More on WordPress -- it's starting to look pretty ... pretty

I checked out SquareSpace -- nice web interface, but seems a little lacking in functionality.

Then Ottawa-based web guy Gesman pointed me to a WordPress design site specifically for magazines and news organizations.

This is EXACTLY what I was looking for - thanks, Gesman!

The designs are gorgeous and don't look like blogs at all. I particularly love the way the categories are organized on the front page.

Content management systems -- the good, the bad, and the ugly

Today (well, it's after midnight, so it was yesterday) I attended a Meetup of the Northampton Web Developers/ Web Designers Meetup Group.

Excellent, excellent meeting. Many web developers there -- most looking like young, Silicon Valley Web 2.0 types. Mostly a male crowd, four Macs to one PC in terms of the laptop ratio.

The presenters -- all local developers -- talked about the pros and cons of Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and self-developed content management systems.

I need a new content management system very badly. The Trombly Ltd. website is built using Dreamweaver, with templates and iFrames linking back to Dabble DB database exports. I love Dabble DB -- it's one of the best, and easiest to use, online relational database systems out there.

We use it for invoicing, workflow, content management, HR, CRM -- everything and anything. It requires no programming, and can hold an amazing variety of different content types and can produce online submission forms and gorgeous reports.

When iFrames aren't enough -- for example, if we want Google to be able to search the data exported by the database, or for Google Translate to work -- we use PHP to generate static pages, refreshed daily and also on demand. That's how Emerging China and China Speakers Bureau sites work.

This is getting expensive -- PHP programmers don't come cheap. I was hoping that Drupal would offer a solution that was not programming intensive but more flexible than our iFrames setup.

However, according to the presenters, none of these three content management systems would be able to take in input from our database (in the form of RSS or JSON feeds) without some serious coding, at the very least.

So we'll be stuck with having our editors copy-and-paste materials from the database into the content management system when they're ready to publish stories online.

If we're going to be doing that, I'd want a system that is super easy for them to use -- and easy for us to set up and maintain ourselves.

I Twittered throughout the Meetup (http://twitter.com/Maria_Trombly) and one of my China-based subscribers, PandaPassport (a.k.a. Rick Martin in Dalian) suggested that I take a look at SquareSpace.

I asked the Northampton developers if they'd heard of it (they hadn't) so I went to check out the site. It's expensive -- especially compared to WordPress, Joomla and Drupal which are all free because they're open source. (I do love my iPhone -- all the functionality of my laptop. Okay, it's a rather old laptop, but still....)

I'm going to be giving SquareSpace a try. They've got a 14-day free trial, and a beautiful intro video on their home page.

I particularly liked the way they were able to edit all the style elements of the page through a drag-and-drop interface (like my iPhone).

By comparison, the Drupal presentation went more like this (I'm quoting from memory here, so this is very approximate):

Me: Do you have to be a programmer to use Drupal?

Rick Hood of Flow Media Design: No, of course not. Drupal is quite easy to use. Only takes a few minutes to install. All you have to do is upload the file to your web hosting provider, create a files subdirectory, set up a MySQL database -- a simple interface in your CPanel -- and you're all set. If you need to customize it beyond the basic templates and modules, you will need to write PHP code, though.

Me: Uhum.

Rick: (Spends an hour explaining in detail all the PHP files that govern templates and design elements in Drupal)

PHP, by the way, looks NOTHING like the normal programming languages I learned in high school and college -- Assembler, Basic, Fortran, and Pascal. It looks like the top line of your keyboard exploded -- the line with all the symbols.

Well, I'm going to give SquareSpace a try and I'll tell you guys how it works out.

In W. Mass,

Maria

The future of the Internet is coming on

I don't know if anyone remembers this, but there used to be days... the days of BitNet... when using the Internet meant a command-line interface on a mainframe terminals.

Then there were the bulletin boards and their menu-driven interfaces. Anybody out there remember menus?

Between the bulletin boards and the World Wide Web, there was a transitional stage -- America OnLine. You had to dial up and log in, as if it was a bulletin board. But once inside, there was a graphical user interface -- in other words, you could point and click. There was online content -- newspapers, magazines. There was shopping. There were discussion forums, and there was email.

It was more complex, and more involved, and more engrossing than the alternatives.

At first, AOL was a "closed garden." Only members could get in. And they could only send emails to one another. Then the email system opened up, and AOL emails could go elsewhere on the Internet. Then the rest of it opened up, and AOL became just another Internet portal.

The World Wide Web was different from AOL -- AOL had buttons, and the WWW had links, but in many ways it was very similar.

Both were graphical user interfaces. And people could go shop, communicate, research, and get entertained.

At each stage of its evolution, the Internet has become more engrossing, a richer experience, with more choices. Also, at each stage, nobody expected it to change. Back when there were bulletin boards, people expected the bulletin boards to last forever -- except they would be slightly better bulletin boards.

Today, many people expect the current version of the Internet to last forever, except maybe with faster connections, more videos, and slicker websites.

It's not going to. Our websites are about to disappear as quickly as the old bulletin boards did. Well, they'll be stored in online archives somewhere.

But really, when's the last time you checked out a Compuserve forum?

The next version of the Internet will look a lot like Second Life. It won't be Second Life -- Second Life is a walled garden, has interface and scalability problems, and is difficult to use.

But it will, in many ways, be like Second Life. You will be able to walk down virtual streets that are ever-more-accurate representations of physical reality -- or down imaginary streets that have no counterpart in the physical world.

Your online representation -- currently just your email address or instant messaging handle, LinkedIn profile, MySpace page or personal website -- will be augmented by an ever-more-realistic three-dimensional avatar.

The entire planet -- and our space satellites -- will have virtual equivalents. In addition, there will entirely new virtual-only worlds.

Second Life is a poor imitation. Slow, cumbersome, and cartoonish. But for anyone looking to get a jump on the next iteration of the Internet, it's great place to learn how to do it.

Tempted to cheat on my chosen career

I believe that, on average, the sharper your focus, the further you will get in life -- whether in your career, your business, your hobbies, or anything else you're after.

Unfortunately, picking a career is no easier than picking a mate -- no matter how attractive your spouse, there will always be other people who are prettier, sexier, nicer, or just plain different.

You can't get away from it.

Some people deal by becoming promiscuous. They work on a hundred different projects, each going off in a separate direction. By playing the field, they get to enjoy variety -- but it's much harder to enjoy any success.

And, even as people in perfectly happy marriages can be tempted, so people with perfectly wonderful careers can sometimes be seen sighing over the green grass on the other side of the fence.

In my case, this past week, I've been tempted by the thought of a career as an urban fantasy novelist.

Sure, I love being a business journalist. And I absolutely love running my own company. But I have a secret desire to write novels about witches and demons.

I know, from a practical sense, that I've never written anything longer than a hundred pages -- and that was a struggle. I prefer, short, tight deadlines -- the tighter, the better.

I also don't like working alone. I prefer to be part of a large team of people. No, I prefer to be the head of a large team of people.

I also like making money. There are only a handful of novelists out there who make real money. Writing -- like music and acting -- is a career for people who don't mind spending most of their time waiting tables, or living off their significant other.

Finally, I like making a difference. What difference could I possibly make writing frothy, escapist books about witches and demons?

I'm like the guy in the bar complaining that his wife doesn't understand him -- when he knows that the opposite is true, that, in fact, she understands him all too well. And that the woman he just met is a soulmate -- despite not having any in common with her at all.

I'm the guy in the bar. And urban fantasy is that woman in the bar. She's fresh and dewy -- she's Samantha in Bewitched. She's fun and doesn't take life seriously. She drinks sweet fruity cocktails. And she compliments me on how creative I am.

Meanwhile, my old career has been with me for 15 years. Made me reasonably happy most of the time. Is likely to continue making me reasonably happy for the rest of my life. And we've produced some good stuff together.

Of course I'm not going to throw that away.

But it's nice to flirt and to fantasize once in a while.

