Olivier used to live in Beijing, and loved living in China.  It is exciting being in the center of one of the most important stories of our time:  the rise of China.  But there are some downsides.

Peaceful Rise…

But then he decided to change his surroundings, and moved to Phuket.  Unfortunately, he is a bit removed from the center of the China story, but there are some compensatory aspects of living in Phuket.

..or Peaceful life?

photo credit: Shelby PDX under CC

And that, my friends, is the dilemma we all face, isn’t it?

If you are willing to forego the excitement of China for the chance to feed your social media addiction in a place like Phuket, read on:

Social Media Manager/Strategist

Type: Full-time

Experience: Mid level managerial

Functions: Strategy/Planning, Online Marketing, Information Technology, Other

Industries: B2C Online Marketing and Advertising, Travel

Report: Chief Information Officer

Job Description

Before reading any further, you must be able to answer a resounding and confident “yes, I can” to the following questions, and be able to substantiate each:

• Do you eat, sleep and breathe social media?
• Seriously, do you dream in 140 characters?
• Can you think bigger than Facebook and Twitter and put together integrated B2C social media campaigns and solutions that are miles ahead of the competition?
• Can you map out the relationships between B2C social media opportunities, how they fit with one another, what are they respective strengths and weaknesses, and how each could be maximised to enhance our company’s social media campaigns, website and blog?
• Do you have enough sensibility to modulate the tone of your postings/messages according to your audience?
• Are you able to grow revenue streams though social media and in time deliver a positive ROI?
• Do you have the social media inner fire burning in you? The one that gives you your daily torrent of adrenaline, the one that makes you a winner when you pass-smash your targets?
• Can you walk the talk? Anyone can dream up a strategy, what counts is its execution. Can you?

Now,

• If you have been honest with yourself and gave yourself the thumbs up for each the above self-testing questions
• If you firmly believe that you are such a social media innovator and animal
• If you believe you have the passion, energy, innovation, knowledge and skills to be our social media face
• If you can get your hands dirty and execute what you preach
• And if you can prove it all with an impeccable track record of successful past experience

Then, we want to talk to you…

HotelTravel.com has an immediate opening for such an innovative, driven, hands-on Social Media Manager/Strategist.

I’m interested!  How do I apply?

If you’re the right candidate, you’ll know how.  And if you don’t know how, you’re not the right candidate. Hint: @olivierdombey at @hoteltravel.

Haibao wants YOU!

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m consulting with HUBS1, a hot Shanghai travel startup that just raised $10 mm USD from a set of top venture capitalists and is the exclusive Official World Expo hotel reservation provider.  In addition to the Product Manager role, we are also hiring an Online Marketing Manager.  If the Product Manager is in charge of throwing the party, the Online Marketing Manager is in charge of getting people to show up to the party!  Anyway, for those of you who are savvy enough to see the long-term potential of online-marketing skills in China and globally, this is an exceptional Shanghai-based opportunity to build your career in this space.

If you’re interested, send a customized cover letter (or email) and resume to me at elliott at hubs1 dot net with CNReviews somewhere in the Subject line.  Or forward this to your friends via this URL: http://tinyurl.com/expotia-mktg

Overview – Online Marketing Manager

HUBS1 is hiring an Online Marketing Manager to focus on driving traffic and hotel bookings from international inbound travelers to China. Your online marketing strategies and programs will enable HUBS1 to compete in the competitive online travel arena with global competitors. You’ll determine the right mix of marketing tactics: PR, events, social media, affiliate, PPC search advertising, SEO, and lead generation. You’ll get budget approval and be held accountable for developing profitable marketing programs for the company.

Key success factors in your role include: interest in understanding human behavior online, ability to come up with advertising and promotional concepts, extreme focus on data and analysis, interest in social media, ability to work with partners and a cross-functional team.

Responsibilities

• Develop overall online marketing strategy. Develop programs, budgets and ROI targets.
• Programs and tactics could include: PPC advertising, banner advertising, portal partnerships, sponsorship deals, affiliate programs, electronic direct marketing (EDM) and SEO efforts.
• Deveop our content and editorial strategy on the Website, our blog, and other social media outposts like Facebook, Twitter, and other travel Websites.
• Select the right partners and agencies to help execute on programs.
• Monitor program Key Performance Indicators and use Web analytics to evaluate program success.
• Partner with our customer service department to provide great pre-sales and post-sales experience via the contact center. Decide which contact channels (e.g. chat, email, Twitter) need to be supported.

