangzhou after finishing his teaching assignment he had a deep and abiding love for China, one that now permeated his personal and professional aspirations.

Within a few months David, once again sleeping on the sofa, had written more than 50,000 words in support of the Dreamblogue in the form of: grant proposals to Global Voices Online. The Knight Foundation, and The MacArthur Foundation. He drafted sponsorship support proposals from colleges in the UK and the US; authored PR Web releases about our mission; sent out hundreds of e-mails to potential supporters (not donors); developed project profiles on social networking sites; created several successful groups on Facebook; corresponded and coordinated activities with intended recipients of our charity; edited and revised over 22 articles about the mainland provinces we intended to visit; and trained handicapped and able bodied interns in the subtleties of SEO and online networking.

David helped transformed my apartment into a two-man hermitage where he literally spent 15 to 20 hours a day, carpals to the keyboard, in preparation for dreamblogue adventures. The only breaks he took were to watch reruns of House, M.D. (while he kept editing and planning) and to play an occasional round of online Scrabble. Chinese studies continued and Mr. DeGeest devoured dozens of books on Chinese history, business, language and culture while learning podcasting, photography, HTML coding. He spent a few weekends on the road in rural China where he wrote beautifully of the magical work of The Library Project, The Volunteer English Program and The US-China Medical Foundation.

David made his spending and food money by teaching corporate communication classes for one of China’s top companies. The generous support of students and staff of the best pound-for-pound MBA program on the planet, Cal Poly, kept us traveling, writing and promoting…

…until David realized that a more sustainable income was needed. Being in a country where non-governmental charities cannot be officially sanctioned, David pointed us toward creating money the old-fashioned way: earning our keep by giving something for something and then turning any profits into good works. He suspended travel in hopes of bringing in much needed funds.

We started offering SEO services to SMEs and Multi-nationals. It was during this time that David learned that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has a long maturation period ahead and is not always born of true good will or altruistic inentions. David was lied to, cheated and humiliated by some of the most high-profile advocates of engagement and good on the Internet. It was enough, at times, to make a saint doubt his world-view.

Years ago, there was talk of a self-perpetuating machine…If he could figured out a way to not take a food break daily he would have. After we were contacted by a Fortune 100 company in Silicon Valley David was certain that we would have the funds we needed to help our interns and continue this blog’s original goal to promote rural education, literacy, charity and a positive understanding of China.

That call I mentioned and subsequent promises from Silicon Valley were cleverly crafted lies that cost both of us hundreds of hours of labor and all of our savings. Culture Fish Media was born to accommodate the wishes of this company that we now know never meant to follow through. But, David learned much from the ordeal and undaunted, kept right on writing the blog, managing the photo group on Facebook (that now has amateurs and professionals lending him their work), writing business plans and teaching 20 hours a week at a college as a China certified foreign expert in education and culture –did I also mention he filled in for free when graduate professors in South China’s best University needed a replacement in Literary Studies?And he tirelessly campaigned for a chance to carry the torch in the Olympic relay (a glitch in the Lenovo voting software cost him a slot) as a tribute to the cancer victims to whom he had dedicated so much time (his essay is still in the top five results that come up on Baidu for Olympic Torch Dream)… He did all of this while negotiating with respected country and international marketing managers, answering digital marketing request for proposals, and optimizing small and formidable websites with only two, 3-day vacation breaks the entire time: one was to Yangshuo where he spent half of his time working on the computer and the other half in playful contemplation…

David went from reticent, inquisitive new graduate to passionate liaison engaged in egotiations with world renowned companies, service providers, Internet luminaries and educational institutions. He practiced and succeeded at tasks, with a BA in Math and English, that MBA students dream of tackling….No, it wasn’t all work and no play–almost–and there were cherished moments of complete frivolity:

There is more, but I will save that for future posts and maybe even a book. Many of his well-researched proposals are still making their way through the digestive tracks of various commercial and organizational enterprises–and anything that is achieved by the BOD, or its soon to be retired offspring, is directly due to his perseverance and dedication.

