"Made In China" to "Made By China" is a long road

People copying things from other peoples websites is not a new thing. In fact it is quite common for phishing sites that make an exact duplicate of the paypal login page to try to steal usernames and passwords but sometimes I ponder why people would bother to copy something as trivial
as a flash intro. My company Avail Corporation has maintained a fairly ordinary website for the last three years. It serves it's purpose of listing the events that we are running and providing some contact information of our office in Asia.

I came across a competitor company that came up recently, purely because they decided to copy one of our successful brands, The Asian Tourism & Attractions Summit (Incidentally they named it the Asia Tourism Property and Attractions Summit....very clever) and found on one of their other events had actually plagerised our flash intro that can be found on my
company's website www.availcorp.com. (you can go to
http://www.globaleaders.com/en/2008/cos/cos/top.swf to make a comparison).

When I first saw it I was annoyed and my mind went into China bashing mode. But then upon further consideration I realised that this was not a China problem but one of a particular company with little scruples that can be found anywhere in the world. I also saw the humour in what they did. My industry is one with comparatively low barriers of entry. To be a success in conferences you need to be creative, original and understand the markets that you are targeting. It is obvious that this China company that copied my flash intro is none of these things....I
will explain why.

Our flash intro was something that we did in 2005 simply because we were too busy to focus on making our website flashy. We hired a web design company to put the entire site together on a shoestring budget so that we did not have to create a new site for every event that we did. Simple and informative was what we aimed for. I think we achieved this but it was certainly not a site that would win any awards.

My company's catch cry is "It is not enough to aim...you must Hit!" simply meaning that planning to do something is not enough, you must actually succeed in your plan. On our flash intro we split that line up so that it starts with "It is not enough to aim.." shows you some images of participants at our events taking action to guarantee their success and then ends with "..you must Hit!" In typical non-creative, un-original fashion, with a lack of understanding of the meaning of the line, they managed to copy only the "...you must Hit!" part of the phrase, which by itself is meaningless and pretty much illustrates the quality and intelligence of their management. In fact, our flash intro is so simple that it probably took more time to copy ours than it would take to design their own and still managed to mess it up.

So on my part my lawyers have drafted for me a cease and desist letter that I have sent to them but in reality, It makes no difference if they change it simply because I give my clients credit for not being fools. In fact I challenge this company to knock off more from my site so that I can further illustrate to my clients that your company does not have the intelligence or business ethics to be original.

To my friends at the Institute of Global Leaders, I wish you the best of luck and hope that one day you may have something of your own that you can truly be proud of. Until then, there are many more conference companies with much better design features that you can rip off.

Myanmar - Behind the toolshed of the global sandpit

It has been a while since I posted anything but it is Saturday and 3 times a year China reshuffles the week to make a 5 day holiday in to 3 days, so alas today I am at work, and since I know that nobody actually reads my blog I (and blogspot.com is blocked in China) I feel at ease in writing opinions that may actually be unpopular.

So I am watching CNN last night about the plight of the monks in Myanmar, and how they are taking this opportunity to plug their i-report feature on their website (which of course over time will render journalists obsolete in all stories except ones about dogs that can surf). They are receiving and broadcasting footage and images of the 100,000 monks on parade.

Myanmar, I have learned has a military control government, and the reporting has centred around how they are suppressing the protests by force. The world is outraged. It must be because I even got an invitation in facebook to join a group that supports the monks in Myanmar. The situation is so serious that even the nuns are getting involved http://www.telegraphindia.com/1070924/asp/foreign/story_8353365.asp (which the military really should begin to worry about if Buddist nuns are anything like the Catholic nuns that I grew up with.)

All I heard from the global press was condemnation of the government and the plight of these monks.

Analysts have asked about the effect of this on China,(http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/28/news/letter.php?WT.mc_id=rssasia) the US have slapped sanctions on Myanmar and even Condoleezza Rice has expressed "empathy" which is probably as much as you are going to get from her.

They even went so far as to put "visa bans on 36 members of the Myanmar junta and their families" http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=195311&Sn=WORL&IssueID=30193. (I would be interested to see how the US will react to 10,000 visa applications from monks seeking refugee status in the US.)

So in these turmulous times, I often ask the question, WHAT STARTED ALL THIS? Was it because a leading Monk official was brutally beaten the arrested after expressing displeasure at the mistreatment of small children? NO

Was it because of actions by the government to ethnically cleanse the population of buddhist in Myanmar? NO

I was perplexed. What would cause 100,000 monks to hit the streets for 3 day in protest to a Military Government?

The answer (based on this informative FAQ by AP http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jnzM3FXBGZw5zPlnoYD4fwP8xaHw) was rising fuel prices!

I don't think you understand the importance of that last statement so let me emphasise the statement again in UPPER CASE.

RISING FUEL PRICES

Is your blood boiling? Are you up in arms? ........... no?...... neither am I.

I appreciate that this may seem insensitive and my statements may have a certain "Let them eat cake" feel about them but is there no better atrocity to protest over than INFLATION?

I could go on but I won't. I am sure that I am once again misguided and I am sure that there are many many more issues that led to this tipping point but of all things that could potentially throw a nation into turmoil and potentially overthrow a government and cause all sorts of global condemnation, please tell me is more than price fluctuations of a commodity that in the last 50 years gone from $2 per barrel to $60 per barrel.

Incidentally, what is the price of Myanmar produced opium based products these days?

Shanghai Welcomes Further Criticism of Chinese Products

For Immediate Release

21st August 2007 [Shanghai] In a recent conference on China's export policies organised by the Shanghai Bureau of Shuthefuckup, a spokesman for the Bureau stated that he welcomed the criticism from the US. He stated that this kind of international watch dogging was exactly what China needed to motivate Chinese manufacturers to up their game. During a break from a sessions on Convincing Your Trade Partner that It's Not Dumping if You Make a Profit he said "History has shown us that anyone that the US bitches about, inevitably ends up being the leader in that field. Take for instance Japanese car and electronics manufacturers. Household names like Toyota, Honda, Sony, [and] NEC are all the result of years of PR smear campaigns telling the US consumer that Japanese products are shoddy."

He said that the only regret that he had in the recent recall announcements were that companies under scrutiny were not Chinese companies, and that he was actually quite concerned that both children and adults would be affected by the lead contained in the painted toys. He explained "Only last week, I had to take my sons Malibu Barbie off him and replace it with a cheaper Chinese imitation. I really feared for his health as he spends much of his free time licking the paint off the doll."

Asssociated Presss

The Global Sand Pit

For many years I pondered what real qualifications do you need to get into global politics but recently, watching the to and fro between China and the US has led me to believe that all you really need is a good primary school education. Consider the most recent exchanges of possibly the two most powerful nations in the world today.

This is brinkmanship at it's best.

US: You have too much of a trade surplus so rather than trying to be more globally competitive lets increase tariffs on Chinese products like bra's and t-shirts.

CN: Fine! But if you we're going to dump a big chunk of our $1 trillion USD on the open market to cripple your currency.

US: Oh Shit, that's not good. In that case let's create a smear campaign against China made toys and fake a story of cardboard in pork buns.

CN: Hmmm, just for that, lets announce that US made GE turbines are unsafe.

US: You want us to stop selling arms to Taiwan you'd better increase the value of the RMB

CN: You want us to talk to North Korea for you better shut the F#%K UP

US: Your human rights record stinks.

CN: And where are those weapons of mass destruction?

US: Yo mamma so fat...... (well you can see the direction this is heading)

It all going to end in tears.