In my fantasy, I live in a house in the middle of fields and woods. In fact, it's my actual house in Massachusetts, where I hardly spend any time at all -- it's in the middle of nowhere and I start going crazy with boredom within a week.

In my fantasy, I write on an Apple laptop -- maybe a pink one, like Reese Witherspoon had in "Legally Blonde." In real life, of course, I would rather shoot myself than get a pink laptop. A Mac, maybe, but definitely not pink.

And I write light, fun fantasy about urban witches.

I've got one idea about a former executive secretary who slows learns that she can sense an object's history just by touching it. At first, she uses her powers to help her boss, but then quits her corporate job to raise foster kids and fight evil.

And another idea about a woman whose parents immigrated to the US -- from another dimension. And she's got secret magical power and uses them to maintain peace in the city where she lives -- even as others of her kind use their powers for evil.

But now that I'm thinking about the serious implications of doing this, there are ways to set it up like a business, with teams of contributors...

Okay, gotta go... I smell the potential of money to be made.

In Shanghai,

Maria

How to kill your journalism career: The story of J.

We cover a lot of countries here at Trombly Ltd. Some of these countries speak other languages. So we're always looking for reporters with go od language skills.

J. was perfect. Young, ambitious, had the languages we needed -- plus, with journalism experience.

She wrote ten articles for us. Sure, her work needed work. She needed to improve her reporting, story organization, and grammar and style. But she was well on her way to becoming a solid international business journalism. Plus, we were getting in assignments on the movie industry -- just up her alley.

On Wednesday, I took her to a meeting with a local media executive who liked her background and was interested in helping us put her on TV.

On Thursday, I offered her a part-time assignment editing gig for one of our publications, on top of the other work she was doing, and started up the process for getting her a key to the office and a pass to the building, and a new set of business card with her name on them. Later on, if everything went right, we would have gotten her accredited, and she'd become an international correspondent.

And by "international correspondent" I mean someone who works for the top tier of publications. These are the publications that pay enough so that you can travel, buy a house, have children anywhere in the world.

This is a small group of publications, mostly based in the US and Europe, with a few in Asia, and they're shrinking. Moreover, the budget these publications allocate to international reporting isn't getting any bigger, either.

It's a hard market to break into. You have to have the experience they need. You have to demonstrate ability and connections. And you have to be able to gain their trust. After all, it's hard for an editor to manage a reporter who's based on the other side of the planet.

If the reporter is still one desk over, you can easily see whether he's on the job, how many phone calls he makes. When he goes out on assignment and brings back into, you know whether he did a good job covering the event because you've been working in this area for a long time, and may have, perhaps, covered it yourself in the past. Sure, frauds still slip through -- like the New York Times' Jason Blair -- but then your readers will usually let you know.

With foreign reporters, you don't know the beats that they're covering. You don't know the topics that they're covering. And your readers usually can't act as a fail-safe fact-checking mechanism because they don't have first-hand experience of what the reporter is covering, either.

As a result, publications typically send trusted, senior writers to overseas assignments. These guys are expensive -- but they know what they're doing, and they don't need constant supervision.

These are hard-to-get, high-profile, glamorous assignments. You don't just walk into them. You spend years working your way up.

There are short cuts, however, and our bureau is one of them.

We hire young, inexperienced writers. We train them, and we supervise them. We help them find people to talk to. We help them figure out which questions to ask. We help them organize their stories and improve their English grammar. We help them decide which stories ideas are interesting -- and which ones are the same old, same old.

Finally, J. had learned enough about our databases and processes to work on her own. Her task was to find someone to comment about a particular news development. She had a number of people she could try to reach -- and she only needed one quote for this particular story, a 250-word brief.

She had everything she needed to make the calls.

But instead of calling, she pulled a quote from an old article from another publication, translated it into English, and put it into the story. More than that, she didn't just plagiarize the quote -- she added in the story that the source talked to her, personally.

We caught the problem immediately -- before the story even went out for copy editing.

There was no reason to do this. It would have only taken a few minutes to actually call the source and get the quote. Maybe a little longer if the first guy wasn't available. Maybe a couple of hours if she had to call several different companies.

Why did she do this? Not just "accidentally" copying something and "forgetting" to attribute it properly -- that happens, we catch it, issue warnings, help the writer avoid such mistakes in the future. (If they keep making these "mistakes," though, they're out.)

This was an out-and-out lie.

I would guess that the lie saved her, most likely, 30 minutes of reporting time.

And, most likely, it killed her career.

I may have given her a second chance, but my business manager and Shanghai bureau manager forcefully overruled me. The risk to the company's reputation was too great - and the risks of setting a precedent too severe -- to allow her to remain in the office at any capacity.

We also pulled her previous ten articles and re-checked the sourcing of all stories. For two stories, we opened her company email account and checked for email confirmations of the quotes.

Then we notified all the clients whose stories she worked on -- all US-based business publications -- and explained what happened.

It is possible that J.'s career will recover from this. There are other news organizations in China, and she might also be able to report for smaller news organizations overseas, especially ones who require her language skills.

She's very lucky that her fraudulent story wasn't printed. If it had been, we would have had to run her name along with the correction -- and any future editor who Googled her would have known what she did.

In Shanghai,

- Maria

A busy May

Sorry about not posting last month -- it was a busy, busy May. The company continues to grow -- and new people have to be trained, new clients dealt with.

I was on local TV -- the International Channel Shanghai -- and taped the first episode of a new ITV-Asia program, Emerging China, for which I'm the host.

There were business deals with new partners. More details to come later, but it looks like I'll be running a second company soon in a different, but slightly related, line of business.

And I'm getting ready for my annual pilgrimage back to the US to meet with clients and see the old folks. We're flying out July 15 -- the e-tickets are already in hand.

Then, last night, I went out to an evening with some business friends (following up on an earlier meeting that night with another business groups - my Friday nights are packed!) -- and the discussion quickly turned to non-business issues. I needed to get back to my computer near 9 p.m. -- 11 p.m. at the latest. Those deadlines came and went.

I haven't just hung out and talked like that -- just talked with a bunch of cool guys -- for ages.

Not since the last webloggers meeting, in fact, which was a couple of months ago. And that in itself is sad -- my main non-business social outlet is a webloggers group.

Back when I had a marriage, my marriage counselor told me that I needed to learn how to get in touch with my feelings, learn to relax, embrace the softer side of life.

That didn't get too far.

Maybe it's time to rethink this. And get a hobby. Based on my high appetite for risk, I'm considering something like race car driving, or sky diving. But I might start out with rock climbing or downhill skiing.

In Shanghai,

Maria

How to invest your money and beat the stock market

When people find out that I'm a business journalist, they invariably ask me for stock tips.

After all, I'm probably sitting on tons of juicy corporate insider dope that my editors won't print so as not to offend advertisers, right?

First of all, not true. Any inside dope I've got, has been printed. I've been lucky with editors all my life -- in 15 years as a journalist, I've never had a story pulled due to advertiser influence. It's true. I've had stories pulled because they sucked, but that's a different matter.

Secondly, I'm not allowed to give stock tips. There are regulations out there about insider trading. If I do find something out, I either have to tell everybody, or nobody at all.

Finally, if even the employees at Enron didn't know that their company was going down the tubes, how would a journalist who spends a few minutes on the phone with an exec and some analysts know anything at all? Those employees pretty much lived at that company. They knew what was going on. They heard all the gossip. But they still lost their shirts.

But, despite all this, I still know the secret of how to beat the stock market. It's the only strategy that works.

We journalists don't write about it much because it conflicts with the news cycle.

Here's the problem: there's only one good way to invest your money. Everybody knows what it is. But you can't run the same story every day. You need to say something different, something interesting, something new. So we write about what various sectors are doing, how the economy is shaping up, give advice on what company to put your money in. Most of this advice is no more useful than the latest Britney Spears gossip.

But people want it, so we write it.

Take, for example, this month's cover story in Fortune: "What Warren Thinks..." It's not online yet, or I'd give a link to it.