I’ve read several stories on the Internet this week bemoaning the lack of medical care in China, the widening gap between rich and poor, and descriptions of the continuing disasters in north and the south that have devastated China. David was at work two years ago trying to make life better for survivors of tragedy–cancer, flooding, poverty and earthquakes. Just ask Thomas Stader of the Library project what part David’s viral marketing skills played in the building of numerous libraries in orphanages and rural communities. The first 400 members of the Facebook group devoted to their project were all connected to David and the BOD.

David has been colleague, student, family, friend and valued counsel. The only thing he has ever wanted in return for his efforts is that people would socially network his honest requests, give a few minutes of time and space on blogs (which he knows are valuable), and share when and where they could of their time and talents.

And before he sounds a little too altruistic to be true, you need to know what has been in this for him: He has selfishly wanted Ms Yue and the League of Extraordinary Chinese Women to live longer, he has wanted a new prosthetic leg for “Coffee” and he has wanted Chinese students able to achieve their dreams of a better life.

He is off now to graduate school in pursuit of an MBA en route to a finance/Business PhD so he can teach at the University level. Some farsighted college needs to be putting in an early bid for his services. He is one of a kind.

Thanks David.

Post Script:

One of my favorite stories of the year was David’s first short return to the US after the visa issues. It involved his bewly learned ability to communicate with his adopted Chinese mom, Ms Yue, and her unique language. It seems appropriate to end with it here:
Continue Reading »

Uncategorized(t)

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.” — Alice Walker

Uncategorized(t)

An Online Webinar where Social Networks, Traditional Media and Technology Come Together …

Taped conversation with Des Walsh and I about the upcoming webinar and workshops: can be heard here: PR 2.0 Webinar

The Online workshop is JUNE 20, 2008 10-12:00 (CHINA TIME) SIGN ON DETAILS MAILED TO YOU SEPERATELY

Designed for Entrepreneurs, Advertising Professionals, News Distribution Specialists, Marketers, Human Resources Recruiters, Bloggers and Micro-Bloggers, PR and Media Managers, NGO/NPO Leaders

 

And anyone who wants or needs:

-Digital skills that will increase web presence,

-Enhanced reputation management tools,

-Increased ability to brand online

-Increased sales

-Increased Targeted Web Traffic

-Knowledge of New Platforms for News Distribution

The workshop program includes classroom teaching and and active group participation. Resources willbe provided for follow-up study.

Workshop facilitators are:

Lonnie B. Hodge, MA, MFA (Writing), PhD; CEO, Culture Fish Media; Blogger; National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Writing; Professor of English and Psychology; Author of numerous Books, Chapbooks, Produced Plays and hundred of Articles in Trade and Literary Publications; Task Force Delta Think Tank Member for Army War College; China Speakers Bureau Member; Asian Creative Skills Training Council Member; Consultant for Coleman Group and Standard and Poor….

Des Walsh, Social Media Consultant and CultureFish Media Associate; International Speaker and Social Media Consultant; CEO of the communications consultancy he founded, The Webarts Company; Director in the Policy Branch of the Australian Schools Commission, with specific responsibility as Executive office for national programs in Education and the Arts, Innovation Projects and Educational Evaluation; Assistant Director, Cultural Activities, New South Wales Premier’s Department; National Program Coordinator for the Australian Bicentenary; Executive Officer, New South Wales Bicentennial Program; Director, Information and Education for the Federal Government’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission; Foundation Member of the Asian Creative Skills Training Council…

OVERVIEW

In this intensive, one day workshop (2.0 hours), participants will be provided with an overview of current resources and opportunities for news dissemination and public relations campaigns, under the broad heading of “the digital /social media release”. for increasing traffic, selling services, building back links or increasing organic search authority on the Internet for your web properties.

The facilitators will provide a “helicopter view” of the terrain, both in China and internationally, and then lead the group in:

• examination of current practice, available resources and opportunities for more effective use of the resources

• an examination of an “ideal” digital/Social media release and how to create one

SUMMARY, PROGRAM, CONTEXT

Why relying just on 20th century, traditional media release needs 21st century, digitally networked alteration as the environment has changed expectations and processes for news and PR dissemination.