Qualifications

• 2-4 years of professional experience. Minimum of 2 years experience working on consumer Websites required. Minimum of 1 year online marketing experience in any of the following areas: SEO, PPC, online advertising, affiliate programs, EDM, social media marketing, partnerships.
• Experience with Google Analytics or other Web analytics program required.
• Personal qualities include: entrepreneurial attitude, quantitative analysis skills, communication skills, excellent at teamwork, organized and positive.
• Passionate about online marketing.
• High level of English fluency. Native speaker desired but not required.
• High level of Chinese fluency desired but not required.
• English writing and blogging skills highly desired but not required.
• BS/BA, with demonstrated excellence

About HUBS1

If you are building your career in the fast-growing field of online marketing or e-commerce, consider focusing on online travel–one of the largest and fastest growing parts of e-commerce. According to iResearch, the online travel market is already RMB 3.7 billion RMB in 2009, growing 23% annually to RMB 9 billion by 2013.

HUBS1 is one of the most prominent new companies in online travel. We’re backed by three leading international venture capital firms: GSR Ventures, GGV Capital, and Matrix China–firms that have invested in other online startups like Alibaba, Anjuke, Baihe, Baixing, Tudou, and Qunar. HUBS1 is also backed by Jin Jiang Hotel Group and is the exclusive official hotel reservation provider of the Shanghai World Expo. Our business model and fast growth will provide exceptional career opportunities for those who join us at this stage.

Job description in Chinese:

网络营销经理（英文网站）

概要：

我们正在寻找一位网络营销经理，主要负责为网站带来流量以及来自海外游客对中国酒店的预订。您的在线营销策略和项目将使HUBS1汇通天下在激烈的全球在线旅游市场竞争中拥有自己的地位。您将决定最佳的市场营销方式，包括：公关、活动营销、社会化媒体营销、PPC搜索广告、搜索引擎优化等等。您将获得相应的营销预算，并负责为公司带来高回报率的营销方案。

胜任这个职位的关键点包括：对在线用户行为的了解、对广告和促销方案的策划能力、关注数据和定量分析能力、对社会化媒体感兴趣、善于与他人和其他职能部门的合作能力。

这个职位将向您打开许多HUBS1汇通天下内部乃至整个中国在线旅游行业的职业发展机会。您所加入的团队具有在锦江、雅高、万豪、希尔顿、喜达屋等国际酒店集团以及Cypress半导体公司的多年从业经验。HUBS1汇通天下目前有约150人的团队，并且这支队伍正在快速壮大。作为一家创业公司，相比大型公司HUBS1汇通天下为您提供更多机会与创始人及公司高层管理团队直接交流的机会。

工作职责：

1. 提出完整的在线营销计划、项目、预算以及投资回报率目标；
2. 需要通晓的在线营销技巧：PPC形式的广告投放、横幅广告、门户网站合作、赞助商合作、联盟合作计划、EDM以及搜索引擎优化技巧；
3. 提供完整的网站内容策略，不仅包括网站本身，还包括博客以及其他社交网站，如Facebook、Twitter等，以及其他旅游网站；
4. 选择合适的合作伙伴和代理商共同执行营销项目；
5. 对项目运营情况进行评估，能使用一些在线分析工具；
6. 与客户服务部门合作，为客户提供优质的售前及售后体验，并进行各种渠道的可行性分析；

能力要求：

1. 2-4年相应领域的工作经验。至少2年消费类网站工作经验。至少1年在下述在线营销从事经验：SEO、PPC、网络广告、联盟合作、EDM、社会化媒体营销；
2. 熟悉Google Analytics以及其他在线分析工具；
3. 能够拥有创业者的工作心态、定量分析的能力、优秀的团队组织、协作能力和沟通技巧；
4. 热衷网络营销工作；
5. 熟练的英语沟通能力；
6. 中文表达能力突出；
7. 优秀的英语写作能力，并拥有不错的博客写作能力；
8. 大学本科学历或硕士学历

关于HUBS1汇通天下

中国的电子商务和网络营销正在经历着一个快速发展的阶段，如果您正在计划自己未来在这个领域中的职业生涯，不如考虑在线旅游行业。目前，国内在线旅游市场已成为国内电子商务及网络营销市场中增长最快、最有前景的市场之一。来自艾瑞咨询的研究，2009年，中国在线旅游市场规模已经达到37亿人民币，预计2013年将增长到90亿人民币，年增长率高达23%。

HUBS1汇通天下是目前国内在线旅游市场众多优秀新兴公司中的其中一家。我们目前已经接受了来自著名风险投资公司的投资，如金沙江创投、GGV Capital以及Matrix China。这些风险投资公司同时也投资了国内其他出色的互联网创业公司，如阿里巴巴、安居客、百合网、百姓网、土豆网以及去哪儿等。HUBS1汇通天下受上海锦江国际酒店集团的支持，并且是中国2010年上海世博会指定订房业务承办方和赞助商。相信公司的商业模式及快速发展将为任何一位加入HUBS1汇通天下团队的朋友提供绝佳的职业机遇。

Shaun Gao and Teddy Zhang, the HUBS1 founders, invited me to help them put together the strategy and the plan to build out the consumer Web channel for international inbound visitors to China.  Our first version of the new English-language Website, called Expotia.com,  will be launching later this month (link to the Chinese Expotia site)  The site will be initially focused on helping travelers to Shanghai with a focus on the Shanghai World Expo, because HUBS1 is the exclusive Official hotel reservation provider of the Shanghai World Expo.