Here's Buffett's advice on investing:

...they should just stay with index funds. Any low-cost index fund. And they should buy it over time... It's a positive-sum game, long term. And the only way an investor can get killed is by high fees or by trying to outsmart the market.

Then, if you turn the page, the very next article is titled "Where to Put Your Money Now" -- advice to investors on how to outsmart the market.

Journalists are not evil. But sometimes it does look that way, doesn't it?

So here's the best strategy. Only one guaranteed to beat the stock market:

1. Index Funds

Index funds sound boring. Basically, they're a fund that includes every company of a certain type. Your best bet is the biggest fund that there is. You want to bet on the whole US economy, not just on one company. Or on the whole world. Over time, the whole world is getting more efficient, more productive, and richer. Index funds reflect this. And the best thing with index funds is that you're not paying multi-million-dollar salaries for fund managers who do no better than monkeys throwing darts. Sure, by chance, some managers do well some of the time. But they're no more likely to do well the following year than anyone else. In fact, the more clever the story behind some manager's strategy -- whether it's a mutual fund, hedge fund, or some crazy new plan -- the more likely it is to lose you money.

Stick with index funds. Go for the cheapest ones. If you don't like saying "cheap" because it sounds... well ... cheap, then say "no load index fund." Now you're no longer cheap, you're a savvy investor.

2. Invest Over Time

If you want to sound fancy, you can call it "dollar cost averaging." For example, you might want to take $100 out of each paycheck and invest it in your index fund.

The key here is not to look at the news. Don't put in more when the market is hot. Don't put in less when it's down. Just set up the investment strategy and then don't look at it again... oh, for the next thirty years.

At the end of the thirty years, you'll find that you've beaten the market. Why? Because when the market is down, that $100 bought you more stock. When the market was up, that $100 bought you less stock. In other words, you were automatically investing more during the best times to invest - when the stocks were less expensive.

If you try to do this deliberately, chances are you will fail. People have a hard time guessing what the market will do, and even the best fund managers get caught up by investment fads and bubbles -- and by panic, as well.

By not looking at your investment, you take the emotions out of the equation.

There is one big drawback to the "index fund-invest over time" strategy. You have nothing to talk about with your buddies. Some guy will say, "I bet everything on big oil and war profiteers, and now I'm up $10 million!" and what have you got? "I'm in index funds." That sounds so lame. (Now you see the problem that journalists have.)

If you're desperate to play the market, then take some of your entertainment budget and play with it. Think of it as going to Las Vegas -- you'll lose everything, but you'll have fun doing it and you'll have some stories to tell. Except to your spouse. He or she won't want to hear these stories.

Then, when you tell your friends that you lost your shirt betting on pork bellies you will have literally lost just the price of your shirt.

Still in Shanghai,

Maria

Nostalgic for My Shanghai

I'm going to be heading off to the U.S. on July 15 -- and coming back in the fall -- but I'm already nostalgic for the Shanghai of today.

I was down in the French Concession area this afternoon, one of the nicest parts of Shanghai.

After having a quick bite at Abbey Road with journalist friend Bill Marcus -- of Marketplace fame -- I walked up Dongping Lu to buy some bread on the way home.

I walked into Paul's, a new French bakery chain in town. I love their Xintiandi location -- small, but drowning in a sea of real crusty French breads. Not the typical Wonder white-bread-style bread you get here in Shanghai. During nice weather, you can sit outside, sidewalk-cafe style.

The location on Dongping Lu is a full-scale sit-down restaurant. So although I walked in for a loaf of crusty whole wheat bread, I immediately saw that they had one croissant amande left in the bakery display.

I first had one of these when visiting a friend in Paris. They're sweet, filled with almond paste and sprinkled with sliced almonds and a light dusting of powdered sugar.

As I rode the taxi home, I was overcome with a wave of nostalgia. Shanghai will never again be the way it is today. The beautiful weather, the cafes popping up all over town. The laid-back lifestyle.

Bill says that the longer people stay in China, the less they work. Finally, they're just coasting along, moving around from one wifi-equipped cafe to another, blogging and twittering, pretending that they're doing something, until finally they're living on no money at all.

You can do that in Shanghai.

Bill is not an example of this -- he actually seems to be working pretty hard.

But I do know guys -- and gals -- who come to Shanghai with sky-high hopes and business plans then somehow get off the career track. Or never get on it in the first place.

Pretty soon, they're doing a little teaching or copyediting or corporate copywriting for a few hours a week. Just enough to pay rent on their part of a bachelor pad, and to buy a few beers and coffees during the week.

Next thing you know, they're in their mid-40s with potbellies, still coasting along on the coolness of being expats.

One mid-40s guy I know copyedits a couple of hours per week. The rest of the time, he told me, he spends dating. His dates are all hot young Chinese girls. He himself looks like the Big Lebowski, from the film of the same title. Well, a little dumpier.

Another guy -- in his late 40s -- somehow married and reproduced without leaving the Shanghai slacker mode. He teaches English some of the time. The rest of the time he spends working on his business plan. With each iteration the business plan becomes more grandiose, all-encompassing, and impossible to actually execute. If you want to hear about his idea, he'll make you sign a non-disclosure agreement. Don't be surprised if his idea seems familiar to you -- I've seen it on House.

Then there's a group of guys married to rich women. All in their mid-40s. Most pot-bellied. (To be fair, so am I.) Some seriously balding. (Not me. I've got tons of hair. Long. Blonde. Lustrous.) They tell people that they're running online businesses. These are one-man operations, involving an occasional consulting gig. Maybe some search engine optimization. Or web design. Their wives do the heavy lifting, bringing-home-the-bacon wise, leaving the hubbies to the cafes and beer gardens. Have wifi, will drink.

If you think you recognize yourself in this description by the way -- it's not you. It's somebody else. It's that other guy -- you know, that guy you hate.

I love these guys. They always have time to hang out. They're cool and laid back. They'll sit around and argue politics and solve all the world's problems over a couple of slices of pizza and some beer. They never have to rush off for an appointment, and never seem to have any deadlines to meet.

I'll miss them when I leave.

Once I move my family back to the States, I'll be back in Shanghai only on business. I'll probably pack my days here full of staff meetings, and interviews, and bureaucratic get-togethers with government officials. There will be stacks of papers to sign, new hires to interview and train, budgets to go through, cashflows to plan. I won't have as much time to just hang out in cafes, enjoy the free wireless, and blog about life in Shanghai.

It's too bad -- it's a beautiful life. Someone should make a movie about it.

Still in Shanghai,

Maria

Journalism vs. PR

Just came back from a nice lunch at KABB, in Shanghai's people-watching mecca Xintiandi. Hose Mitamura (author of China s Environment 2008, available from Amazon) and I discussed the differences between journalism and PR.

As my staff constantly reminds me, I tend to believe passionately in whatever I heard most recently. In my case, this is Law and Order -- I was watching reruns of the show the night before.

(I'm not going to say how, except to mention that I was shocked -- SHOCKED -- to find that there were illegally uploaded TV shows available through surfthechannel.com. Don't people know there is intellectual property violation going on? The horror!)

Anyway, on Law and Order -- and in every show that depicts an American-style legal system -- every legal case has two sides. There's the prosecutor, who tries to make the accused look as bad and guilty as possible, within the constraints of the law. And there's the defense attorney, who tries to make the accused look all harmless and innocent. There's a judge there, to keep things moving along, and the jury makes the final decision.

That's the media landscape in a nutshell as well.

The journalists try to print as much of the scandal and wrong-doing that they can dig up. Sure, they present ordinary facts as well -- so do prosecutors. But we all know what we're there for -- the blood and gore.

The PR guys try to make their clients seem sweet and wholesome. They also present some actual facts, but these are shaded in such a way as to tell the most flattering story about their client.

Sure, a good defense attorney will advise a client not to commit the crime in the first place, or, if the crimes are ongoing, to stop as quickly as possible. But once the crime is done, the defense lawyer is supposed to go all out to get the client off -- whether or not the client deserves to be punished.