PARTICIPANTS’ EXPECTATIONS

WHY DIGITAL MEDIA RELEASES?

• rich possibilities for a digital/social release for getting story out and found and the hidden power and value to your online properties.

• more channels of distribution

• consumers determining how they will access news

• more findable via Baidu, Google etc-SEARCH AND FINDABILITY - some search wisdom from Professor Hodge. You may have a great story but if the netizens cannot find you, what use is that?

SOCIAL MEDIA

Social Media and the Social Media Release -

• social media overview - Facebook, del.icio.us, Digg, Stumbleupon, MySpace, Xiaonei, Tao Tao and others? social media enablers and risk factors

• employing social media to expand your reach and get greater consumer buy-in

• how to succeed as a player - social media not a spectator sport

• Social Media Release, what is it and what does one look like?

RESOURCES AVAILABLE

• List resources

• Demonstration of how to create a digital/social media release

• List take-away learnings

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY AND PRACTICE

This section will include a tour of helpful websites and blogs and a critique of selected sites

Culture Fish Media will present LIVE workshops on Digital Media Releases at four locations in China:

Beijing

Shanghai

Guangzhou

Hong Kong

Each workshop will be for a full day.

Hong Kong: http://pr-20-hongkong.eventbrite.com

Shanghai: http://pr-20.eventbrite.com

Beijing:http://pr-20-BJ.eventbrite.com

Guangzhou: http://pr-20.gz.eventbrite.com

ALL PROFITS BENEFIT CFM’s CHARITY INITIATIVES: THE LIBRARY PROJECT EARTHQUAKE FUND, THE DREAMBLOGUE HANDICAPPED INTERN PROGRAM, AND THE READING TUB

chinese serach engines(t) , Beijing(t) , China Business Consultant(t) , Charity in China(t) , Baidu(t) , Online Digital Marketing(t) , PR 2.0(t) , Online Digital Marketing China(t) , Online Advertising(t) , Chinese Media(t) , China SEO(t) , China Business(t) , China Editorials(t) , Intercultural Issues(t) , cartoons(t) , In the news(t) , Internet marketing China(t) , Chinese Internet(t) , China Web 2.0(t) , Hong Kong(t)

It was my freshman year in college and I had made the final in individual interpretation of literature at the Western Speech Association Tournament in Fresno California. Fresno was then home to the world’s largest prune dehydrator, but we never saw it as we were too busy hunting trophies and our coach told us that the odds of getting mugged within a block of our Del Webb Hotel were greater than our odds of winning the tournament. We treated it like a forensic (pun sadly intended) work release stint and shuffled from van to venue without ever getting to the prune dehydrator.

My hair was shoulder length and I was dressed in bell-bottom dress pants (it is not an oxymoron) and an Abby Hoffman-ish blue shirt and red star-spangled tie. I looked more like a groupie for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band than a debate team member. But, despite my questionable attempt at political fashion I advanced to the final round where I drew the first presentation slot. The stunning brunette, a collegiate Charlie’s Angel, in front of me would look up at me, smile, and then as I spoke look down to pencil a word or two she carefully folded like an origami crane and passed over to me as I returned to my seat, confident in both my performance and now the fact I might be getting asked to lunch or a Coke at the Del Webb after the speech meet.

I flipped open her bird and read: “Great job! Next time zip your fly.” I pocketed the note (after returning things to full mast), and prayed for hijackers on my way back to stir. It was one of a long series of “moments of clarity” in my lifelong drive to take my work seriously, but regard myself and my foibles with levity. It works most of the time.