The company intends to develop our consumer Website, Expotia.com. into the best English language travel planning and booking site for inbound China travel.  We’re putting our money where our mouth is, and recruiting a consumer Web team to make this happen for both the domestic Chinese market and the international English-language market.  I won’t share how many people we’re hiring for competitive reasons, but suffice it to say these guys are in it to win.

I’m listing 2 jobs focused on the English language website:  Product Manager, and Online Marketing Manager.  If you’re interested, send a customized cover letter (or email) and resume to me at elliott at hubs1 dot net with CNReviews somewhere in the Subject line.  Or forward this to your friends via this URL: http://tinyurl.com/expotia-pm

Overview – Product Manager opportunity

We are now hiring a Product Manager to own the English version of Expotia.com, our branded online travel Website. Under your leadership, Expotia.com will become the leading travel website focusing on inbound, international travelers to China. Initially focused on the Shanghai World Expo, you will develop the strategy to expand the site beyond Shanghai to the rest of China. Key success factors in your role include: product vision, business judgment, and exceptional ability to work with and motivate a cross-functional team.

Success with this project will open up many career opportunities within HUBS1 and in the entire online travel industry in China. You’ll join a team that has experience at companies like Jin Jiang Hotels, Accor, Marriott, Hilton, Starwood Hotels, IBM, and Cypress Semiconductor. With 150 people and growing quickly, HUBS1 will provide you with more direct access to the founders and executive team than you would get at a larger company.

Responsibilities

• Own the product roadmap for English Expotia.com. Lead the team to decide when and what is developed for international travelers, including expansion to other online services and languages.
• Define target customer and customer needs. Conduct online and offline market and customer research.
• Be creative and innovative!
• Define on-site search engine optimization (SEO) and Web traffic requirements.
• Coordinate with key marketing and product partners to implement co-marketing programs.
• Communicate your product vision through product briefs and requirement documents.
• Work with User Experience designers to develop wireframes and prototypes.
• Work with internal and external designers to create an effective brand identity and website.
• Measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and directly use analytics tools to develop insight into Website performance.
• Manage ongoing program multivariate testing to improve Website KPIs. Oversee all on-site merchandising.
• Lead cross-functional team to deliver for the international inbound customer: IT, customer service, hotel sales.
• Define and manage key project management and product management processes in support of your goals.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years of professional experience required. Minimum of 2 years working on consumer Websites required.
• Experience with English-language Websites desired but not required.
• Demonstrated track record of creativity and product passion.
• High attention to detail.
• Good at working with teams, especially diverse teams. Experience with leadership important, but even more important is working a team of peers to accomplish a common goal.
• High level of English and Chinese language fluency, but can be native speaker of either English or Chinese.

About HUBS1

If you are building your career in the fast-growing field of online marketing or e-commerce, consider focusing on online travel–one of the largest and fastest growing parts of e-commerce. According to iResearch, the online travel market is already RMB 3.7 billion RMB in 2009, growing 23% annually to RMB 9 billion by 2013.

HUBS1 is one of the most prominent new companies in online travel. We’re backed by three leading international venture capital firms: GSR Ventures, GGV Capital, and Matrix China–firms that have invested in other online startups like Alibaba, Anjuke, Baihe, Baixing, Tudou, and Qunar. HUBS1 is also backed by Jin Jiang Hotel Group and is the exclusive official hotel reservation provider of the Shanghai World Expo. Our business model and fast growth will provide exceptional career opportunities for those who join us at this stage.

Chinese Job Description:

产品经理（英文网站）

概要：

我们正在寻找一位产品经理负责在线旅游网站Expotia.com英文版。在您的带领下，Expotia.com将成为领先的旅游网站，为海外游客到中国入境旅游提供服务。网站目前的重点在上海世博会的入境旅游，您将制定策略将产品从上海扩展到全国。

胜任这个职位的关键点包括：拥有产品愿景及规划能力、拥有产品的商业价值判断能力、优秀的跨部门合作能力等。

这个职位将向您打开许多HUBS1汇通天下内部乃至整个中国在线旅游行业的职业发展机会。您所加入的团队具有在锦江、雅高、万豪、希尔顿、喜达屋等国际酒店集团以及Cypress半导体公司的多年从业经验。HUBS1汇通天下目前有约150人的团队，并且这支队伍正在快速壮大。作为一家创业公司，相比大型公司HUBS1汇通天下为您提供更多机会与创始人及公司高层管理团队直接交流的机会。

