It started last week with Winston Peters and his “Super City of Sin“. That was somewhat predictable, however Henry van der Heyden’s “never ever trust the Chinese” remark really caused.

We should expect nothing different from Mr. Peters, who is playing to form. However he did spark a call on Facebook for a class action defamation lawsuit. 

However, Henry van der Heyden’s remark, which became the only thing people remembered from his speech, caused consternation among netizens. The weibo conversation below sums up the variety of feelings around the issue:

Bevan Chuang started the ball rolling by posting a link to the story as part of her regular TV slot. 

Sammie responded by saying, “A ‘Sir’ and a ‘Right Honorable’ saying these things, that’s a lot of trouble!” 

Bevan came back saying, “New Zealanders and the Chinese community are used to ignoring Winston Peters, but this comment from Henry van der Heyden is hard to believe!”

Then “Manchester United White” (with the Alex Fergusson avatar) forwarded the conversation, adding this gem:

“Yes. Don’t trust the Chinese. Instead, it’d be safer to be isolated among South Pacific nations selling coconut juice to each other. By the way, Australia is also really poor.” 

—

The news story on Chinese news site SkyKiwi.com attracted a wide range of comments, some similar to those above, while others defended van der Heyden as being misrepresented. That story was read by almost 9000 people, here in New Zealand, and back in China.

New Zealand Inc, it seems the ball is in our court to get better at our communication. 

Many conferences present only the success stories, but the winners of the World Class New Zealander Awards gave us some stories from the bottom of the roller coaster.

My favourite “success” story was Dr. Doug Cleverly (a perfect name for a self-proclaimed mad scientist!) narrating his company’s survival of the Global Financial Crisis. Survival is the key word, and Doug was very frank about things he could have done better.

As a business owner, I love stories like that. Because I’m far from perfect. I don’t make perfect decisions, and so I love to hear others admit their weaknesses. Ironically, it gives me a lot of confidence in that person. 

Other highlights:

• David Slack‘s MCing … consummate professionalism.
• Rob Fyfe’s Q&A session, where he double triple quadruple confirmed what I know and often forget – a leader’s job is 100% communication. 
• Geraldine McBride’s inkling about NZ’s raw energy, the sense we’re about to wreak something on the world, and our “disobedient thinking” has something to do with it
• Dr Sean Simpson’s raw energy and (again!) self-deprecating wit, as well as the amazing things that Lanzatech is doing in the energy sector.
• Annabel Langbein’s humility mixed with iron will, her startup stories, the importance of a cause that you believe in, and the interesting news that it never gets easier… 
• Wayne Norrie’s excellent presentation on 6 things NZ businesses need. Boiled down, the common theme was open eyes and ears. Looking and listening to the market, from all angles.

The guys from 90minutes interviewed me (I’ll post the link here when it’s up), and this blog post is my attempt to say what I remember about 90 seconds after being interviewed.  

Did you go to Inspire Auckland (or view the live stream)? What were your top takeaways?

Zach Klein via Compfight

When I attended the NZTE’s Food & Beverage workshop last week, I remembered what every event used to be like for me. 

Events used to be a chance to collect, categorise, reflect and make useful the information and insights I’d gathered.

Many of the posts on this blog are results of events I attended, conversations I had, ideas that came from those conversations. 

And somehow, over the last few years, the blogging instinct dried up. Maybe it was through a period of being too busy, or maybe it was learning too much from risk-averse clients (I’m supposed to be influencing them, not the other way around!), or maybe it was just writer’s block.

But in working with clients – and myself – I’m relearning what it is that makes blogs special. I’ve written about blogging before, but here are my latest revelations:

• Bullet points are ok. Yes, longer is usually better, but don’t be afraid to jot down your thoughts. You’ll be surprised who will find them valuable.
• Give us facts, and your opinion. Facts are great, and conference presentations are a great time to pull out little “did you know” facts. That’s great, but also give us your opinion on what the facts mean. Even if we don’t agree, we’ll have more context to think about the facts.
• Whoever comments becomes the expert. As a journalist, and later as a blogger, I discovered this to be true. The very fact that you comment in public, consistently, means you are positioned as someone who knows what they’re talking about (even if you don’t). 
• Practice good writing usability. This means short words, short sentences, headings and subheadings, and lists to make the whole piece easier to skim read. Because people don’t read online, they skim. 
• Prime the pump. Short of ideas? Or overwhelmed with ideas that need more time? Just do something. For example, this post is a kick in the pants that I needed. And you get the benefit of the end result. 

I did a blogging workshop last year, and the wonderful Eve Shepherd wrote up her outtakes from it. 

Yesterday I attended NZTE‘s China Food & Beverage Roadshow in Auckland, part of a nationwide roadshow for one of NZ’s top export industries. 