So, a PR agency will usually advise clients to clean up their acts. But, barring that, the PR folks will do all they can to keep the bad acts from being publicized -- or, if they're already out, to put the best possible spin on them.

In this analogy, the jury is the reading public and the judges are the libel courts.

I don't mind working with PR people. They perform a useful public function. They get me in touch with company executives. They hook me up with customers, and send me background information and research reports. They suggest story ideas.

I regularly read PR blogs. One of my favorites is the China Law Blog. Yes, it's a PR vehicle for the law firm that sponsors it, Harris & Moure. But there's excellent information in the blog as well. PR Newswire is also a great source of information, sources, and story ideas, and they have a Chinese version through a partnership with Xinhua. Their Profnet service is by far the best way to find sources. I occasionally browse through their database of experts, but, more often, I post queries about articles I'm working on. Especially for tech-related stories, this is a great way to immediately get interviews with high-ranking executives at major companies, since their PR agents subscribe to these queries.

So I love PR guys. I used to be married to one. In fact, my ex still works in PR.

Would I want to be a PR guy? Be forced to say nice things about people? Never. Shoot me first.

Fortunately, PR work and journalism require such different personality skills, such different characters, such different approaches to morality, that there doesn't really have to be a conflict on a personal level. I can't do their jobs -- they can't do my job. And we wouldn't want to.

It's the old "Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean" thing.

I believe that the greater good is that which benefits society as a whole. This means, exposing corruption and injustice whenever it happens. If a few innocent people get hurt in the process -- well, that's just too bad for them.

Other people believe in the rights of the individual. Better that a hundred guilty people go free than an innocent guy go to jail. This is also a noble sentiment. In fact, if I was a lawyer, I might be torn about deciding whether I wanted to be a defense attorney or a prosecutor.

One of the things that appeals to be most about journalism -- and about prosecutors -- is that we are heroes. The mafia lawyers and the corporate attorneys -- they make the big money, but they don't get much respect from the public.

With PR, it's the same way. Sure, they have better haircuts. And better clothes. And better food at their parties. Their drinks are more expensive, and their cars are newer and flashier. But who really respects them?

The worst that can be said of good journalists is that in our zeal, we sometimes step over the line.

That brings me to the final parallel between PR and law. In the legal profession, the worst that can happen is for money to cross the line between the defense and prosecution. Whether it's the defense attorney paying off the prosecutor, or the prosecutor paying off the defense, if there's an exchange of cash there's corruption going on and the minute it comes to light the careers of everyone involved are over, and the respective organizations will suffer major PR blows.

On the media side, any exchange of money or favors between PR folks and journalists -- regardless of the direction that the money flows -- is a scandal. The bigger the money, of course, the bigger the scandal. If someone buys me lunch to pick my brain, no problem. If we're discussing possible stories over dinner, however, them I'm picking up at least half the tab.

I've worked for many media organizations. I've never seen a case in which they paid money to sources, or in which they accepted payments for PR people in return for editorial coverage. There was one case, of a very small-circulation local business magazine, that preferred to quote advertisers in stories and write flattering pieces about them.

In the competitive American media climate, it is hard for publications like that to become successful -- after all, who wants to pay for articles that are composed exclusively of advertising blather? Especially if there's an alternative publication that gives you the straight scoop, the solid dope, the inside dirt. Which one of us wouldn't take the dirt over the puff piece any time?

Since, over time, the average media climate tends to become more competitive, not less, I would guess that the demarcation line between PR and journalism will become increasingly clear in every region.

And this means that people who are just getting into the media field should be clear from the start about which side of the line they want to be on.

There's nothing wrong with being either a journalist or a PR guy. But the folks who try to cross the lines are vilified by both sides, and by the reading public.

When the public gets upset at either PR people or journalists it's when they confuse the functions that the two groups serve. At various times, the PR guys are the bad ones because they're trying to make evil corporations look good. At other times, the journalists are the bad guys because they're only looking for bad news.

In some emerging markets, where the media and PR functions are conflated together, the end results can be extremely messy. But I believe that over time, as the two functions are separated due to market pressures -- as well as increasing professionalism on both sides -- this situation will be resolved as well.

It pays to be clean.

In Shanghai,

Maria

One week of Twitter

I've been using Twitter for about a week now. I keep all the tweets in a column on the side of my browser windows (using Twitbin). It feels like being in a chatroom populated exclusively by your friends -- the friends who Twitter, that is.

My Twitter handle is Maria_Trombly if anyone wants to follow me.

I'm not the only journalist who's using Twitter this way.

ReadWriteWeb just ran a nice article titled How We Use Twitter for Journalism.

In Shanghai,
Maria

Summer has come to Shanghai

Today I left the house and stepped into what, in Massachusetts, would be considered a pretty hot summer day - 77 degrees Farenheit (25 Celsius).

So much for the one week of nice, spring weather. From now, it's only going to get worse and worse. I plan to stay inside for the next two months with the air conditioning cranked up, stepping out only in the evenings.

In other good news, I made the top-ten most sought-after speakers list at ChinaBiz Speakers, China's premiere -- and, as far as I know, only -- speakers' bureau. You can check out my speaker's profile.

The speaking business is actually picking up. There was that trip to Bangkok, to talk about Chinese pet food. And a talk on marketing to a local business group.

Earlier this week, the folks from the International Channel Shanghai send me a DVD of the five days I was a guest on their Culture Matters program -- I've got permission to post excerpts and will do so as soon as we get the 2.5 hours of film edited down to 15 or so minutes.

I still haven't seen it. If I think my voice sounds weird on tape, how much worse is it to see yourself on TV?

In Shanghai,

Maria

Editorial Process Outsourcing

I don't see a lot of hits for "editorial process outsourcing" in Google -- but this is exactly what we do.

Publications have been doing outsourcing for a long, long time. Mostly, they just outsource the development of content. They use freelance writers and freelance photographers, and they buy photos and articles from agencies.

Editorial process outsourcing takes this a step further, by providing additional services on top of the content itself.

For example, Relaxnews is a Paris-based outfit that provides high-end lifestyle content -- they can do a complete magazine for you, writing, art, photos, layout, the whole thing. I'm currently working with one of their former editors, Fanny Landrieu, to start a similar agency in Shanghai.

This is different from bespoke news agencies, such as Israel-based Abbey Content, which provides editorial services for US newspapers, and U.K.-based International News Services Ltd., which provides high-end financial articles and other content written specifically for individual clients.

We did start out as a bespoke news agency, covering the emerging markets for individual US publications. Today, however, we provide more services -- we run entire bureaus for our clients, including accreditation, recruiting, training and managing staff, covering beats, assigning articles, copyediting and fact-checking.

Here at Trombly Ltd. (at tromblyltd dot com) we cover mostly emerging markets for US business publications. In addition to providing articles, we also do photos, fact-checking, and copyediting for our clients, and are rapidly moving up the value chain to provide more services. With writers and editors in China, India, the Philippines, we cover Asia extensively, but also handle Russia and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East through an ever-expanding pool of trained freelancers.

In the U.S. and Europe, many providers do even more -- they will produce an entire publication, or supplement, for a client.

This is not something that's talked a lot about. Publications tend to want to control the content they publish. As a result, many of these outsourcing projects are limited to special sections, supplements, or advertorial inserts. Outsourcing these sections helps to distance them from the main editorial content of the publication, which is especially important for advertorial sections.

But outsourcing can also bring in additional expertise that in-house staff might not have, and can reduce fixed costs. At a time when advertising can increase or decrease sharply, outsourcing parts of a publication can reduce the number of staff on long-term contracts, and reduce the need for layoffs during downturns.

Yesterday, I met with Kerry Kennery, of ITV-Asia, for lunch. Before starting up his online business channel, he used to launch magazines for a living. He's got about a dozen magazines off the ground in his previous life. He says that magazine publishers need to be aware of the business they're in -- they're in the advertising sales business. Everything else can be outsourced.

Too many publishers, he says, spend too much time micromanaging content.