工作职责：

1. 制订Expotia.com英文网站产品发展规划路线。能领导团队决定提出为海外游客提供哪些产品，何时提供这些产品，包括发展其他的在线服务和语言版本；
2. 定义目标用户以及用户需求，进行线上或线下的市场和用户调查研究；
3. 具有创新能力；
4. 确定站内搜索引擎优化策略和网站流量引导策略；
5. 与其他营销部门和产品伙伴合作，实施联合推广项目；
6. 通过产品介绍和产品需求体现产品愿景
7. 能提供完整的产品规划文档
8. 与网站设计人员合作，提供相应的产品原型和页面模型；
9. 与内外部设计人员合作，提供有效的品牌认知及网站设计；

10.  确定并贯彻KPI指标，能够使用分析工具评估网站表现；

11.  进行多变量指标研究，不断提高各项KPI指标的表现；

12.  监督所有的站内商业运作；

13.  带领跨职能部门的团队为海外游客提供优质服务，如IT部门、客服部门以及酒店销售部门；

14.  组建项目管理机制及流程以达到目标。

能力要求：

1. 3-5年工作经验，至少2年消费类网站工作经验；
2. 具有英文网站产品工作经验者优先（并非一定要求）；
3. 有成功案例体现您优秀的创新能力和产品理念；
4. 关注细节；
5. 良好的团队协作能力，尤其是跨职能团队的协作能力。能带领团队为共同目标工作的能力；
6. 熟练的中英文表达能力，中文或英文母语皆可能；

关于HUBS1汇通天下

中国的电子商务和网络营销正在经历着一个快速发展的阶段，如果您正在计划自己未来在这个领域中的职业生涯，不如考虑在线旅游行业。目前，国内在线旅游市场已成为国内电子商务及网络营销市场中增长最快、最有前景的市场之一。来自艾瑞咨询的研究，2009年，中国在线旅游市场规模已经达到37亿人民币，预计2013年将增长到90亿人民币，年增长率高达23%。

HUBS1汇通天下是目前国内在线旅游市场众多优秀新兴公司中的其中一家。我们目前已经接受了来自著名风险投资公司的投资，如金沙江创投、GGV Capital以及Matrix China。这些风险投资公司同时也投资了国内其他出色的互联网创业公司，如阿里巴巴、安居客、百合网、百姓网、土豆网以及去哪儿等。HUBS1汇通天下受上海锦江国际酒店集团的支持，并且是中国2010年上海世博会指定订房业务承办方和赞助商。相信公司的商业模式及快速发展将为任何一位加入HUBS1汇通天下团队的朋友提供绝佳的职业机遇。

Dear reader, please raise your hand if you think its easy to start a successful high-tech business.

Okay.

Now raise your hand if you think it’s easy to start one in China.

If you still have your hand up, you’re mentally insane. Please contact me so I know never to give you one yuan/dollar/euro/Gold Kruggerand of my hard earned money.

But if you’re not insane, and are seeking to realize entrepreneurial success in China (no I don’t think that fully counts as insanity), you should attend Startonomics Beijing on June 11, 2009.  It just might turn startup failure into survival, and startup survival into success.

1.  So when and where is this event?

When: 8:30 am – 6:30 pm, June 11

Where: OrangeLabs’ Innovation Gardens

海淀区科学院南路2号融科资讯中心C座南楼10层

10th floor, South Tower, RaycomInfotechPark C.  2, KeXueYuan Nan Lu, HaidianDistrict

Tel: (010) 8217 5000

2.  How much does it cost?  And can I get a discount because I’m your blog friend?

Its going to cost you RMB500 unless you enter the secret code.  (The secret code is “startupprice300″ and you’ll get a RMB 300 ticket price instead. You are supposed to be a “pre Series A startup.”  If you take advantage of this offer, please come up with a suitable story of what “pre Series A startup” you are forming in case the organizers ask you.  If you come up with a weak story, you will embarrass me and cause me to lose face with the organizers.  But if you accept this offer and enjoy the conference, you are forever indebted to me and will make a small amount of room in your hot Series A venture round for me to invest in your company!

Click the button above or register here.

3.  I’m still not sure if its worth the time and money.  Who else is going?

Sounds like you’re either too indecisive to start a company, or you have a fully localized cost perspective and you’re living on 100 RMB per week, so you don’t want to blow 3-5 weeks of living expenses on a conference.  If you’re saving money like “real” Chinese people, then this is the event that you’ve been saving up for.  You can eat street food and avoid taxis for a few more weeks, can’t you?