Age and genetics foist some terrible things on people and there is a burgeoning market for cosmetic modification of alleged defects of normalcy. The consequences of shortness, obesity, baldness, wrinkles and relative ugliness, besides giving the Chinese government a reason to deny your adoption, can be catastrophic. Andy Warhol, who many armchair shrinks in 20/20 retrospective analysis have labeled as autistic, and worse due to his introversion, often miss the fact that he suffered from an auto-immune condition. His gall badder disease and his albino-like appearance, caused by his body’s own attacks on healthy cells, attributed to his avoidance of sunlight and the media. He preferred the velvet underground and worshiped, through his art, the most public of figures.

I have symptoms similar to Warhol. I nearly died of the gall bladder dysfunction that eventually killed him and I have Vitiligo as he did. Vitiligo is caused when your body destroys its own color producing cells and robs the skin of pigment. It is most apparent on Hispanics, Blacks, Asians and anyone pretty much born outside of Sweden. It is the reason the press has surmised that Michael Jackson is bleaching his skin and wearing hats and scarves to accentuate an already carnival caliber eccentricity.

I am 54 years old. I am happily 54 years old. For a professor 54 is that perfect light-grey period between youthful credibility and senile redundancy. But, with Vitiligo your biological zipper is always down–especially if the malady attacks randomly as it has in my case. Eyelashes and hair on one side of my body are currently under siege. Teaching and socializing, long great loves of mine, become harder and though I’d like to be above acting self-conscious….

As an artist, I celebrate and prize asymmetry and anomalies (and half of my closest friends can probably be labeled as such) while at the same time looking for balance in my expression of the unique. And, just for the record, I am not vain. I just know that people react poorly to bodily or social features that are outside of the norm and not a few people are sometimes made uncomfortable by them. So, I make accommodations for reactions to these mild handicaps instead of expecting others to change. Chinese students especially have a kind of cultural Tourette’s when it comes to judging foreign teachers: While they try hard not to offend each other, there is no mouth-brain barrier that stops them from labeling westerners as too tall, fat, big bottomed, black, short, strict, lenient, big-nosed, out of shape or whatever….So, I yielded to a Chinese friend and colored a portion of my hair that fell outside the boundaries of normal aging changes. After the ill-fated experiment, the color variations were even more conspicuous, so I tried to even things out by dyeing the whole of my hairy tope. That ended my looking like I was wearing a road-kill Pomeranian escaped from the beauty shop at the Westminster Kennel Club. Further attempts, and it doesn’t warn you anywhere on the bottle about this, only reddened things like so I looked like I had bathed in a cheap bottle of Great Wall Wine (Yes, that is redundant) or, as a former female war correspondent I just met in Shanghai intimated, I seemed like the grizzled practicing alcoholic type of expatriate who has anorexic, stiletto-heeled teenage girls in tow who, even without closer examination, would not be daughters or nieces.

The former war correspondent, who has talked teddy bears and titan missiles with warlords, and been taken prisoner more than once, has no fear of inquiry and doesn’t even try to wrap her observations in origami. But, how great is that, really? Doesn’t everyone want, or need, assurances once in a while that what they saw in the mirror (or what we missed: like a booger clinging to our proboscis, toilet paper trailing from our shoes or worse…) was indeed not a result of bad lighting.

For those of you who missed the fun this week or were afraid to offend me I appreciate your sensitivity. In reality I prefer a crane flown by me or a shared good laugh. I am considering volunteering for a buzz style cut that the military taught me to loathe. And again, for the record: I am damned happy to have made it to 54.

China Business Consultant(t) , American Professor in China(t) , China Photo Blogs(t) , The Sharpest Guy on the Planet(t) , China Expat(t) , Shanghai(t) , Cross Cultural Training(t) , Asian Dating Site(t) , Education in China(t) , cartoons(t) , Just Plain Strange(t) , China Expats(t) , Asian Women(t) , Asian Humor(t) , China Humor(t) , Intercultural Issues(t) , Expats(t) , Weird China(t) , China Editorials(t) , Teaching in China(t) , Humor(t)

To paraphrase Edward HoaglandWe have in America “The Big Two-Hearted River”tradition: taking your wounds to the wilderness for a cure, a conversion, a rest or whatever. And in the Hemingway story, if your wounds aren’t too bad, it works. But, this isn’t Michigan (or Faulkner’s Big Woods in Mississippi, for that matter). This is China!