Here are some of my personal highlights: 

• Social media is one of the most important and cost-effective ways for kiwi exporters to make a direct connection with their market. And yet, not many kiwi companies are taking up the opportunity.

• Agility is very important for operating in China. And agility is not the same as raw speed. You need to be rapidly responsive, but you also need to plan well. This may seem like a contradiction in terms, but as Glen Murphy quoted, “An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.” 

• The NZ-China Free Trade Agreement is a great advantage, but it’s not always simple. My quote for the day came from MFAT‘s Steve McCombie, when asked if there was a single, simple point of contact for any Free Trade Agreement issues, said “it’s like trying to put a jellyfish in a pigeonhole, it’s just not going to fit.” This is true not only for FTA issues, but pretty much everything related to doing business in the People’s Republic. 

• And, as we’ve been saying for quite a while, personal branding is big. NZTE’s social media outreach is through consulting chefs like Jason Cui. While he weibo’s from NZTE’s official brand account, the voice is distinctly his own, and carries the passion for great multicultural food that he shared with us yesterday. 

If you were there, what did you take out of it? If you’re in the food & beverage industry, and looking to China, what’s keeping you up at night?

Update: NZTE has released a highlights video of the event

Click here to view the embedded video.

Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures and the next event is no exception. 80 bright young stars will be turning their minds and immense creative energy to the task at the Team Emirates NZ building in the Viaduct. They will be supported and mentored by some of New Zealands finest and the winners will enjoy high profile exposure and ongoing resources to get their businesses off the ground. We’re especially excited that this year has the highest proportion of female entrepreneurs taking part. 

The teams will be coached in the use of the latest frameworks such as Lean Start-up and the importance of Customer Discovery (which got us thinking).  

We’d like to share a framework that we have been developing for using Social Media which could prove invaluable to a smart team wanting to get the most out of their Customer Discovery stages.  We call it FACE and it takes elements of inbound marketing and scrum practices to help marketing teams rapidly get into synch with their customers.

Here’s a brief overview:

• FIND: Use monitoring software to find conversations, influencers and hot topics. We use platforms and services like Google Analytics, JamiQ, Oracle SRM and Radian6 but there are many others. This is especially important for start-ups that may inadvertently be re-inventing the wheel.

• ATTRACT: Create content (blogs, videos, images, etc.) that’s interesting and relevant. This is currency with which you earn trust… and trust is what you need in order to evolve your business idea with high-quality feedback. 

• CONVERT: Create measurable calls to action (e.g. polls, downloads, email signups, etc.) that indicate engagement and intent to purchase. We recommend using split A/B testing and other social experiments to make sure your idea/service is hitting a felt need. Very important for true Customer Development

• ENGAGE: provide customer service and build a community – so our community become the marketers for our brand. This is especially important from the outset as many early adopters like to wear their involvement as a badge and often become strong advocates later on.

We’ve found that this framework is particularly effective as a continuos feedback loop that can scale and complement most new ventures. I’d be very interested to hear how the teams were able to use social media to develop their ideas.

This video recaps the key insights from the session.  Enjoy

Topic: Agile Thinking for Governance.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The rules of business have changed… Markets are getting less predictable… Customers are demanding more realtime engagement… The corporate veils are getting more transparent and the workforce is evolving. All of these factors are making business and governance increasingly complex. The demand for vision, agility and leadership could not be greater but not in the way you might think.

The event also received some media coverage in Unlimited Magazine

The session’s over but not the conversation…  what are your thoughts on the role that governance plays in promoting business agility?

I had a few proof points of this on my recent trip to China, for example:

• One Shanghai company now has an “official Taobao policy” that staff must sign for their own courier packages. The business owner I spoke with said every day there were many packages delivered to his office, all for staff who were using Taobao for shopping.
• When I needed to buy a new suitcase, I turned to my online community on Sina Weibo. The overwhelming answer was, buy it online. High street retail was seen as too expensive. 
• Two other conversations I had suggested that, for clothing and some foodstuffs, online was the way to go. 
• 70% of China’s ecommerce market is C2C – consumer-to-consumer (think of western sites like Ebay and Trademe). This is a good analogy to what you’ll find on the streets of any Chinese city – alongside the high street retail stores, you’ll also find dozens of roadside stands selling anything from tofu sausages to socks to suitcases. 

So, what does this mean for anyone launching a new product into China? 

Real-world retail isn’t dead yet. But online retail is becoming an important credibility point. Particularly if your product is new, people will go online to see if your brand is being sold there. What will they find?

Some of my 网友 (online friends) meeting in real life. I had dinners like this in Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai.

Greetings from the syENGAGE HQ in Auckland, New Zealand. I’m back after spending just over 2 weeks in 5 cities in China, and I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences here.

My main reason for going to China was to speak at the British Council’s East Asia Education Agents Conference, alongside Sam Flemming of CIC. I’ll do a separate blog post on that later.