I agree with him. Publishers are highly-paid people. Their time is worth a lot -- they should be spending it where it's going to have the most impact. That means, meeting with potential advertisers.

Editors and writers are low-paid people. They're artistic, creative types. Pick the best team you can for the budget you've got, set clear objectives, then let them go do their thing.

As an additional bonus, the less interference from advertising into the editorial process, the better the editorial content will be, and the more trust the readers will have in what they read.

In the old days, a publication had to keep everything in-house because the logistics of coordinating advertising and layout and distribution were unwieldy unless everyone was in the same building.

Today, with electronic delivery of documents and virtual workflows, there's no reason for publishing companies to remain vertically integrated.

In Shanghai.

Recognized on the street

The Culture Matters show aired last week. People could watch me every night at 6:30 p.m., then again the next day around noon.

Finally, this past Sunday, someone recognized me on the street. It was someone I already knew, though -- Megan Shank, an editor at the Chinese edition of Newsweek. People at my kids' school saw it, though -- the producers of the show came to my house for some background footage and filmed my kids playing their instruments -- the guitar and the violin. They also showed by son, Basil, making a salad.

The producers tell me that they'll be posting the show online soon. Then the kids will be really famous - I'm sure they can't wait.

Meanwhile, one of my fellow guests -- famous Shanghai blogger Wang Jian Shuo - wrote about the experience of being on the show. If you scroll down through his post, you'll see a couple of photos of me with my hair down.

The show's stylists brushed it out (it's normally a little wavy). I've decided to trust the experts -- I now wear my hair this way for all public speaking occasions.

I just wish I'd known we were going to film five days worth of show all at once -- I would have brought some changes of clothes with me. Instead, it looks as though I only own one shirt.

I'm a geek at heart. I'd rather spent a day at a computer store than clothes shopping, but I do own more than one shirt. But not too much more. Today, I promised my business manager that I'll buy more clothes.

This is what's known as a "geek tragedy" -- having to go clothes shopping.

Riding the elephant

I took some time away from work to see some elephants, as long as I was in Thailand. I was with Tim Phillips, editor of Petfood Industry magazine, and Julie Lezner Kirk, an expert on petfood safety and traceability, who also spoke at the conference.

This is a picture of me riding an elephant. In this shot, I'm behind a waterfall.

Speaking in Bangkok

Today I gave a talk about global and Asian petfood industry trends at a conference in Bangkok. One of our clients is Petfood Industry magazine, and we've been covering the melanine-laced petfood scandal since it broke last summer. If you forgot, hundreds of dogs and cats were killed or sickened by petfood made with wheat gluten and other fillers that were laced with melanine, a chemical that makes it appear that the filler has higher protein content than it really does. Melanine is normally harmless, but can be poisonous when mixed with certain other ingredients.

I love being up in front of large groups of people, and some of my presentation was video taped. I'll be posting it later, if I ever get a copy.

Should you be a writer or an editor?

A beginning freelancer asked me today whether he should be a writer or an editor -- and whether he could do both.

At the end of the conversation, he decided what he wanted to do, but I've heard the question several times, so I'll post my answer here.

Editing and writing are two completely different jobs, and appeal to different types of people. Sure, they both involve words, and grammar. But that's about it for similarities.

Before you decide what you want to do, ask yourself a few questions.

Do you like finding things out?

Finding things out -- and tracking down the right people who know those things -- is one of the fun things about being a reporter. Editors, for the most part, sit back while someone else has all the fun. If you agree with this, then you probably won't be happy sitting on the editing desk.

Do you like helping people and watching them grow?

Editors get to teach writers, train them, mold them in the publication's preferred image. If you enjoy watching people develop their professional skills, if you have patience with newcomers, then you'll probably enjoy editing. But if you're the kind of person who can't tolerate stupidity and incompetence, if you get frustrated when people don't listen to you and don't do what they tell you, if you get sick and tired when people make the same mistake over and over again, then maybe you won't be happy as an editor.

Do you like seeing your name in print?

Writers get to take credit for their work. Editors are named on the masthead, in an acknowledgments section, or, if they're lucky, in an "edited by" credit at the bottom of an article. If that's too much anonymity for you, and you get upset when other people get credit for all your hard work, then editing might not be for you.

Do you like doing something different every day?

Reporters are encouraged to try new things -- track down new story ideas, talk to new people, experiment with their writing. Editors are supposed to take all this experimentation and mold it down into something that will fit in the publication. An editor's job is pretty much the same, day to day. Yell at writers for missing deadlines. Clean up style and grammar. Yell at writers some more. Work on story budgets and other administrative tasks. Yell at some more writers. If you like predictability, be an editor. If you like variety, be a writer.

Are you a big picture person or a detail guy?

A writer gets to look at a mass of confusing information, interview transcripts and research notes and distill it into a coherent idea that ties everything together -- then writes that idea up into a coherent narrative that flows smoothly from point to point, making things ever clear and more understandable to the reader. An editor takes this finished masterpiece and pokes holes in it, looking for every place where the argument doesn't hang together, where the paragraphs are too long, where the sentences are too awkward, where the commas are misplaced, and where names are misspelled. Only you know whether you are frustrated in the details -- or find your calling in them.

Are you a team player or a loner?

Reporters are, for the most part, lone wolves. They go out on the hunt, and bring back the story. Editors spend their time working with others -- with writers, with other editors, with their bosses. Editors have to nurture the writers they work with, massage their egos. Writers do, occasionally, have to be nice to sources -- but only long enough to get the interview. They're allowed to -- even encouraged to -- savage those same sources in print.

Are you shy or outgoing?

Editors do have to work well with others, but they are not required to have a large, aggressive personality. They can by shy and polite and do very well. Reporters, on the other hand, are supposed to get out there and push everyone else aside so they can get the story. A shy reporter isn't going to last long.

Plenty of people make the jump from reporter to editor -- and vice versa. Often, however, it's a painful process and many wind up going back when they discover their personality isn't suited for the new job.

Others stick it out, in misery, because the need the job, the money, or the better working hours that they get as a result of the change.

But, if you are a writer, there are plenty of ways to advance in your career without becoming an editor.

They include:

• Moving to a larger market
• Writing books
• TV or radio appearances
• Getting an "editor" title while actually continuing a reporting job
• Becoming a columnist
• Writing your own newsletter

Cultural wars: the parent trap

Last Friday night, a bunch of us journalists slash bloggers slash entrepreneurs -- and, in Shanghai, who isn't these days? -- were sitting around talking about cultural differences.

We had a guy from a Chinese province who had moved to Shanghai, who was worried about taking care of his parents. A young guy who moved to Singapore, who was probably trying to get away from his parents. An older guy from Taiwan who had moved to the U.S. before moving to Shanghai and who was very concerned about taking care of parents well, and me, daughter of Russian immigrants, who was planning to be taking care of her parents someday.

The guy from Taiwan said that a big difference between Asia and the U.S. is that Asians care about their parents. He mentioned something about "family values."

Now, we all know that Americans are prone to stick their aged relatives in nursing homes at the drop of a hat -- the horror! The horror! I was mortified when my American inlaws put their grandmother in a nursing home. I volunteered to take care of her myself, just to avoid the shame and embarrassment to the family.

I think they thought I was crazy.

I finally figured out why on Friday night.

For older generations, brought up in times of economic hardship, children are their survival -- the family is who will take care of you when you're old, or sick, or need money, or need a job. It makes sense that my parents would turn to me first if they needed anything like that.

But I, who grew up in the U.S., have no memories of economic hardship -- and no economic worries about the future. Sure, I'm worried that the Social Security problems might cause me to postpone retirement, but given the voting strength of the elderly, it probably won't be postponed too much.

I don't depend on my children for my survival. The only reason for my family to exist is to fulfill our emotional needs. After all, even if the worst comes to pass, and my kids end up in foster care, they'll still get food, shelter, and clothing. I have to do better than that -- I have to make sure my kids are loved, and cared for, and appreciated, and nurtured.