The event is organized by George Godula, founder of Shanghai Web incubator Web2Asia and Dave McClure, Venture Partner of FoundersFund.  Along with connector Christine Lu, they have put together a very notable group of people:

• Haila Wang, CTO Orange Labs
• Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, President Google China
• Kaiser Kuo, Writer, Technology Commentator & Musician
• Sam Flemming, CEO CIC Data
• Benjamin Joffe, CEO +8* | Plus8Star
• John Wu, Chairman FangJia & former CTO Alibaba
• Jerry Wang, CEO Goyoo Networks
• Dr. Pan Haidong, CEO Hudong
• David Wolf, CEO Wolf Group Asia
• Weihan Liu, Venture Partner Nokia Growth Partners
• Jui Tan, Partner BRV
• Charles Pan, GM Orange Capital
• Tangos Chan, VP China Growth Capital
• Frank Yu, CSO/COO Shouji
• Season Xu, Co-Founder & COO 5 Minutes
• Larry Zhang, GM Troodon
• Xin Ye, CEO Casee
• Nick Yang, President KongZhong Corp.
• Steve Mushero, CEO & CTO ChinaNetCloud
• Dan Martell, Co-Founder Flowtown
• Florian Pihs, Data & Analytics Director MRM Worldwide
• Dave McClure, Founders Fund (FF Angel, fbFund)

Christine, George and I collaborated on the China 2.0 blogger tour last November.  Many of these exceptional individuals were part of that tour, and I even got a picture with Google’s Kai Fu Lee after his presentation to the blogger tour.

4.  OK, I’m convinced. I’m going. Can you introduce me to some people?

I can’t attend because wife just had a baby so I have to stay close to home here in Silicon Valley for a while.  But here are some of the folks I would introduce you to:

Dave McClure

Dave is the main instigator of the Geeks on a Plane tour that will have a international delegation of 35 people attending the event.  He is an ultimate connector and has organized conferences like Web 2.0 Expo with O’Reilly Group, Startonomics, Startup2Startup, and is otherwise a prominent character in the Silicon Valley startup scene.  He pioneered a course at Stanford on viral adoption of Facebook applications, and has some good materials on “Startup Metrics for Pirates” which I’m sure he will go through in this session.

photo credit: Joi Ito

George Godula

George runs a direct marketing company called MHDirekt and a Web startup incubator called Web2Asia.  He has a compelling vision of supporting startups with conferences, events, meetups, specialized media, and angel funding.  To connect with the Shanghai web and mobile startup ecosystem, get in touch with George.

The above picture was taken at the Forbidden City with George playing tour guide to a bunch of entitled Western bloggers.

Kaiser Kuo and Tangos Chan

Kaiser Kuo is a writer, journalist, and rock-musician with a passion for technology, media, and bridging China and the rest of the World.  He does not suffer fools gladly, either on the Chinese side or the “Western” side.  As former lead China correspondent for technology magazine Red Herring, and as former digital strategies for Ogilvy Digital China, Kaiser brings a journalist’s eye toward issues related to technology and social change, in what is the most dynamic society of our current era.  He enjoys flinging rough cross-cultural idioms like 牛-bility and has been known to drop the F-bomb while on stage at industry conferences.

Tangos Chan is a venture capitalist and private placement advisor at China Growth Capital.  He is also a pioneering English blogger at China Web 2.0 Review.  Tangos brings a deep understanding of social media, the internet startup market in China, has been on the steering committee of CNBloggerCon, and is an exceptional communicator.

This picture was taken after CHINICT 2008.  I remember “牛-bility” and “shability” was discussed.

Christine Lu

Christine played an instrumental part putting together the Geeks on a Plane delegation from Silicon Valley led by Dave McClure.  She introduced Dave to George and the rest was history.  She is working on some amazing projects including a Creative Commons book about China and applying the principles of Sharism to what she is doing.

This picture was taken at SXSW 2009.

And many more…

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with Sam Flemming, Benjamin Joffe, David Wolf, and Florian Pihs on previous trips and am disappointed I won’t be able to come.  Look forward to the event…you won’t regret it!  I’ll be following it from afar!

All photos (unless otherwise mentioned) CC CNReviews. Please credit as shown.

The China Business Network

Originally the event centered around tech and VC attendees of the Asian Venture Capital Journal Conference and the CHINICT Conference in Beijing this week. But after the Sichuan earthquake, Christine Lu, Founder of The China Business Network decided to donate all proceeds to earthquake relief. From Christine:

The Library Project has created a program, “Project: Earthquake Relief”, to help rebuild the educational system that was affected as a result of the earthquake. It is projected that hundreds of elementary schools have been damaged in the Sichuan and Shaanxi Provinces. The Library Project will be providing educational resources for the displaced children attending temporary schools.

We’re pleased to be one of the co-sponsors of the event.

Here’s more details from Christine’s email to me:

The China Business Network in partnership with:

CNReviews.com – http://cnreviews.com
Danwei.org – http://www.danwei.org
ChinaVortex.com – http://www.chinavortex.com
ChinaOnTV – http://www.chinaontv.com
The Library Project – http://www.library-project.org
Continental Airlines – http://www.continental.com

invite you to join us for an evening of cocktails, canapes and great caliber networking in support of an excellent cause with an immediate need.

