China lacks "soft power"

The other day i received this interesting report which is definitely worth checking out if you are interested in Asia in general and China in particular:

"New Report Reveals China Lags Behind U.S. in Using Non-Military “Soft Power” to Gain Influence in Asia
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the East Asia Institute (EAI) released a major new report, Soft Power in Asia 2008. The report provides an eye-opening look at how China, just months before it is set to take the world’s center stage during the 2008 Summer Olympics, still ranks below the United States as a multifaceted power in the opinion of its Asian neighbors.
The report, which is based on public opinion survey in five East and Southeast Asian countries and the United States, reveals that perceptions of China’s soft power -- the ability to wield influence by indirect, non-military means -- generally trail those of the United States and Japan. These perceptions persist despite China’s strong economic relationships in Asia, and around the world, and its consistent and concerted efforts to leverage the Olympic Games to bolster its public image.

The Chicago Council and EAI conducted more than 6,000 interviews in China, Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States in January and February 2008 before the unrest in Tibet and the Sichuan earthquake. The survey asked between forty and sixty questions in order to gauge how citizens of these five Asian nations and the United States view each country’s popular culture, commercial prowess and brands, intellectual influence and appeal, universities, diplomatic reputations, different political systems, and more.

The full report of survey findings can be downloaded online at thechicagocouncil.org.

WHAT WOMEN WANT? - Ladies, please cast your vote!

My firend is running an international poll that may be of interest to some of you, especially LADIES!

Capucines Boulevard international art gallery launched an international art poll on April 9, 2008 called "WHAT WOMEN WANT?" and it will run 2 weeks. We truly believe that all women are artistic and more often than not they want to receive something special as a token of attention and appreciation, something besides the trite and commonplace gifts like a purse, perfume or a box of chocolates. We believe they deserve something unique and beautiful - an original work of art.

From Leonardo da Vinci to Salvador Dali women inspired the creation of most outstanding works of art. And even if you think of a landscape we believe it is also influenced by a feminine energy, after all, Mother Earth is a LADY :-) It's time they received something back.To celebrate the up-coming Mother's Day and women everywhere we would like to ask you, dear, ladies, what DO YOU WANT?

You have to go to http://capucinesblvd.blogspot.com/ and choose from various artistic forms and genres. It will take you less than a minute. You will also be able to see how other ladies around the world voted.

Thank you for your participation!

A seminar for job seekers

If you are an international living in Chicagoland (whether a professional or a graduating students) and have a very slight idea on how to optimize your job (especially if you have not yet realised that 70% of all job in the U.S. are found through networking according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics) you are very encouraged to attend my seminar for job seekers that I am organizing on March 10, 2008.

You will be able to learn all the important tools and techniques, the HOWs and the WHEREs of networking specifically tailored for Chicago market. All participants will get a FREE copy of my Chicagoland guide "The Legal Alien's Guide. Building a Career and Life in Chicago, Ilinois" For more information and to register, please, visit http://www.legalaliensguide.com/Seminars

My book signing event

SAVE THE DATE!!!

I cordially invite everybody to my first book signing event!

WHEN: MARCH 21, 2008, 7 – 9 pm
WHAT: Book signing “The Legal Alien’s Guide. Building a Career and Life in Chicago, Illinois” Meet the author, ask questions about career and small business related issues, get your signed copy of the comprehensive Chicagoland networking guide.
WHERE: Barnes & Noble, 659 W. Diversey Parkaway, Chicago, IL 60614

I will be very happy to see everybody!

International Experiences

As I mentioned a couple of months ago I have recently published a book about my experience of relocating to USA which I believe will be helpful to many people as a guidebook to building a career and life in this country. You can read more about my book at http://internationalexperiences.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-book-has-been-published.html

This story (which consists of 3 short stories actually) is my "international expereince" with trying to promote my book with various cultures.