When I'm old, I'm going to want a good, close relationship with my children. I want them to love and appreciate and nurture me. But I don't need them to wipe my chin if I drool. Instead, I plan to hire someone who loves wiping drool to do that for me.

After all, there are plenty of people who get a kick out of caring for others. Doctors. Nurses. Home health aides. And, since they're caring for strangers, they get to go home at the ends of their shifts and leave the worrying for the next guy who takes over.

Children -- even caring, compassionate children -- would be worrying around the clock. I don't want them to do that, even if my children do grow up to be doctors and nurses. Which they've already told me that they don't plan to do.

So when I grow old, I want my kids to visit. A lot. I want to see my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But I don't want them to have to physically take care of me, except to the extent that they want to, in order to help out.

So when it comes to the cultural divide, I'm straddling the economic barrier. On the one hand, I can understand where my parents are coming from -- and will do my part. My parents risked everything to get us to the United States. I owe them.

On the other hand, I've grown up trusting the broader society to take care of most of my physical needs. I'm comfortable with doctors, lawyers, police officers, bankers -- people and institutions that my parents are extremely wary of. I'd rather put my life in the hands of trained professionals than caring amateurs.

It's not a cultural divide. I share my parents' culture. I am shocked by how Americans treat the elderly.

But when I get older, I want to be treated American-style. Loved by my family. Kept alive by the pros.

Signing off in Shanghai,

Maria

International Channel Shanghai in my house

As I type this, a crew from the International Channel Shanghai is here at my house filming me blogging.

It's for a program on blogging that will run in the middle of March.

They taped five shows the day before yesterday, Friday, at their studio, but for some reason wanted to see me at home, and see my kids.

- Maria

Culture versus economics

As a business journalist, I'm a big believer in the power of economics. I'm also not a big fan of culture. Sure, it's fine when it comes to entertainment, but I don't trust culture as an explanation of behavior.

Many habits which are routinely attributed to culture can be better explained by economics. Take, for example, the issue of saving money. According to some people, saving money is a Asian cultural value, or a Chinese cultural value.

But saving money can also be attributed to economic forces -- recent economic problems, combined with current wealth and doubts about the future.

In the United States, we've seen high levels of savings after the Great Depression, for example, and with recent immigrants. My immigrant parents, for example, have a high propensity for saving money and being thrifty. I myself, having grown up in the United States, have no memory of hardship, and few doubts about my future earning potential. This creates a little bit of friction between me and my parents -- my mother routinely reminds me to save money and warns me not to waste it.

To some, this would be an example of the "cultural wars" between immigrant parents and their children. To me, it's just an example of the different economic realities in which we live.

Another example is career choice. My father was very concerned that I grow up to be an engineer. This is common for many immigrant parents -- as well as parents in China and India and other emerging economies. A couple of generations back, most American parents were very concerned about raising children to be white-collar professionals -- doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Personal fulfillment took a second seat compared to long-term income potential and career stability.

When I chose to drop out of the engineering program to follow my dream of being a writer, my parents were very concerned about the risks this career path involves.

In China, I also meet lots of young people pressured by their parents into careers that they don't want. This is often seen as an example of the Chinese cultural value of listening to your parents, or being conservative and not creative in making career choices. But if you go back to the United States in the 1950s -- not to mention the many examples of immigrant families like mine -- the same issues come up. How much risk is a person willing to take on?

I would say that children listen to their parents to about the same extent, regardless of whether they live, depending on how much of an economic impact their parents have on them. Today, in the United States, many parents tell their children to be happy -- to find a career that is fulfilling and rewarding, not just financially renumerative.

This brings me to yet another value that is often ascribed to culture -- the relative importance of personal happiness compared to family commitments.

Again, I feel that the basic issue is economic -- when the family is the primary economic unit, it makes sense to protect it at all costs. In underdeveloped countries, the family takes care of the sick and elderly, protects its members from physical violence, provides career training to children, feeds and clothes its members, provides work, and provides money. In a developed country, governments and private pensions take care of retirement, doctors and hospitals take care of the ill, police departments protect citizens against violence, schools and colleges provide career training, banks lend money, and restaurants and delivery services provide all the food that anyone would want, at any price point.

In a developed country, the role of the family is to provide emotional support -- to ensure that its members are happy and loved.

It makes sense for people in a developed country to ignore the wishes of a family that is pressuring them to do something that would make them unhappy -- including adopting a boring career, or marrying someone they don't love.

In an underdeveloped country, it makes sense to put personal fulfillment aside to take care of more pressing needs for physical and financial security.

In China, as with immigrant families in the US and Europe, the economic reality is changing very quickly -- and personal behavior is changing to keep up.

Ascribing the changing behaviors to changing cultural norms is a mistake, and often results in absurd reactions such as blaming US movies, music and television for the "declining cultural values."

The three stages of China consultants

This weekend, a friend asked me to tell him all I knew about consultants in China -- but to tell it quickly, since he didn't have much time.
My initial thought was to list all the consultants I knew. Management consultants. Business strategy consultants. Market entry consultants. Sourcing consultants. Quality consultants. Engineering consultants. Financial consultants. Human resources consultants. Marketing consultants. If there's a question you have about China, there's a whole consulting industry dedicated to helping you.
Then I suggested that he first check to see how long a particular consultant's been around. In general, a good rule of thumb is that the longer a company has been in business, the more likely it is to be offering something of value.
But then I thought about some of the oldest China hands I know, and I rethought my position.
The thing about China that makes it different from other places -- and what makes it more exciting -- is the rapid pace of growth here.
But as a result, some of the normal rules of business don't apply.
The people who were here doing business twenty years ago are not necessarily the people you need today.

THE WILD WEST CONSULTANT

I know a few guys who were among the first people to come to China. Some adapted with the times, and became very successful, running profitable businesses. Many did not, and are still trapped in the "Wild West" mindset. They see themselves as explorers, risk-takers and rule-breakers. They often go native, marrying Chinese women - or men, learning the language, studying the history and culture. They make much of their personal contacts and connections.

In the big cities, they've become mostly marginalized, hanging out in expat bars and telling stories of the old days. But in smaller cities, where foreign investors are just starting to come in, they may still be influential.

One such consultant even recommends in a book he wrote that foreign businessmen looking to find good local contacts should check out the expat bars.

I have to admit, I love these guys. They tell the best stories. But rather than going to the bars to find a consultant, foreign businesses are probably better off checking with their Chamber of Commerce representative or the city's economic development officials.

THE GOLD RUSH CONSULTANT

Unlike the Wild West consultant, who prides himself or herself on deep local knowledge and connections, the Gold Rush consultants think they're going to strike it rich just by showing up. They learn just enough Chinese to get by, and if they marry a Chinese spouse, it's more often than not a trophy marriage, with English the predominant language spoken at home.

The Gold Rush consultant is likely to have better business skills than the Wild West consultant, but the get-rich-quick mind set isn't very conducive to long-term success. This consultant may also be found in bars, but he or she is wheeling and dealing, not telling long stories of the good old days. Like the Internet dot-commers of a decade ago, these guys are looking for the big score, and often have no patience for the slow daily grind of real business.

In my experience, the Wild West and the Gold Rush guys have little to do with one another. The Wild West guys have no respect for the newcomers, who they think are here just to make a quick buck and have no real interest in China. The Gold Rush guys think the old-timers are crazy old coots. Both might well be right.

THE GROWN-UPS

At some point, even the successful Internet start-ups had to hire grownups to actually run the companies. The Internet was no longer uncharted territory, or a gold mine -- it was just business.

Today, so is China. Just business. In business relationships what counts more and more is the ability to deliver. A friendship might get you in the door, and a good sales pitch might get you that first deal, but in long term what counts is execution. And to do execution right takes serious business skill. For today's new breed of consultants, China might as well be any other country. Meg Whitman came to run eBay after a successful career in traditional retail companies. People used to say that the Internet changed everything -- and then they realized that it didn't.

China has followed a similar path as many other countries and industries and has now become just another global player. A significant global player, yes, but operating under the same rules as everyone else. It's the grown-ups turn now.