ChinaOnTV’s film crew will be on location profiling those of you in attendance for upcoming segments on The China Business Network and ChinaOnTV.

Christine Lu of The China Business Network will be announcing the upcoming Beta launch of a new partnership in advance of the official press release scheduled to go out the following Monday.

Elliott Ng of CNReviews.com will be in town from Silicon Valley to announce partnership plans for a multi-city China tour taking place in November involving key figures and influencers of social media from the international community. (we’re VERY excited about the interest this has received thus far in the US)

Award Winning Film Maker Siok Siok Tan will be showing a trailer of her recently released documentary about the Beijing Olympics called Boomtown Beijing and providing updates on international screenings taking place in benefit of The Library Project’s Earthquake Relief initiative.

All of the proceeds from this Tech Week Charity Cocktail will be forwarded to The Library Project’s Earthquake Relief initiative.

The Library Project has created a program, “Project: Earthquake Relief”, to help rebuild the educational system that was affected as a result of the earthquake. It is projected that hundreds of elementary schools have been damaged in the Sichuan and Shaanxi Provinces. The Library Project will be providing educational resources for the displaced children attending temporary schools.

We will also be raffling off one coach class UNRESTRICTED ROUND TRIP TICKET between Beijing and USA on Continental Airlines valid for travel anytime beginning June 1st. ( a US $5K value) — You automatically receive one entry when you RSVP and attend Friday’s cocktail.

It is our goal to raise enough funds to support a new library for one elementary school while connecting business leaders based in Beijing with international based business leaders attending conferences that week . If you are Beijing based or in town this week for the CHINICT or Asian VC Journal Conferences, we hope to see you on Friday night after 7:30pm at the JW Marriott’s Loong Bar. It’s a great opportunity to bring together a wide range of business folks in Beijing.

Confirmed guests so far include:

Founder, The China Business Network
Founder, Danwei.org
CEO, China Business Strategies
CEO, eCitySky
CEO, Youku.com
VP Marketing, Uptake
VP Marketing, Tudou
Founder, CNReviews.com
Director of Beijing Olympic Program, adidas
Group Director Digital Strategy, Ogilvy China
Marketing Director, Spill Group Asia
Founder, Web2Asia
Founder, The Library Project
Founder, Web 2.0 Review
President, House Films
Award Winning Film Maker, Boomtown Beijing

…and hopefully you!

For more information and to RSVP please visit:

Signup URL: http://techweek.eventbrite.com/

You can indicate an option to pay the RMB 175 RSVP rate at the door. RSVPs are preferred as the venue only holds 150. In the event there is still room on the evening of the cocktail, non-RSVPs will be charged RMB 250 at the door.

Other invited guests include:

CEO, Youku
VP International, Baidu
Founder, Danwei
Chairman, Microsoft China
Managing Partner, Goldman Sachs
Vice-Director, TORCH program
VP, The Conference Board, China
Director, UN Silk Road Technology Inititiative
CEO, eCitySky
Director, Digital Strategy, Ogilvy China
President, CHINICT
Editor-in-Chief, Asian VC Journal
Founding Partner, Crossover Capital
Chairman, Venturebank China
Senior Partner, CDH
CEO, Aigo
EU Ambassador to China
VP Corporate Affiars, Alibaba
Beijing Olympic Program Director, adidas
VP Marketing, Tudou
VP Marketing, Uptake
President, NFL China
Managing Director, Xinhua PR Newswire
Founder, JLM PacificEpoch
Founder, BDA
Senior Partner, CDH
CEO, eChinaCash
Founder, The China Business Network
Harvard Alumni Club
Brown Alumni Club

JW Marriott

JW Marriott information can be found here:

• JW Marriott site
• Ctrip (chinese)

Name and location in Chinese:

北京JW万豪酒店
běi jīng JW wàn háo jiǔ diàn

华贸中心建国路83号
huá mào zhōng xīn jiàn guó lù hào

朝阳区东四环CBD商业中心
chāoyáng qū dōng sì huán CBD shāng yè zhōng xīn

I attended my first NextStep entrepreneur mixer over three months ago, when it was held at Volar on January 15th. Keen to network with fellow entrepreneurs to pick each other’s minds and swap business cards (you know, to feel important), I even dragged my business partner (who dragged his friend) to come along.

Unfortunately, we ultimately left feeling rather disappointed.

To be sure, there was a reasonable crowd, but for an “entrepreneur” mixer, it was sorely lacking in…well, “entrepreneurs.” Of course, like many professional mixers everywhere, there’s a high probability of meeting a lot of sales reps for various companies hoping to find customers, connections, or (mostly business-to-business sales) opportunities. You also run into a lot of individuals trying to network their way to some important person at some big-name company in hopes of landing a job that’ll look good on their resume. As anyone with experience with such professional events would know, these are often expected. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that such an environment isn’t exactly helpful for actual or aspiring entrepreneurs looking to discuss new business ideas or solutions to new business problems and difficulties. As such, I had a nice drink or so, and met a few decent people, but didn’t consider the event having been worth my time.