1. THE AMERICAN STORY. I often promote my book at various business networking events and there is this one business networking group that I really liked and that I have been a member of for 2 years. Recently the group leader changed and now instead of us paying for whatever everyone eats/drinks during the lunch meeting as it used to be everyone has to pay a flat fee whether one eats or not. I raised a question about it because I have a baby who is breastfeeding and has serious colic so I am very selective about what I eat (I don't eat outside home for now) but I was told I must pay as everybody else because that's the new rule or I should go to a "mommy & baby" netowrking group instead. I was totally appauled by the approach (people totally don't understand the concept of diersity and inclusiveness): they may be vegans in the group, jews who eats only a Kosher food or muslims who don't eat when it's Ramadan... And many other specific situation which are totally discarded by the group leadership. And this is a typical American approach in business too: "we either do it our way or we don't do it at all". No further comments.

2. THE RUSSIAN STORY. I was doing a networking presentation at one of the networking groups where I also sold my books at the end of the event. I Russian woman came to me for advice and she also wanted to buy the book but she didn't have cash with her. She promised to send me a check by mail so I gave her the book. Guess what? I never got the money. Some time after that I decided to hire a PR company to help me promote my book and I wrote my parents about it. Do you know what was their first reaction? - "Don't! People will take your money and run away with it!" Having lived abroad for 9 years now I already forgot that this in fact a common thing in Russia. Very often you cannot trust people you do business with. If in Europe and USA such occurances are more of an exception from the rule, in Russia it's more of a norm, unfortunately... Be vigilant!

3. THE ASIAN STORY. A week ago I was promoting my book at the Asian American Gala. All attandees coulb be devided into 2 main ethnic groups Indian-Pakistani and Chicnese-Korean-Japanese. The former expressed a keen interest in my book, they were very communicative, asked a lot of questions and some of them bought the book because indeed it is designed to help all the immigrants. The latter behaved in a strtange way: they seemed to be intrigued by the look of the book but when I asked them if they wanted to learn more about it they got confused and left the booth. I really cannot explain this phenomenon. Either they were shy or not confident in their knowledge of English or something else. It looked like they were interested but didn't dare to ask for more information, let alone buy the book. May be I was doing something wrong... I wish I could understand my customers better so if anyone has an insight, please share it with me!

Art and Politics

It is amazing how international relations (i.e. relations between governments) influence all areas of everyday life, even art on the international arena.

One of my favorite blogs, International Art blog, has recently published a post about the scandal around the potential exhibition of treasures from Russian museums in UK. Quite an amazing story which also generated an interesting discussion on the blog. Even if you are not into arts this is an interesting reading and something to reflect upon: http://capucinesblvd.blogspot.com/2008/01/art-politics-and-internet.html

TouristClick

There are a lot of travel site out there but I find very fiew of them special. I recently came across a site, a travel directory, that I really like - http://www.touristclick.com/

The owners not only provide general information (hotels, insurance, air travel, etc.) you can find on other site but also try to attract contributors from all over the world to add to the site. They have a blog directory with blogs from all over the globe, forums for each specific country. The site is also developing a travel photo gallery too.

I also like their section on Special Travel (http://www.touristclick.com/SpecialtaTravel.html) which includes very unique categories such as:
Mystery
Archaeology
Native American
Pilgrimage
Battlefields
Rail
Science
Ecotourism
Supernatural
Working Holidays

and many others.

Country Insights

Usually good "countries of the world" are put together by Americans. There are loads of educational resources from CIA Factbook to more detailed specific information per country. That's why I was very surprised to find out a great CANADIAN website with tons of useful information (not that the Canadians are not capable of doing such a thing but because U.S. websites always somehow dominate search engine results...)

Country Insights, http://www.intercultures.ca/cil-cai/country_insights-en.asp?lvl=8 , is a Canadian government site that has fast facts, profiles, and useful links for countries worldwide. I also like that some profiles have cultural dos and don'ts which tell you the local attitudes and customs about dress, conversation, displaying emotion, punctuality, resolving workplace conflicts, religion, and communication styles, so you can make the best impression when you go there.

