Responding To Opportunity

Since we have arrived in China we had the opportunity to eat all sorts of food and travel several ways. Each is an interesting and remarkable experience.

Chinese Food

Chinese food is not like what we eat in America. First of all, the Kung Pao chicken has bones in every piece of chicken. We asked our host if we are to eat the bones and their answer was that if it is too big, “no”…and if it is small, “yes.”

There is also a focus on seafood as that is the local specialty. The locals seem to like raw food whether it be fish, crab, eel, turtle, or some other disgusting creature.

We actually walked through our hotel buffet and heard a rooster “cock-a-doodle-doo” back in the kitchen. It was a little unsettling.

Travel

Traveling in China is a little different than in America. First of all, it is crowded and secondly it entails very poor conditions and hygiene.

We made our way from Shanghai to a final location by commuter train. We bought the most expensive ticket thinking it would be luxurious, but it was far from it. We slept in a small room with two sets of bunk beds. This meant we had two strangers sleeping in our little room. It worried us a bit, but we began to trust our guests a little more as the trip went on.

On the way back to Shanghai we took a commuter bus. It was $30 American and again we thought it would be luxury because it had beds instead of seats. In reality the beds were made for small people (sub 5′). I have not been so uncomfortable since the military. I think seats would have been more comfortable.

All things considered, it has been a very adventurous trip full of stories and experiences. I’ll be blogging more frequently about it once we arrive back in the United States.

We arrived in Shanghai, China yesterday afternoon, China time and then made our way to the Holiday Inn Express via the Mag Lev and taxi.

The Holiday Inn is a brand new hotel situated on the East side of Shanghai. The section of town is not very developed as there are shanty houses next to large unkept condominium towers all over the place.

Street vendors are everywhere along with what seems like a cell phone store, KFC, and cigarette shop on every corner. Some pics of the iPhone Air(obviously fake) we found on the streets below:

The iPhone Air

iPhone Air, Front

The iPhone Air came in pink and black.

The fake iphone was very slow although most of the functionality seemed to be close to the real think. The vendor wanted 1000rmb for it, which is about $166 dollars. If anyone wants one I’ll buy it and you can send me the money when we return to the US.

Lots more pics to follow with a funny story. Also, video of our MagLev ride(fastest commuter train in the world).

There is a good piece at WSJ Online titled, “Get Ready For A Lost Decade-Bad Times Don’t Produce Good Policy” by Holman W. Jenkins Jr.

He reaffirms my beliefs that during times of little prosperity, those seeking more regulation, higher taxes, and protectionism usually get their way.

But once prosperity blows up, the quasi-virtuous policy circle becomes an unvirtuous one as new interest groups come to the fore to exploit an appetite, previously weak, to impose their costly or vindictive wish lists. And even well-meaning policy gets twisted and rendered incoherent.

His thoughts generally state that government cannot act as efficiently as private enterprise and can cause far more harm than good.

Or take the gathering auto bailout: Taxpayer dollars are being thrown at Detroit auto makers to make them “viable,” even as Congress imposes new fuel-mileage mandates requiring them to incur tens of billions in costs unlikely to be recouped from their customers — the definition of “nonviable.”

He then takes Obama’s planned “stimulus” package to task:

Mr. Obama’s troops palpitate with excitement at the prospect of $1 trillion in “stimulus,” though any net benefit to the economy likely will be incidental. Al Gore has thrown out the window any unpopular carbon taxes in favor of direct subsidies to his green energy investments. He sees the moment for what it is — alarm about global warming has degenerated into a pretext. Billions will be diverted from useful purposes to create “green jobs” that deliver no meaningful impact on climate or the accumulation of atmospheric carbon.

Frankly, the government needs to let entrepreneurs takeover. The attempts to create new markets with green regulations will backfire, as they already have with autos and oil prices. Manipulating the free market is like swimming against the Niagra River.

This morning I was ironing and accidentally put a scorch mark in a cotton button up I was planning on wearing.

My Mom is the authority on stain removal and seems to always have a unique home recipe. She suggested white vinegar, but unsure of herself she recommended Google’ing. I couldn’t believe I had not thought about it already.

The recipe I found called for fresh lemon juice to be sqeezed onto the stain. Then let it soak for a few mins in warm water. Finally, let it sun dry as the sunlight acts as a bleach.

As I was sprinkling the lemon juice on the stain it began to dissipate. I was stoked! I thought I had ruined a $50 shirt.

Thank you, Mom. And Thank you, Google.

Courtesy of Michael Galpert.

A method for seeing subscriber content for free on the WSJ Online. See an article, click on the Digg link, then click on the story link on the Digg page and all the content will be shown. Pretty sneaky.

How to bypass WSJ.com subscriber wall from michael galpert on Vimeo.

For the last few months I have been poking around the internet reading articles on how to market a commodity.

A commodity is a product with little to no difference when compared to competing products. There are many substitutes and therefore many consumers focus on price when making a buying decision. While there are obvious examples like commodity trading in corn and coffee there are the not so obvious. Ketchup is widely available. Perhaps Heinz is the best known brand, but is it incredibly superior to other products? Maybe, but only by a few orders of magnitude.

