Huawei Study Tour to China - part 2

First part: Huawei Study Tour to China

When our group arrived in Shanghai around noon on Thursday we were welcomed by our local guide saying "it's only 31 degrees, not so hot today". Ok, lucky us. On the drive to the hotel she gave a short introduction to China and Shanghai; about Mao's cultural revolution she just mentioned something like "nobody is perfect". Ok, life has to go on.

Nevertheless, Shanghai seems to be a very open-minded city. For example, even on the Intl. Airport you can find a shop called Spirit of Tibet, next to all the well known, global, high-end consumer brands.

Shop at Shanghai Intl. Airport

On Friday we visited the R&D Wireless Center of Huawei in Shanghai. The building as such is really impressive: it's about 1000 meters long (as they told us) and 10'000 people are working there. 

Huawei R&D Wireless Center

Huawei R&D Wireless Center

Like in Shenzhen the exhibition is also really impressive, the technology and its applications are being presented very professionally using multimedia booths. The exhibition raised my understanding of upcoming 4.5G and 5G wireless technologies at lot. 4.5G will be available in 2016 and the exhibition presents the new potentials for businesses, e.g., in the areas of controlling drones, mobile HD videos or for the Internet of Things. 

(See also the video by WSJ: Inside Huawei's R&D Center) 

4.5G and 5G exhibition hall

4.5G and 5G exhibition hall

4.5G and 5G exhibition hall

As recognized in Shenzhen already Huawei is not hesitant to use Online and Social Media services such as Twitter, Facebook or Google services exemplary - as well as the Chinese equivalences - in order to show the potential of their technologies in different application scenarios, despite the fact that some of these services are restricted or blocked in China by the government. 

And even on advertising posters within the Huawei premises social media services such as Facebook and Twitter are mentioned - but not the Chinese equivalents. 

Jack Li

Later Jack Li, VP of the R&D center, gave an overview about R&D at Huawei.
As we learned before already, Jack Li stated that Huawei has a very much customer oriented focus; therefore they apply the so-called ROADS framework which summarizes the main challenges in order to create an optimal service experience for telecoms users: Realtime, On Demand, All in One, DIY, Social. 

In their R&D activities Huawei also pursues Open Innovation approaches, e.g., setting up joint innovation centers with customers such as telecom operators or joint labs in cooperation with universities - but no beyond those activities.

Jack Li mentioned the corporate social responsibility activities at the end of his presentation as well.

Our group then visited the Swiss Consulate in Shanghai that shares their offices with Swissnex China. Here, first Pascal Marmier, CEO of Swissnex China, gave an inspiring presentation of what is Swissnex doing in China. Personally, I really like what and how Swissnex is doing. During a one-week study tour in 2011, I had the pleasure to get to know the Swissnex San Francisco team which has organized a great program for Swiss university representatives in the field of Social Media.

Pascal Marmier,
Swissnex China

Pascal gave a really enthusiastic presentation. Swissnex China pursues a very open strategy applying different open innovation approaches. He's really fascinated by the innovation power and creativity of the Chinese people: "A prototyping nation of >1 billion entrepreneurs". Indeed, if you still think Chinese people are only able to copy you should take a look into the literature, e.g., The Economist or MIT Sloan Management Review; the keyword is Accelerated Innovation.

Among others, Pascal mentioned some project activities Swissnex China is doing or supporting.
For example, they organize innovation camp such as the China Hardware Innovation Camp, CHIC in cooperation with Swiss universities. One of the recent results is a smart baby bottle. During the camp, the technological know-how of the Swiss students and the needs of the Chinese markets were brought together.
They also were co-host of the Lift China 2015.


In the following Anna Mattei Russo, Deputy Consul General, Head of Culture, Media and Education Section at Consulate General of Switzerland in Shanghai, and Fabio Müller, Trade Promotion Director Swiss Business Hub China, a network partner of Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), gave us an insight into their activities about the China - Switzerland relations from 1905 till the FTA of 2014 and How to do Business in China,  including eCommerce.

Challenges doing Business in China

eCommerce Opportunities in China

Finally, Nathan Kaiser, eigerlaw.com gave us a "highly unstructured presentation" (as he announced) about his experiences in China as a Swiss lawyer supporting Swiss businesses in China.
Some of his learnings from his experiences are: "China is much more diverse than Europe is", and "China is still a communist country, it is organized top down: what is not explicitly allowed is illegal" - "but the emperor is far". He described the country as a highly regulated, bureaucratic economy, and not an open economy. According to Nathan, the law structure is more or less the same as in Switzerland, with one exception: the communist party is above all and rules by law, "they are managing the place". And: "In China everybody cheats everybody". China is a low trust country, but families are a highly trusted environment he said.
And about faking trade marks he mentioned a recent example from China: Somebody in China Has Set Up a Fake Goldman Sachs and Is Doing Business (see also the Bloomberg article)

This concluded a very exciting week in Shenzhen and Shanghai!

Huawei Study Tour to China
Huawei Study Tour to China - part 3

All photos are available under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license

"Social media are just a tool" - Closing Event of the Program Swiss Academia and the Social Media Landscape

Christian Simm opens the closing event

On Novermber 13th the closing event of program Swiss Academia and the Social Media Landscape took place at the University of Basel (see some photos on facebook and flickr).