Answering my reader's comment - 2

I was thinking a lot about my another reader's comment regarding Russian, Chinese or Indian companies making mistakes while working with Americans. These cases are more difficult to find. I have not managed a project for an Indian or Chinese company so I cannot say. In terms of the Russians, here is the story.

They usually aproach an international project possibility with a lot of attention to detail. They do excellent background research. While Amercians might not KNOW how to deal with other cultures Russians, in most cases, do, but sometime they prefer to IGNORE that just because of being obstinate. Once I lead negotiations between a Russian and a British party and the former knew the latter very well, but chose to stick to their unacceptable methods of dealing with the other party because they didn't want to loose and inch. The ultimatum basically was "take it or loose it" and this is not the way to deal with the British (well, not the way to deal with anyone, really) The Russians KNEW that and this was their conscious choice to behave that way.

Did they win anything? They did, in terms of money on that one particular deal. They lost in terms of respect from the British and possibilities of having further deals with this party.

Another thing is that I noticed that Russians when aware of the other party's limitations will use this knowledge against the other party creating a win-lose situation rather than trying to make a compromise and get a "win-win".

Not all Russian companies are the same, of course but these are the things to be aware of.

Everything about global air travel

Now that the holiday season is upon us many will be travelling to visit family and friends around the world and comprehensive information about air travel will be very handy.

There are plenty of sites on the Web with flights information, but Airtimetable ( http://www.airtimetable.com/ ) is a portal with a wide variety of airline and travel information, where you can find everything in one place. You can check routes, compare fares, book a flight, scan airplane seat maps, locate an airport, find a discount airline, read reviews of airline food, track a flight in real time, get a weather report, look at a map, read a guide to your destination, and much more.

Happy and safe travelling!

Answering my reader's comment

Following up on one of the comments left by 1 of my readers to the following post http://internationalexperiences.blogspot.com/2007/10/major-mistakes-companies-make-when-they.html (what is "an 'all-star cast' of assets to have when going into the international arena" ) my professional opinion can be summarized as: you need a man with a plan at least.

What I mean by this is that for any international expansion to succeed, primarily, there should be a person (or a team of people) internal or external working with an organization who have the vision, the knowledge and the experience in the international field. This person or a team of people should be leading the project. As obvious as it sounds it is very often not the case.

For example, I know 1 company which continuously wants to be my client and I continuously refuse to work with them because the new owner (a rich guy from a rural Midwest who never worked abroad) wants me to organize the project of their expansion into Russia the same way the previous owner penetrated South Africa. Overall, the company does have some international experience but the guy at the top doesn't have a clue.

Secondly, any new market entry project should follow a certain set of steps (a plan). The steps are basically the same, no matter what country you are looking at. However, the information you get at each step and decisions you make based on this information will be different for each new market. I developed this topic more profoundly in my article "New Market Entry Strategy" (http://www.mycontentbuilder.com/Article/New-Market-Entry-Strategy/30298) Obviously, this is just a basic "skeleton" and my job as a consultant is too put "meat" on it but it gives you a general idea of what I was referring to earlier.

These are just the basics but you will be very surprised to find out how many companies don't get even these basics.

My book has been published!

My dear blog readers!

I apologize that I have not been posting any information for a coupe of weeks: I was caught in the launch of my first book - "Legal Alien's Guide. Building a Career and Life in Chicago, Illinois".

The book is based on my own unique "international experience" of relocating to USA and starting my life from scratch, building my own business and making friends. "Legal Alien's Guide" is a comprehensive reference guide to various networking organizations, groups and clubs that help you to find a job, start your own business and meet people in "the land of opportunity".