The long revered maxim in America was “Go West” for success, but the American dream is hard to remember for those of us who woke up around the time of Vietnam and haven’t slept much since with all the noise of scandals, incessant war and economic earthquakes. Now statistics show that the odds of rising out of absolute poverty to a life of wealth and comfort is more achievable in China than the U.S.–for the Chinese!Writers like Herman Hesse, Pearl Buck, Gary Snyder, Thomas Merton, Peter Hessler, John Wood and Amy Tan found their journeys to the east mystical and inevitably self-defining as I hope mine will one day be, but the new best-sellers are those that offer ciphers purporting to reveal financial treasure maps of the Middle Kingdom.

Where Merton looked for the mainsprings of religious thought, Stanley Bing thinks Sun Tzu was a sissy and teaches people to conquer enemies with a revised and ruthless war plan vaguely rooted in ancient Chinese wisdom. And Wee Chow Hou and Lan Luh Luh plumb the depths of the 36-Strategies of Chinese warfare so the reader might feign wisdom long enough to grab the cash and save introspection for when the  new summer residence is built in the wilds of Shanghai or Beijing.

I came here to peek behind the red curtain and the alleged one-party hegemony that western media was trying to convince me was malevolent in comparison to America’s diluted democracy and emerging police state. I came to drink from the headwaters of ordinary culture and connect with people not ideologies. I have done a fair job: This last year, to fund a heartfelt decision to contribute via charity to my now adopted home I took on a new business as a delivery mechanism for funds to things that moved me to tears and then action. It has not been easy.

What is rarely mentioned by Asia pundits surfaced today at Sifry.com where author Bernd Nordhausen spoke to the realities of foreign investment in China especially as it applies to the Internet and IT. Nordhausen asserts that venture capital expenditures in Asia have not always yielded the same results as have global counterparts in the capture of equity and interest. He contends, rightly, that a “culture of entrepreneurship” inside corporations (there are a host of individual success stories here) abounds in California, Ireland, Israel and parts of Europe, but is lacking in China. One visit to the bustling Google HQ in America when matched against the mind-numbing dearth of energy you will find at their country offices in Shanghai or Beijing is a testament to his assertions. The two primary reasons for difficulty I see are–and to be fair he rightfully credits much economic success in Singapore, Taiwan and Korea to the semi-conductor powerhouses in China–a lack of personal resources and a shallow talent leadership / management pool in both the Chinese and expatriate sectors.

Much ado is made about the enormous numbers of internet and cell phone users here. What is rarely mentioned is that a majority of the SMS and Netizens (more than a billion messages are sent a day) do not own a computer and most cell phones cost $40.00 USD or less. The average income of a typical Internet user in China is under $250 USD a month and only 5% of households in emerging Asia–where there are over 250 million users– have a computer at home.Companies with deep pockets or heavy venture backing are betting on the come. They see the Chinese Internet as being to e-commerce as Macau is to gaming: a bottomless ATM hard-wired to tens of millions of accounts. This strategy is good only if you have the R&D monies and financial wherewithal to entrench yourself and wait until you get the passwords right.

And even companies that are drownng in venture monies or acquiring relevant digital agencies in China in hopes of being at the ready when this Internet infant fattens up will long have a tough time recruiting and maintaining quality talent. Publicis just bought Emporio Asia on the premise that the 2% online spend here, relative to the 4-5% online ad budget in the States equates to future growth. I think they are right, but with 800 million people living on less than $70 USD a month I would not count on collecting that mythical “just $1″ from every consumer in China very soon.Despite the country’s impressive economic output many people and the infra-structure are struggling: Storms, floods, increased cancer deaths in a failed health system, the collapse of the Internet for several weeks due to a Taiwanese quake, and the paralyzing of a country by a single winter storm revealed the weaknesses of the fearful dragon: My god, since the most recent earthquake there are twice as many people without homes or potable water in just Sichuan than live within the city limits of Chicago.I have had a dozen or so “old China hands” lament that the talent pool here is shallow and neither the waders or the owners of the cement ponds where they gather have much desire to share space.