The Joys of Being Sued

Frivolous lawsuits are one of the banes of Western corporate life. Lawsuit artists walk through stores looking for puddles to slip in, sue restaurants for the coffee being too hot -- even sue people who try to save their lives during disasters.
The lawsuit artists -- and the lawyers who serve them -- are considered the bottom feeders, the carrion birds of civilized society.
But, like vultures and maggots, they also serve a useful purpose. They have a nose for rotting meat.
In some cases, they go too far, and eat live flesh. In the case of Good Samaritans, for example, there are now laws in many jurisdictions protecting people who make a good faith effort to help others in emergency situations.
But take the example of the $2.7 million lawsuit against McDonald's alleging that the coffee was too hot. It's widely considered the poster child of frivolous lawsuits. But the facts of the case – including massive third-degree burns, eight days of hospitalization, and skin grafts that the victim suffered demonstrate that there was actual substance to the case. In addition, McDonald's produced documents demonstrating over 700 similar complaints. The company also admitted that it maintained coffee temperatures at dangerous levels, higher than other restaurants, despite the fact that it knew that many of its customers would drink the coffee immediately after purchase -- or in cars, when buying at drive-throughs.
The final amount of the settlement was eventually reduced a bit on appeal, but the main consequence of the case is that McDonald's reduced the temperature of its coffee so that it would no longer scald its customers.
One breed of lawsuit artist is the slip-and-fall conman or conwoman. They trawl retail locations looking for wet floors or cracks in cement, then sue the parties responsible.
As a result, the phrase "clean up in aisle six" has become a common refrain for the public announcement systems in supermarkets and department stores around the world.
But here, too, these lawsuits serve a social purpose. For every conman who slips and falls and sues the company for a trumped-up claim, there's now a store that monitors its floors with a keen eye – and any number of real little old ladies are not slipping and breaking their hips.
When I lived in Moscow ten years ago -- again, I'm not commenting about China here -- winters were a nightmare for little old ladies. My neighbors were virtually housebound all winter, since all sidewalks and streets were permanently covered with ice. It was common to find open manhole covers, unfenced construction sites -- and don't even get me started on medical malpractice.
The general feeling was that if you fell down a manhole, it was your own fault for not watching where you were going. So people watched where they walked. This meant that you did not want to walk around at night, or while drunk, or even while engrossed in conversation with a friend.
Civil lawsuits, in the long run, protect consumers.
But, these lawsuits, even frivolous ones, can also protect companies.
A lawsuit might expose staffing problems or safety issues or management malpractice.
A frivolous lawsuit is usually easier to deal with -- since the case has no actual merits, the lawsuit artists is often willing to settle for a small settlement. But it also exposes problems that could lead to a larger, potentially more significant lawsuit in the future.
For example, an employee who sues over wrongful termination may expose a problem with dispute resolution at a company, and may inspire a firm to include a process for mediation in its employment contracts, and, perhaps, a provision for binding third-party arbitration in case of problems that would otherwise go to court.
Lawsuit artists go after low-hanging fruit -- the companies who don't clean up their wet floors. They're an early harbinger of worse problems to come -- or an early warning bell for companies to clean up their acts.
In other words, if you're seeing vultures circling overhead, maybe it's time to get out of the desert and back to civilization.

Corporate Cultural Imperialism -- it's a Good Thing

The usual advice for new managers coming to China has been to adapt, and to learn to do things the Chinese way. Don't bring your expectations and standards to China, the old China hands say. The more time experts stay in China, the more likely they are to argue that China is a unique place, and managers need to understand Chinese cultural norms and mores in order to be effective.

I've always personally felt the opposite -- that international management standards are international standards for a reason, and the more closely a manager adheres to principles used elsewhere, the better off he or she will be.

As far as I am concerned, local management practices are mostly irrelevant -- unless it has to do with legal issues, such as labor contract law or government-mandated holidays.

I used to think I was alone. But now there's new research to support my point of view.

According to a report released by the UK-based Economic and Social Research Council last week (Jan. 18), foreign multinational retailers entering the Chinese market should "keep largely to their own, time-tested management techniques."

The researcher, University of London professor Jos Gamble, interviewed management and staff in eight Chinese cities, in both English and Chinese. His peer-reviewed study included more than 400 interviews with store workers and managers in 22 companies and 2,200 survey questionnaires.

Foreign organizations can provide workers with significant opportunities to prosper and improve their skills, he reported.

He offered the example of Japanese retailing firms, which are very prescriptive and detailed in the customer-relations training they provide to employees.
"The Japanese approach to customer service was particularly innovative in the Chinese context," he said. "Whilst, initially, local customer response was quite negative, it rapidly achieved acceptance as a form of best practice."
He also reported high levels of satisfaction about foreign retailers' human resources methods, even when it came to staff employed in menial or dead-end jobs, he said. Workers reported that even these jobs provided learning opportunities.
"All the evidence suggests that, whilst it may be necessary to adapt to some extent to local conditions, time-tested management practices actually translate well across cultures," he said.
I couldn't agree more.

Many Chinese workers have told me that one reason that they want to work for a foreign company is to learn the international ways of doings things.

I don't blame them. International companies are globally competitive. Compared to domestic firms in China -- or anywhere else for that matter -- they are more likely to encourage open discussion and internal criticism of plans, and hold people accountable to higher ethical and business standards. Good international firms reward people for ability and results, encourage risk-taking and innovation, and focus more on market performance than politics.

Back when I worked in Russia for an major international news organization, I heard from managers that they preferred to keep their bureau chiefs in country for nor more than a couple of years at a time -- any longer, and the bureau chief would start to lose the connection to core corporate culture.

I'm not commenting on the Chinese media environment here, but in Russia in the mid-90s it was common for local journalists to copy information and quotes from local media and use the material verbatim, unattributed, in their reports. Journalists regularly received payments from sources for favorable publicity and ran articles favorable to local officials in order to ensure continued access.

News organizations have problems overseeing their foreign correspondents -- editors in New York or Washington DC are unable to fact-check or manage these correspondents effectively. They rarely have the language skills or access to source materials that would enable them to catch plagiarism, or the contacts with sources that would ensure accurate reporting. They have to rely almost completely on what the foreign correspondents produce.

I knew a couple of foreign bureau chiefs who adapted remarkably well to local conditions. Lifting stories from local press meant shorter working hours. The lack of enterprise reporting was explained away by the fact that they were in Russia -- and reporting was difficult and dangerous. Some of this was actually true -- but managers back home had little way of differentiating laziness from actual problems on the ground.

As a general rule of thumb, the longer a journalist was on the ground, far from the competitive US journalism environment, the more their coverage suffered.

Now, I'm not going to speculate about whether this happens in China or not. As a matter of policy, our publication does not comment on media issues.

But I can say that the struggle against slipping standards is universal in all emerging economies -- and, in fact, everywhere in the world. Whenever a company is best in class, its peers are going to be behind. And the weight of all those average companies will drag on the top performers.

In mathematics, this is known as "reverting to the mean." In common terms, it's simply, "that's how everyone does it."

Fighting against this tendency is a necessity for any high-performing company. When the prevailing practices are even farther behind, as in emerging economies, it only gets more difficult -- but no less necessary.

Movie industry opens up

Thursday night, I witnessed the birth of an industry -- the foreign-made Chinese movie business.

In the United States, we don't think twice about foreigners making English-language movies for American distribution. In fact, some of our greatest producers and directors have been foreigners, and two of our biggest studios are owned by Japanese and French companies, Sony and Vivendi.

In China however, until now, all Chinese movies produced domestically have been made by Chinese companies.

Until now.

In March, China Venture Film's drama "Milk and Fashion" is expected to hit theaters around China. In it, former "Growing Pains" child star Jeremy Miller is the uncle of a young boy, played by Rothstein's 17-year-old son Kyle Rothstein, in a coming-of-age story about ballet and fashion. The movie is filmed in Chinese, with even the Western actors speaking the language (except for Miller). Kyle Rothstein not only speaks Chinese in the movie -- he's been studying the language since he was a small boy -- but also ballet dances.