You can learn more about the book from my publisher's book store (though the book is also available at major retailers such as Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com): http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-44622-1

as well as the book's blog: http://legalaliensguide.blogspot.com/

From now on I will have more time to up-date the blog. In the near future I am planning to address some interesting comments that my visitors left regarding the previous post. Keep tuned!

Major mistakes companies make when they decide to expand internationally

I want to share my experience having interacted with many business owners who would like to expand internationally and I hope it will help you to avoid mistakes in your business. Here are some classic examples:
1. A company has no idea what exactly it wants to do: just to export a product, open an office in a different country, set up a number of distributors, etc. The objectives change in the process and as a result there is no clear vision of where the company wants to go.

2. If it is the first "international experience" there might be no specific person on staff responsible for this project. The project might be allocated to a marketing manager, business development manager or anyone else who also has his/her own primary responsibilities and has vague idea about international business. As a result the project is stalled each time an important decision has to be made, i.e. there is no structure in place to successfully develop the project.

3. If a company already did a new market entry there might be a belief that any subsequent new market entry will be very easy and each new country will be pretty much the same. It is erroneous to think that the experience in Russia will be the same in Romania or Hungary, for example. The simplistic approach to doing business internationally may cause a lot of troubles based on the lack of understanding another country's culture, business models, values, etc.

4. There is a wrong belief that a lot of valuable information required for the project are available on-line. Indeed there are a lot of sources of information on the Internet but it is important to remember to study not only English language reports but the ones in the local language which sometimes can only be found through a local search engine (not standard Google search) Sometimes the mos valuable insights are the ones that have not been translated into English yet.

As an International Marketing and Business Development consultant I try to help people to avoid these pitfalls, I also always utilize my local knowledge and experience on every project I work. I will keep posting information related to the topics mentioned above and I hope they will be useful to many.

International networking made easier

Nearly everyone knows about such popular networking sites as LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. You can find profiles of millions of people around the world: your colleagues, classmates, friends - current ones and those you have not seen for years.

Recently I found out about a great new site that actually makes your global search for people much easier. It is called WINK the people search engine, http://wink.com/ You type the name of a person (and a location globally if you know it) and it will give you links to his/her profile wherever it can find it. When I typed my name WINK pulled out my LinkedIn profile AND my membership page at Institute of Management Consultants USA. Thus, you don't need to guess which network a person might belong to and perform a search on each of them. You just search once and see all results immediately. I found it very helpful.

Passports

These days to have an international experience one needs a passport. Most of us have one, an official document issued by our respective countries.

However I know about 2 other types of passports that help you in your international experiences and allow you to help a good cause too. I wrote about one of them, AllergyFree Passport, in one of my previous posts http://internationalexperiences.blogspot.com/2007/08/allergyfree-passport.html

Today I would like to tell you about another Passport - WWF Passport: http://www.passport.panda.org/index.cfm?uNC=78470595. This one is "issued" by World Wide Fund for nature protection. WWF Passport is no ordinary website because you can do extraordinary things. It is your licence to campaign for the environment, no matter where you are in the world, all over the world. It’s not a toy or an environmental Internet game. It is for the genuinely concerned individual who takes action on-line for on-the-ground results. Passport provides concise calls to action on important issues such as endangered species, global warming, and forest protection. The whole idea behind Passport is that it makes it easier for people who are short on time to have a big say on critical issues.

I have WWF Passport since 2000 and I campaigned or various environmental issues on all continents and the great thing about it is that it works. Out of a couple dozens of campaigns I got 2 e-mail responses and one personal letter form 3 countries (2 ministers and 1 prime-minister) informing me that they paid attention to our appeal and actually changed their environmental policies. Three responses out of approximately 20 is not too much but at least it's something! And definitely know your concerned voice is heard!

In addition to addressing environmental issues with WWF Passport you have a chance to learn a lot of things about different countries, animal and plan life around the world without leaving your home.

I am personally very proud that I have WWF Passport and it helps me to make my own contribution to nature conservation on our planet.