It was not only interesting and inspiring to follow the presentations but to meet many of the program participants again as well.

The rector of the University of Basel, Antonio Loprieno, stressed the role of digital media in academia and compared its disruptive potential with the invention of the printing press.

Christian Simm opened the event on behalf of SwissnexSF who has organized the program and said may be the most important message of the day right at the beginning: "Social media are just a tool".

Matthias Lüfkens gave a very inspiring keynote talk on How Leaders Tweet. A dialogue opens new ways ways for diplomacy beyond the traditional channels as well he said and gave some examples - Lüfkens authored the respective study twiplomacy. He also confirmed that there is a cultural lag of using Twitter in German speaking countries.
In general, tweeting may have three different goals: broadcasting information, humanizing organizations and governments, and engaging followers.
See more about this talk by Marcel Bernet here and here.

During the following panel about the use of Social Media in Switzerland  Barnaby Skinner asked the panelist about the worst mistakes one can do in social media: hiring the wrong people, having no goals, being afraid, not following the idea of "keep it simple", no content strategy.
We also learned about how to start a social media project: "Don't ask for permission, just do it bottom up".

"Social media has the potential to be transformative to universities", this was one of the findings of Ian Hsu in his final presentation. Ian was the social media manager at Stanford University for more than five years, we met him during the Fall 2011 study tour at Stanford already. He also complemented Christian's statement from the opening: "Social media is not our goal" he said.
He also presented some interesting numbers: In Q IV/2011 Stanford counted 600'000 unique users per month on Facebook, but only 100'000 were organic, thus 500'000 viral. And he reported about a crowdsourcing activity among employees during the beginning of the financial crisis where ideas were sought to make Stanford more efficient - some of the ideas save several millions of dollars today he said.

During the report about the Swiss Academia and the Social Media Landscape program FHS St. Gallen's recently launched Facebook page was mentioned - thanks for that.

Julia Kuhn Mirza, Swissnex SF,  presents the
FHS St. Gallen Facebook page

See my post about the program's Fall 2011 study tour.

Workshop on Social Media Campaigns and Presentation of Mobile Solutions - Social Media Study Tour Day 5 (final)

Working with David Harris
(photo by SwissnexSF)

On the final day of the Social Media Study Tour we again started off with a workshop, this time with David Harris (@physicsdavid).

Based on his background as a scientist and science journalist we worked on concrete examples from our respective institutions adopting David's methodology on planning a social media campaign. One of his key messages was to define communications goals and its audience and messages first before thinking of how social media  - besides any other media - might help.

After a nice guided tour through the origins of the city we finally visited Blackboard Mobile. (BlackboardTV)

Experiencing the Silicon Valley - Social Media Study Tour Day 3

Presentation at Wildfire HQ

After the great introduction to the Silicon Valley by Chuck Darrah  on day 1 today, on day 3, the group (here and here) experienced the Silicon Valley. After a presentation about the Swiss Start-Up Webdoc, founded in 2009, by its co-founder Vincent Borel we visited Youtube, Wildfire, and LinkedIn, a vivid experience of Silicon Valley.

What are the takeaways?

First of all, all four companies have their own corporate culture:

"They all cook with water" - Day 1 of Social Media Study Tour

The Campanile at the UCB Campus

After a nice dinner at Kuleto’s on Sunday night today the Social Media Study Tour (the group) was kicked off at Swissnex. At the introduction to Swissnex (what we do) Christian Simm gave us the first important advice: They all cook with water!

The first highlight of the day was the presentation by Chuck Darrah. As a cultural anthropologist having neither a cell phone nor any social media presence he discussed the question what is Silicon Valley all about? And he’s convinced: “It’s a place not only for technological but also for social and cultural innovation.”

He came up with three main characteristics of the Silicon Valley:

1. Prevalence of high tech industry, spirit of innovation, creation of high tech jobs, culture of risk taking, big sense of optimism, 2. Complex cultural diversity, and 3. being an area of management with deeply connected networks which are constantly evolving: “networks are sometimes more real than companies”.

Social Media Study Tour in the Bay Area

In the upcoming week I will participate in the Social Media Study Tour within the Swiss Academia and the Social Media Landscape program on behalf of the FHS St. Gallen. 

The study tour has been organized by Swissnex San Francisco. The tour's program promises a very interesting and intense week.

Of course the study tour shall be covered by Social Media such as Twitter (#fallstudytour), Facebook, flickr, and the Swissnex blog.

Personally, I have several expectations: 

First, I am looking forward to get new insights, to learn from experiences of others, and to get inputs through the visits to companies and universities, talking to Social Media people in these institutions, and working on respective issues in workshops. 

Second, I am looking forward to meet Social Media enthusiastic colleagues from other Swiss universities in order to share experiences about different settings within the Swiss higher education system as well.

And finally, I am really eager to meet new people and to enjoy San Francisco, the Bay Area, and Silcion Valley!

As the study tour takes place in an English speaking environment I decided to put down my personal notes from the study tour on my blog in English as well.