Not long after, Elliott asked me to guest-blog here at CNReviews.com. As I sat down to detail my experience, I realized it wasn’t quite fair to judge NextStep’s entire concept and execution on the basis of a single event’s results. Setting my notes aside as a draft, I resolved to give NextStep another chance by attending another event.

That draft sat untouched for months.

What can I say? I’m a busy guy. It wasn’t until April 15th that I finally made my way, through heavy rains, to another event. This time, it was held in The Collection at Shanghai’s ever-lovely Xintiandi.

I’m glad I went.

Unlike the first event, I happened to meet far more entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial-minded individuals, and even some venture capital representatives this time. Suffice to say, I had far more productive and relevant conversations that evening. I even had the pleasure of meeting Joseph Constanty, one of the founders of Next Step Shanghai (amongst his other ventures). We chatted about how he bult up NextStep’s following, the work it involved, and how they plan on monetizing all of it eventually. They’ve since expanded NextStep with www.nextstepdirectory.com, a dedicated directory website featuring various businesses that may be useful for entrepreneurs, business-owners, and expats in Shanghai (and perhaps beyond). He even anticipated and answered the quesiton of just what the hell is “Tangential Consulting?” (Apparently, it’s something of an “umbrella” entity under which NextStep operates.) That alone earned brownie points in my book.

As young, dapper, and well-spoken as Mr. Constanty was, what he’s done is far more remarkable. He simply saw a need that wasn’t being adequately filled and decided he could do it, and do it better. Organizing events around a common-interest isn’t revolutionary, but he’s done the legwork to approach venues, arrange them to provide space and drinks, get the word out, and get people attending. Moreover, and by his own self-admission, the most appealing part of it all was that it didn’t require much investment capital. After a year of consistent and reasonably successful events, he’s continuing to build on the basic concept by developing logical extensions that promise to further cater to the needs of his target market. Again, nothing revolutionary, but that’s solid entrepreneurialism in action. He’s the kind of entrepreneur you’d want to meet at these events.

Two hours after I had arrived fashionably late, I regretfully had to leave behind a packed house that undoubtedly promised plenty of conversations and opportunities that likely would’ve been worth my while. In sum, however, NextStep Shanghai’s events can always be hit or miss. Sometimes you’ll get a lot of sales reps and job-seekers. Other times, you’ll meet some true entrepreneurs and small business owners. Most of the time, they’ll all be friendly, but sometimes you’ll meet a jackass or two. That’s life. The crowd will often be mostly foreign expats but there are plenty of locals as well, usually identified by being clustered around each other wondering how they’re going to interact with the scary white folk. :)

NextStep Shanghai’s extrepreneur mixers are usually held every otherTuesday. The venues change but there’s never any cover charges and there’s always drink specials to help the social lubrication process. The next event will be held Tuesday evening (April 29) from 8pm to 10pm at Park 97 in Fuxing Park. (click on the flier to the right for more details)

Over the weekend, Louis Gray posted on the Twitter Noise Ratio — defined as the ratio of Updates to Followers — to contrast the “Listeners” (low Noise Ratio) from the “Megaphones” (high Noise Ratio). Naturally there was a bit of controversy about this measure! But it inspired me to measure up the ChinaList and see what I could find.

So what about the China Twitterati? Is this Twitter With Chinese Characteristics?

Here’s what I found about the ChinaList.

• The Super Twitterati. As measured by either Updates, Followers, or both, there are a few Super Twitter users: @thecarol, @isaac, @christinelu, @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman! Wow. I am not worthy.
• In General, there is a wide variation of usage of Twitter among the ChinaList. Clearly there is no one best way to use Twitter. It is entirely between you, yourself, and your Followers!
• The Top Updaters. Some but not all of these Super Twitterati are among the prolific Top Updaters among the China Twitterati. The top 10 are @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman, @christinelu, @DavidFeng, @isaac, @marcvanderchijs, @dimi3, @ericgonzalez, and @shanghaiist.
• The Top “Megaphones” among us (to use Louis’ controversial measure of Updates per Followers) are: @kevinkoo, @dimi3, @DavidFeng, @flypig, @siumuimui, @webleon, @bbluesman, @shanghaiist, @expatacular, and @Guerel. This group has a ratio of 15.6 Updates per Follower, vs. the median of 3.2 Updates per Follower! This is nearly five times the median! As my co-blogger DavidFeng says to his new Followers, “Get ready for your arrival!”
• The “Listeners” among us are: @kriadam, @ionchina, @djsircharles, @ThomasCrampton, @nicolasz, @ChinaTechToday, @chinapolarbear @JakeNewby, @anguslau, @Agraylin, @Neocha
• The “Moderates”, who have a Noise Ratio of near the median of 3.2 Updates/Follower include: @thehumanaught, @dedlam, @papajohn, @ajschokora, @jputman. @pandapassport, @msittig, @samflemming, @PhilipJohnson8, @ChinaMatt

The rest of this post has 2 cool charts and 4 leaderboards, including the entire ChinaList ranked by Followers at the end.