MegaConverter 2

If you are involved in ANY sort of international activity: business or just travelling you cannot do without this very handy MegaConverter 2 http://www.megaconverter.com/Mega2/

It has hundreds of conversions in areas like chemistry, cooking, currency, dress sizes, engineering, finance, fuel efficiency, lighting, oceans, shoe sizes, and more.

The site also has a scientific calculator that performs operations far beyond adding, multiplying, subtracting or dividing. It calculates logarithms, tangents, random numbers and may other things (if you know what they mean and where to use them :-)

Best world airlines awards 2007

Though summer is over it might still be a good time to go on vacation since airlines will soon start to lower their ticket prices with the beginning of the "off-pick" season.

Here is a good website to check out before flying wherever you go and wherever you live - GLOBALLY: http://www.worldairlineawards.com/ Here you can find information on the best airlines in the world, i.e. you can see who won 2007 World Airline Awards in various categories, such as:
- Airline of the year
- best cabin staff
- best catering
- best lounges
- best business class
- best economy class, etc.

It's interesting to note that most of the best airlines in the world are Asian or Middle Eastern, the majority of the European and U.S. airlines didn't even come close to the top...

And the absolute winner is... Singapore Airlines:

Doing business in European Union

EU represents a huge attractive market for many companies around the world but to succeed on this market one needs to know all rules, regulations and existing opportunities.

One good site, http://www.buyusa.gov/europeanunion/, provides a lot of information on doing business in EU. It has links to:
- EU standards & regulations;
- where to find EU grants, tenders & financing;
- reports on various sectors of the EU market;
- trade documents;
- the latest news & information and much more.

Of course doing business in France might be a very different experience from doing business, say, in Hungary because of country specific business culture, mentality, etc. You will most likely need to find an organization (consulting) that will help you with peculiarities of a specific market but at least the aforesaid site can give you a big overall picture which is also very important.

On-line solutions for global expansion of small businesses

I would like to continue the tradition of providing examples of successful strategies small businesses apply in expanding internationally.

The easiest way to reach wide audiences globally is, of course, through the Internet. But what else can you do if you already have your business running on the Internet? It doesn’t seem like much… unless you are very motivated and creative, like CapucinesBoulevard.com art gallery.

CapucinesBouloevard.com is an on-line art gallery and auction that exhibits and sells art works of various artists from around the globe. And recently they added another line of business - an on-line gift shop! When you visit, say, National Gallery in London and you fell in love with a couple of, say, Monet works what do you do? You buy a calendar or a fridge magnet or something of this sort to take a piece of Monet with you, don’t you?

CapucinesBoulevard.com followed the same logic: why don’t give our visitors a chance to buy a gift with an image of their favorite work of art if they cannot buy the work itself? And the choice of gifts at their gift store http://www.cafepress.com/capucinesblvd is fantastic: cups, bags, apparel, clocks even cute teddy bears - lot's of stuff for you, your family and friends!!! But what is most important, the prices are very affordable and gifts can be shipped anywhere in the world! Excellent customer service, 30 days return policy, secure transactions – everything you will expect from a major reputable on-line store.
I believe it is a great idea, very well thought-through and very much in-line with their core business, which actually enhances their core business even more. I applaud their creativity, enthusiasm and consistency in pursuing their international ambitions. This is a great example every small business can learn from.

World Maps and more

Whether you are interested in international issues due to the nature of your business, love of travelling, your studies, etc. various maps of the World will come handy.

National Geographic site http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/ has a very good maps resource. There are satellite maps, road maps, and maps with special themes (Weather, Natural Disasters, Population Density, Farming & Natural Resources). The maps are easy to read and show details like vegetation, average temperature, and local habitat in bright colors.

In addition to maps general National Geographic site http://www.nationalgeographic.com/index.html has loads of information about various destinations/countries, nature, global issues, etc.