I for one am awed by much of the talent here (it is like a perpetual Ivy League Reunion committee meeting), but they aren’t afraid to hold a newcomer or non-clique member’s head underwater to keep him from hearing the Human Resources Lifeguards calling out danger or opportunity. And they are quick to be wooed into new neighborhoods by promises of increased celebrity or anticipated guanxi.

And now the tightening government choke-hold on long-term work (and short-term of late) visas and residency permits–the US hands out more Green Cards in 2 days to Chinese than China does to all foreigners in a year!–threatens the maturation of a management population just entering adolescence and desperately in need of mentoring. There are very few trainers here who can do little more than feign expertise or mouth in industry shorthand the buzzwords that keep them idolized. Interestingly, top Chinese students needing the most mentoring and that could eventually man emerging,  promising start-ups are scrambling to the established foreign companies, but only corporations with massive International profiles. Key University graduates often run past a well conceived start-up, willing to trample classmates in the process, to get an entry level job cubicle job at P&G, Google, Alibaba or Lenovo. Now, before I look as though I am shooting myself in the foot as an advocate of engagement and investment in China, I need to tell you that I am bullish about the future here. The Chinese have a long history of subsuming the best of foreign cultures into their own; they are; albeit slow, methodically good learners. Our mistakes with Katrina, LA Riots and more have been handled with aplomb by a leader who now rates a fan page on Facebook.

Wen Jiaboa’s tears were shed on behalf of a nation finally allowed to grieve for a century of losses and anguish. Wen Jiaboa’s social granting of permission to mourn will go down in history as the most definitive modern influence in the shaping of a collective national persona. The Chinese will begin to practice their belief that they are born connected rather than equal. I applaud China for the emerging national pride that will make foreign incursions into the business sector harder, but not impossible for those who are willing to honor this newfound surge of concerted initiative.

To succeed now, you had better have hard to clone ideas, expatriate and local Chinese staff (preferably a combo) or agency help on the ground in China, plenty of money (way too many people arrive here under-funded), a hide thicker than a chain-smoking Rhino and the patience of of a CCTV-9 viewer. And damn well expect to get proficient as a trainer of Foreign Newbies and a mentor of Chinese interns as they possess great skills over-ridden by a fear of  failure born of a pass or fail educational structure. Oh yes, and get yourself schooled fast, before you train, in how to manage a mixed team.

Synergy is mandated here: Sea Turtles, ABCs, Singaporeans, Taiwan commuters, and 56 ethnic group contributors naturally enmeshed in regionalism will be working toward your success and theirs.A paradigm shift in the perceived moral business workings of the west must come to meet the needs of an impoverished, but eager to succeed culture: Dell and Lenovo are on the right track with financing programs; record companies providing creative, non-litigious  ways to curb piracy and increase sales, movie companies with scaled down and affordable offerings of DVDs and new cheap laptops like EeePC are the revolutionary economic leaders that will rally the masses now gathering in social networks that will demand compromise and accountability or collectively shut down or circumvent traditional western business models.The dinosaurs calling for a Baidu boycott (spoken about in the linked article by Kaiser Kuo whose self-deprecating candor I have come to value, even as I have sometimes suffered the slings and arrows thrown from his acerbic quiver)  better head for a session with a financial shrink before they end up in a economic and reputational straight jacket.