The movie also stars Hollywood actress Vanessa Branch, known in the U.S. as the smiling British-accented blonde in the Orbit gum commercials. She also played the woman who slapped Johnny Depp in all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. She speaks Chinese throughout the movie, and, in fact, is currently acting in the Chinese drama "Border of Love," filming now.

The movie is set in Shanghai and in rural Yunnan province and was made for just $1.35 million. Jay Rothstein estimates that it would have cost over $8 million to make the same move in the U.S.

It wasn't easy to get the movie made, he admits, but it was a labor of love for Rothstein. For example, getting government approval to distribute in China took six months - the final go-ahead came two weeks ago.

It was a true multi-national effort. In addition to Rothstein, who is American, the film was backed by a Japanese investor and by China's Yunnan Film Studio. The actors were American, Dutch, British, Chinese, and other nationalities, while the director, Roy Chin, hails from Taiwan.

I first met Rothstein and his family four years ago, and he was already talking about the movie. The script has gone through several revisions, and the launch date has been postponed more than once.

It took a lot of commitment to get the movie made, Rothstein told me. A good sense of humor about the process probably didn't hurt, either.

"Milk and Fashion" demonstrates that it doesn't take a big budget, or a big-name producer, to do ground-breaking work in China. Sometimes, all it takes is a man and a screenplay.

Labor Law Losers

A new labor law went into effect at the start of the year, making it more difficult -- and expensive --to fire employees. The law also specifies increased additional costs to employers, including minimum wages, overtime and benefits payments.

According to the Associated Press , Dongguan’s Taiwan Merchant Association reports that that the cost of doing business in China will rise by as much as 20 to 40 percent.

Calvin Chang, general manager of Shenzhen’s Jinghua China Investment Consulting, told Reuters that he expects labor costs to rise by 8 percent as a result of the law. He predicted that companies may move operations further inland in order to remain competitive.

There have been massive labor abuses in China. The brick-making slavery scandal was the worst of all those which have come to light this year, but there were also widespread reports of non-payment of wages, forced overtime, child labor, and other abuses.

But passing a law is one thing – implementing it is something else entirely. Many of Chinese laws, including guidelines about minimum wages, are frequently ignored. As the slavery scandal illustrates, local corruption and loose enforcement can make even the worst abuses possible.

There are two major problems with this law. One is the lack of detailed implementation processes. The other is selective enforcement.

Some companies feel that they can get away with flouting labor laws because of their geographic locations, importance to the local economies, or relationships with officials or enforcement authorities. And if a law is not well written, companies will try to find loopholes to get around the law.

Many companies, for example, spent the last months of 2007 forcing long-time employees to sign new contracts – or temporarily laying them off – in order to evade some of the requirements of the new law.

Finally, regulators may have overlooked one of the most basic laws of all – the law of unintended consequences.

If a law specifies special protections with employees who have stayed with an employer for at least ten years, then that creates incentives for employers to file marginal employees just before that magic number is hit.

In effect, the law will hurt those very employees that it was designed to protect.

Finally, some companies may leave China altogether – and the loss of jobs will be the worst blow to labor.

One of the best advantages that China had, in the battle for economic growth, has been that the government has been mostly immune to popular political pressures.

There are times when a government must step in and protect the rights of its citizens, and create an even playing field for all businesses.

But when a government leans too heavily towards protecting the rights of workers – as some European countries have done – the result is economic stagnation. Companies become reluctant to hire staff if they know it’s going to be difficult to fire them later. Constrains on working conditions and overtime hours can be over-protective – hindering innovation and competitiveness.

Passing a new labor law is a high-profile act that will help appease a nation of laborers toiling under unjust conditions. It is a more popular alternative than making small, incremental steps towards better enforcement of existing laws.

Unfortunately, the companies most likely to comply fully with the new law are foreign-owned export-oriented manufacturing firms. They are the first to come under the scrutiny of both local regulators and foreign activities. But these are companies that often offer the best jobs, and the best working conditions, and help build China’s export base.

These companies are also the most price sensitive – they came to China because of low labor costs.

Where will they go next?

The new law is creating an opening for other emerging countries to step forward. It is also creating more opportunities for China’s second- and third-tier cities to compete for this business.

Personality Profiling

There are many first-time entrepreneurs in China -- in many respects, Shanghai is now what Silicon Valley used to be at the height of the dot-com boom.
As a result, there are many seminars on how to actually go about starting up a business, and I try to make it to as many as I can.
One of the more valuable pieces of information I've picked up has been about using personality testing to identify core strengths among senior staffers.
In China, these tests can be particularly useful because certain personal characteristics sometimes don't translate well across cultures.
For example, last summer I hired a Canadian manager to help run China operations and do some marketing. He was an outgoing, upbeat person -- especially compared to Chinese staffers. I was surprised when he spent most of his time on busy work, such as producing a very detailed -- and universally unread -- employee manual.
It's nice to have policies in place, but the weeks of effort could have been reduced to a page of bullet points and a staff conference.
Marketing was nonexistent, employees were not managed, and a whole month of sales calls resulted in not a single sale.
On paper, based on his resume and educational background, he seemed perfect for the job. The problem became apparent shortly thereafter, after I had all my employees take an online Myers Briggs Personality test from Similar Minds. I like this one because it doesn't just tell you that you're an extrovert or introvert -- it tells you how far along you are on the continuum.
My employee was very much on the extreme extrovert side of the divide. He was also more detail-oriented and practical -- "sensing" -- as opposed to creative and visionary -- "intuitive."
In other words, he had the exact opposite personality type than that best suited for sales.
The fact that he was in China made him look outgoing by comparison to my other staffers, who had spent years in the Chinese educational system learning to be quiet and inconspicuous. He also looked like a visionary compared to people forced to channel all their energies into rote memorization rather than creativity.
But when push came to shove, he reverted to type -- focusing on minute details, and working by himself at his computer.
One interesting application of this test is spelled out by frequent visitor and speaker Roger Hamilton, author of "Your Life, Your Legacy." Hamilton takes the basic Byers Briggs test and applies it to the question of entrepreneurship. For example, if you're an extreme introvert, but highly creative, you may want to follow in the footsteps of entrepreneurs like Ray Crok, who created the McDonald's system. If you're highly creative, but halfway along the extrovert-introvert axis, you might want to follow in the footsteps of people who create businesses, like Bill Gates. Hamilton identifies eight basic types (he ignores the one where a person is in the middle along both axes). My own type is heavily extroverted, but about halfway between the practical and the creative -- well, a little on the creative side. According to Hamilton, that puts me in the same neighborhood as Jack Welch -- someone who is good at managing companies.
Another personality test offered by a recent visitor to China was based on spending patterns. According to Ted Prince, author of The Three Financial Styles of Very Successful Leaders, the best manager can come up with innovations, but hates to spend money. The worst business leader, he says, is one who is conservative about innovating, but spends money like there's no tomorrow. That guy is likely to quickly drive a company into the ground. My business manager (who is extremely practical) prefers saving money to spending it, and will negotiate deals and contracts down to the last penny. She is also conservative about change -- she wants to see a good case spelled out first. I, on the other hand, will readily spend money on anything and everything -- and am always ready to try new things, start new companies, and embrace new management fads. Most people however, fall somewhere along the diagonal, he says -- they're either conservative on both counts, or are both innovative and free-spending. These companies will always be struggling to balance growth and spending.
Here, again, cultural differences may mask personality differences. China is a nation of savers. But people who save money out of necessity in their personal life, may turn out to be big spenders when under the pressure of running a company. Under stress, or at times of change, people are most likely to revert back to their core personality types, Prince says.
Personality testing is not a complete solution to cultural differences, of course. But in companies like mine, where major personality aspects can be hidden by cultural backgrounds, personality testing can be a useful tool to uncover mismatches between employees and their responsibilities -- or shed light on underlying causes of conflict.