While in China, I had several other goals:

• Talk to some key contacts I’d identified who were part of “NZ Inc”‘s presence in China
• Get closer to the social media scene in China – including conversations with the two tech giants, Tencent and Sina, and leading agencies
• Meet some of the online friends I’ve made in the 2 years since I’ve immersed myself in Chinese social media. This was by far the most fun part of the trip!

Apart from  4 days at the Hilton Tianhe in Guangzhou, I spent the rest of my trip staying with friends I’d made on the internet. I’ve been deeply touched by the generosity, warmth and friendship I’ve discovered online.

So, stand by for some insights into both business and culture in the People’s Republic.

Meanwhile, I’d love to know what you want to know about China? Let me know in the comments below.  

Fetch what?

NZ Herald gave us a call this morning to ask about a recent research report (by 33across.com) that looks at the sharing behaviours for social media content (Click here for the article). For those who don’t know what this means, it’s those (sometimes) annoying things that get shared with you on Facebook or Twitter and then get passed on to your online network. What’s different about this study is that it aimed to track the number of clicks that a shared item got after it was received.  For instance if I shared a link to an article  and my friend clicks the link that would count as one click-back.  

 The results were fascinating… it turns out that people do unexpected things when it comes to sharing items on social media.  People tend to share fact-based content more readily than non-fact based stuff (such as funny memes) however the click-backs tend to happen more readily with the non-fact based shares.  The report details three types of sharing: ego sharing, practical sharing and water-cooler sharing.

Ego sharing:

The report suggests that these items tend to be shared as a way of showing off.  Ego sharing tends to be fact-based like infographics or blog articles.  It’s suggested that these types of ‘shares’ are really a way of signalling who you are to peers in order to enhance standing.  The surprising thing is that of the wide range of items tracked in the study it seems the fact-based items enjoy the lowest ‘click back’ rates.  

Practical sharing:

“How to” articles are unsurprisingly good performers when it comes to sharing online especially in picture form.  The maker movement , up-cycling and recycling craze seems to be fueling this kind of popularity and (as a bit of a tangent) could be reshaping the way manufacturers think about ‘innovation’. Traditionally it was up to the product designers and engineers to find novel features for products and in this way drive innovation however it appears the tables have turned. It seems the ‘empowered consumer’ is taking far more of an active role in finding new and novel uses for products. E.g. Microsoft Kinect.

Another really good example of this trend is the popularity of the ‘DIY and Crafts” section of Pinterest.com.

Water-cooler sharing:

 Funny meme’s are the most prolific example of this type of sharing however these items don’t get shared nearly as much as you might think. The study revealed that these types of items were shared less than 5% of the time however, not surprisingly, these items enjoyed high click-back rates.  Here are a few sources if you’ve got some time to kill:

http://www.memehumor.com/index.php/ffffuuuu/79-random-funny-meme-pics/

http://www.memecenter.com/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-40-best-memes-of-2011 

In conclusion… 

There’s probably a link between the click-back rate and the amount of effort it’ll take a recipient to digest it’s meaning.  The more effort required the lower the click-back rate however it’s more likely to be shared. Go figure…  This study also highlights what Freud and the primatologists have no doubt been telling us for a while… People have ego’s and they really care about how they are perceived.  A cautionary tale for those who tend to share without actually pre-reading or vetting the items they share, (by the way, I am totally guilty of this ;-D), the impression people actually get from this may not be what you expect.

Sharon Mollerus via Compfight

How fast can a tank go? 

Fast enough to win the beginning of a war.

After the end of World War I, the German army was basically reduced to zero. When they began to rebuild, they were able to do so with a fresh set of eyes.

One of the big innovations of World War I was the tank. Of course, the French and British had tanks as well. 

France, Britain and Germany all had access to the same technology – the tank. But because of tradition, the French and British saw tanks as simply, horses on wheels. 

The Germans, on the other hand, had a fresh perspective: a tank was a fast-moving war machine.

Both sides had the same tradition of footsoldiers first, followed by cavalry. 

But here’s the problem: footsoldiers move slowly. 

The British and French responded by slowing down the tanks. The  Germans responded by speeding up the soldiers, by putting them in vehicles and getting them into an area fast. And thus was born blitzkrieg - lightning war.

It caused the German army to be more responsive to their environment and able to take advantage of opportunities.

And that’s what we’re facing in marketing today.

As marketers and communicators, do we risk using new technologies with an old mindset?

 Social media was build for peers to connect and communicate with each other. It can handle broadcast, but it’s not using the technology to its best potential. 

And sometimes it’s not that we as marketers or communicators are old-fashioned or traditional. Sometimes forces within the organisations we work for make us try to fit old ideas into new possibilities.

What are some of the challenges that keep businesses from adopting a new mindset?