You can drown in the shallow end, or not…

IWOM(t) , alibaba.com(t) , China Expat(t) , China Business Consultant(t) , Reputation Management(t) , Online Digital Marketing(t) , baidu boycott(t) , Earthquake in China(t) , Reputation Management Services China(t) , Executive Training China(t) , Violence(t) , Chinese Media(t) , In the news(t) , China Business(t) , China Cartoons(t) , China Editorials(t) , Singapore(t) , China Web 2.0(t) , Vietnam(t) , Internet marketing China(t) , Chinese Internet(t) , The Internet(t) , Intercultural Issues(t)

I killed a few minutes yesterday watching the movie Sex and the City. Sadly, those minutes are truly dead and I will never get them back. The movie is a dreadful adaptation of the wildly popular and imaginative television show with legions of loyal fans still absorbed in re-runs. It is a recipe that didn’t rise well at big-screen altitude: it’s an anachronistic parody of a cutting edge television marvel.

One of the few redeeming chuckles in the film was when Carrie, ostensibly one of the hipper/trendier characters, was handed an i-Phone and promptly gave it back to its California owner and asked for a “real phone” that she could easily operate. That said, it did get me to thinking about the velocity of social web applications and the cadre of new media chefs vending their variations (some damn well done., I confess) of old formulas.

I suddenly remembered once joining a rare gathering of world class Taekwondo athletes and coaches. In attendance were three current or former world champions, the U.S. Olympic TKD body’s coach of the year, the past All Asia Martial Arts three time victor, US National Team members and dozens of black belt players and coaches from around the Carolinas–It was humbling, exciting stuff.

We began the day watching a 5′7″ world champion roundhouse kick an apple off the top of a post six-foot players head. He turned the fruit into sauce and drove its core several yards to the back of the Dojang where it explosively struck and nearly shattered a window.

Our host Master/Dr. Jung, now an exercise physiologist for the World TKD Association, then gathered us for a long-awaited “master class” restricted to black belts level. For nearly two hours we practiced from, a horseback riding stance (and in slow motion), the basic front punch we had all learned many years before. No one complained–we knew of, or had suffered from, the consequences of even obliquely questioning a Korean master in charge of class–but, few of us really got the purpose of his teaching.

Years before, I remember one my teachers gathering the black belts together to sing a song he told us was meant to raise our self esteem. Because of anomalies in his unique Korean-English speech pronunciation he soon had about 50 of us singing what we thought we had heard: “Nobody in the world likes me.” The seeming attempt at reverse psychology befuddled us, but we sang on anyway-damned afraid not to…. But when our master instructor noticed we didn’t seem to have to have our hearts as completely in the process as he had expected he then slowly and more clearly repeated, “There’s nobody in the world like me.” The next round was sung with much more gusto and not a little stifling of laughter.

No one was laughing when master Jung told us to sit–not an easy task after 2 hours in an unsupported half-squat–and began to explain the reasons for this particular “master class”: He told us that repeatedly returning to the basics was not an option, but a requirement in the pursuit of perfection. We were only black belts after all and that meant we had only conquered enough of the fundamentals that we could move on to advanced techniques all predicated on the mechanics of a handful of elementary maneuvers that make up the core of virtually any martial art. With the dozens of variations on a theme from Aikido to Pangamot it all comes back to China in circles, sweeps and a forgiving kinship with gravity and the elements.

We humans are great modifiers of the spectacular: even staunch Catholic convert and monk Thomas Merton left the monastery and headed for Asia in a belief, late in his life, that all religion might well have flowed from some great uncharted spring that he hoped to locate. It was by moving back to thesis source that Merton believed we could move beyond religious exercise and, like the man in the Christian bible’s Sycamore tree, get a true meta-view view of the divine so we might transcend what we think we know.

I am easily awed: I still marvel at the magic of invisible signals that come to life in TV and Radio. Hell, that’s almost enough to make a guy religious. And I still mourn the loss of my CB radio that I believe to this day had much more practical utility than my new Mac. Hell, CB once saved my life when I and the soon to be mother of my first daughter were stranded on a mountain pass that no cell signal or Bluetooth connection can yet reach. Like wireless pioneer John Fetzer, I look and expect one day a new, but yet unseen leap of imagination that will be more than the recent extra pinches of electronic salt that we mistakenly label as new.