However, Heinz has survived on its brand and continually charging more than lesser known or generic ketchup. I could easily buy generic ketchup, but I know I am taking a slight risk in giving up taste and the satisfaction of using a known brand to save a few dimes.

Diamonds are also a well known commodity. Why is it that buying the same ring you could buy in a local shop at a Tiffany’s costs three times as much? Is it the blue bag? The feelings generated from buying part of Tiffany’s and bringing it home? The feelings of your girlfriend or wife when she opens the package to reveal the blue iconic brand? The answer is “Yes.”

Based upon my experience and all that I have read on the subject, people buy based on emotion and back it up with logic. In marketing a commodity, one must supply the recipe to create emotion within a buyer and the knowledge which forms the logic.

For instance, take the Sham-Wow infomercial. Sham-Wow is what looks to be chamois cloth made to soak up liquid easily and be continually re-used. The television host does a good job at taking real life situations and demonstrating the product’s uses. The theater created produces the emotion in the buyer.

What happens next is he states openly, “You’re going to spend $20 a month on paper towels anyway.” This is the logic behind the purchase.

Finally, product testimonials are given. This backs up further the logic portion…because other people buy it/use it.

I find myself looking for these components when someone gives a sales pitch to me. It is a bit of a habit now.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas.

I think this is a time of year where hopes and dreams build for the coming year.Unfortunately, some people are looking to the government for their hope and “Change.” My wish is for people to find the hope within themselves and to make the changes they want in their own lives. Don’t plan on the government solving your problems, you WILL always be disappointed.

FDR did not solve the Great Depression and Barack Obama will not solve our current economic disorder. The market will cleanse itself of the filth. Allow it to do its job and find the opportunities that come from it.

There is great personal opportunity around.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is:

It is difficulty that makes what men are.

-Epictetus

I enjoyed reading Hubspot’s State Of The Twittersphere today. It contained interesting statistics, but mostly confirmed that Twitter is reaching critical mass when it comes to growth. Somewhere around 5k new accounts are created daily.

Although I don’t contribute to Twitter that much, I am a lurker. I follow 56 people and have not added anyone to that list in some time. Why?

I have found the people I follow contribute to Twitter too much. Guy Kawasaki is a big violator in this regard. Every time a new Alltop link is created, it is tweeted. This makes for a lot of tweets in one day and sucks the air out of the room in Twitterific. I can’t hear the people I want to hear. Still, Guy does have some good tweets every once in a while. So, I don’t want to “unfollow.” What is my solution?

The Twitter Noise Reducer

A couple weeks I attended the quarterly artist showcase/Christmas party at AnteUp Audio in downtown Cleveland. I was surprised such a cool place existed in Cleveland.

It is well hidden on the eastern side of downtown in an area of mostly abandoned factories and warehouses. They took on a huge opportunity in unifying the music scene in Cleveland. Judging from last Friday, they have done a good job.

All performers sounded great. Some needed more polishing in their onstage presence, but others excelled. I particularly liked This Is A Shakedown and Ghost Town Trio. I think both could break out. Their sound really resonated with me and I think others might find the same true..

This Is A Shakedown uses a mix of punk, techno, and a lot of synthesizer all put together for a slammin’ good sound. It was unique and interesting, so have a look.

Ghost Town Trio has a killer sound that was catchy, but not too “pop.” I caught myself listening over the weekend a few times. They have some Blink 182 and All-American reject qualities you might be reminded of, but the songs are just good. “I Though You Were” and “Cold Machine” are great!

I could not believe both of these bands have not broken out yet. I’d love to help. Let me know if you want to hear some ideas.

Sorry about the embedded music starting automatically. It is the best I could do in such a short amount of time.

In my experience with Intense Debate and some other web projects, I found that it was more important to be first and considered the innovator than having a perfect product. “Perfect” meaning, tested for nearly every conceivable situation, gone over with a fine toothed comb, meticulously crafted, etc. Sometimes there was a problem with the product, but most of the time the benefit received from being the innovator and “first mover” was bigger than I had thought.

In the analog world is this true? If one’s company makes a product that is a first mover, innovative, and people want it yet it only has a minimal amount of testing, should the company launch?

I suppose every situation is different and as we always said in the marine corps, “situation dictates.” However, what if it were this simple?

On the web, launching a product like ID or some other newfangled web app is going to do little damage if it doesn’t work. The worst case scenario is someone uninstalls your plugin or never comes back to your site. After all, like many consumer apps, it is free. Because there was no investment other than a small amount of time on the consumer’s end, the consequences for the web company are, relatively, not that bad.

On the other hand, consider an arbitrary product like windshields as our real world example. Windshields, Inc (fake company) has a brand new windshield product made of 100% recycled material and slightly cheaper than the price of normal windshields. Incredishield (also a fake company) is a close competitor building a similar product. Is it plausible for Windshields, Inc. to release their product with minimum testing to meet the lowest standards in order to beat their competitors to market? Mind you, they are risking future product failure, their names would be tarnished, and they could go out of business. However, the reward is establishing your company with 100% recycled material windshields just as Xerox is to copiers and Google is to search and the financial windfall that goes with it.

Is this another case of “good enough” being good enough? It could make for an interesting case study.