I was talking to social media expert Des Walsh recently about his belief in the fantastic and his excitement about what the next species of communication, that will transform lives the way radio once did, will look like. About that same time I read a social media pundit’s lament on Twitter as he was on his way to a blogging conference convinced that he’d hear nothing new. I too have been hoping for something decidedly novel since 1978 when I first participated in computer conferencing. But better yet, I am, like Des, standing by for a quantum leap ( a “Black Swan” as he will label it in an upcoming post) in conversation and communication. Like martial arts and varieties of organized religionus experience digital communication is faster, more abundant and more diverse, but not dramatically different. Yet, I am content with some of the slick re-inventions of the wheel until another Jules Verne or Chester Gould manifests a future we can weld or electrify into being.

As a quick aside: I met John Fetzer some years ago when he was in his 8th decade of life. It was about that same time I was doing a series of lectures on humor and wellness at an institute he created. His entire life he was a staunch advocate of anti-government interference in radio, an advocate of self-censorship in broadcasting (sound familiar Google and Yahoo.cn?), helped create syndicated sports broadcasting, and later donated money for the mind-body research institute I admire and whose mission states: “..to foster awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global community, rests on our conviction that efforts to address the world’s critical issues must go beyond political, social, and economic strategies to their psychological and spiritual roots.” Fetzer believed that there is more magic yet hiding in explored regions of the body, mind and soul and that that they have the power to unite and heal individuals and subsequently the world. The extraordinary $400,000,000 non-profit enterprise funds everything from cancer surgeons to psychics in its quest for revelations. Fetzer was always a successful businessman, but also a risk taking philanthropist in love with mystery. He didn’t look to those things known and criticize them for repetitiveness, he looked to the unknown to tried to coax it into the light while never fretting over monetizing, but over humanizing…

What was most impressive about both Fetzer and Merton is that, though they were in search of the undiscovered, they celebrated and practiced what was already known and until their deaths passed it on to those less informed. Both spoke passionately to audiences through books and over airwaves in ways they could be understood so that ordinary people might appreciate the wonders of the secular and sacred as much as they both did.

Too often we in the field, who speak in subjective shorthand only a select few can transcribe, forget that millions of others have not yet shared a table with us or anyone like us. To drag on the metaphor: I have seen “thought leaders”, as Ogilvy’s Kaiser Kuo calls them on his blogroll, try to drag A-list celebrities from one new location to another even before dessert can be served up. Even the party animals in this multitude of redundant social media groups grow weary and the fast food kings like Arrington and Scoble can’t even motivate the masses to look at the latest eprinted menus…

I have known poets who were accused of being lulled to sleep by the sound of their own voices; and I know media experts selling new menus of bland offerings in an attempt to appear relevant and hi–for their job is contingent on it.

The new buzz word in PR is “conversation” and the need for discourse with customers and consumers. The Premier of China “chatted” online for the first time this week and millions are in queue right behind him in China who have never heard of Xing, Friendfeed, listened to a podcast or even played a game of Pong. We need to engage new consumers and Netizens in that “conversation” that is now subjective shorthand. We need to pocket our i-Phones long enough to see that the average Chinese is still buying 30,000 very cheap cell phones a day wherein SMS is today’s teletype. We’d better start front-punching in slow motion, and really start talking to the up and coming users who will probably be starting with Blogger.com, discovering Wikipedia (as long as the Premiere learns to like it), then braving Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal while hopefully still interested enough � to be able to see the next digital transfiguration, the one that answers questions the masters of digital media are too busy re-tweeting links to ask about….

The fostering of awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global and digital community, rests on our becoming convicted that efforts to address the world’s critical issues must go beyond current political, religious, social, monetary, digital and economic strategies…

,

Baidu(t) , Faceboook(t) , China Business Consultant(t) , Online Digital Marketing(t) , Online Digital Marketing China(t) , Taekwondo(t) , PR 2.0(t) , American Professor in China(t) , Internet marketing China(t) , China Cartoons(t) , China Editorials(t) , Intercultural Issues(t) , China Business(t) , Personal Notes(t) , Chinese Internet(t) , The Internet(t) , Asia(t)