Chart 1: Updates vs. Followers – The Super China Twitterati of the ChinaList

This chart plots each member of the ChinaList with total Updates on the Y axis and total Followers on the X axis. All data is of 4/27/2008. This chart shows the emergence of Six Super Twitter users: @thecarol, @isaac, @christinelu, @flypig, @webleon, @bbluesman.

What’s the yellow shaded area? The majority of the 92 ChinaList Twitterati are in the shaded yellow area and I’ve created a separate chart for that area.

This data that produced this graph can be critiqued as not considering the length of time that people have been on Twitter. So for example, @thecarol may have joined 2 months ago and may be tweeting more rapidly than @flypig but he may have been on Twitter for a much longer time. What would be more interesting would be to graph Updates/Month vs. Follower Growth/Month. But the data are not available to do this.

Chart 2: Updates vs. Followers – The Rest of Us China Twitterati (the shaded yellow section in the above chart).

Because the Super Twitterati are such outliers, I expanded the chart to include only the mainstream China Twitterati.

Some of the more prolific Twitterati include @DavidFeng, @Marcvanderchijs, @shanghaiist, @dimi3, @ericgonzalez, @sioksiok, @zjjtrans, @kevinkoo, @shanghaiist, and @FonsTuinstra.

Leaderboard 1: Top 10 with Most Followers

He who ends up with the most followers does not win!

Most people might think “most followers” is the goal of Twitter, but Robert Scoble convincingly argues that its not about how many followers you have, but how many people you follow. That’s why he is following 21,000 people and tweets roll about 1 tweet/second on his GTalk screen! In fact, some of us (here, here, and here) wonder if he is a Cylon. If you worried about not having enough followers, please read his post and focus on following the right people, not about trying to win a popularity contest. Especially if you’re a Cylon.

In my own experience, I feel Followers is a function of the time that you have been on Twitter and how much you interact with other people who happen to have lots of Followers. I’m sure @ChristineLu retweeting my tweets and posts have resulted in a ton of new Followers for me, for example. Thanks Christine!

Leaderboard 2: Top 10 with Most Updates

Is there Life outside of Twitter? Ask these prolific Tweeters. Again, this metric is not entirely meaningful because it doesn’t capture the rate of increase of tweets. Either these folks have been on Twitter for a long time, OR they are prolific updaters, so be forewarned if you follow them! My dirty non-harmonious secret: I have actually unfollowed 1 of these people because they are too “noisy” for me, because they use TwitterFeed to feed all of their blog posts on Twitter! (But I follow the rest!)

Leaderboard 3: Top 10 Updates/Follower (aka Twitter Noise! according to LouisGray)

There is a lot of criticism of the Twitter Noise Ratio measure on FriendFeed and at Louis Gray’s post. Updates include the @ messages that you might send to a specific Follower or Twitterer. So as you get into more conversations, Louis’ measure would condemn you as “noisy!” Stowe Boyd has a different measure called Conversation Index that may be better but is not possible to measure easily. This Conversational Index is expressed like this:

Boyd’s Twitterized Conversational Index = (number of replies made by followers / number of tweets)

This is similar to measuring the number comments a blogger gets on a post. The more comments, the more reader engagement. Boyd is suggesting that the more @replies, the more your Followers are engaged and interested by your Tweets.

Also, I suggested that “Total Updates/Month” or “General Updates/Month” might be a better measure, but there are no historical Twitter stats to my knowledge.

What Twitter Metrics Matter? What’s interesting about how you or your fellow China Twitterati use Twitter? What might you change about how you use Twitter?

Karl Marx, in his famous Theses on Feuerbach, said, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it.” I hope that this interpretation of the world will allow you to change it in your small way. On Twitter. :)

Finally, here is the entire list ordered by Followers:

Leaderboard 4: Entire China Twitterati List on ChinaList, sorted by Followers

Here is the Source Spreadsheet for ChinaList Twitterati 20080427 with all this data in case you are interested in it. Use it under Creative Commons license, by-sa-nc 3.0 with attribution to Elliott Ng, CNReviews.com.

UPDATE 4/28:  From the bully pulpit of Ogilvy Digital Watch, Kaiser Kuo wrote an excellent post discussing the trend of blogging about Twitter as dangerous self-referential narcissism and the risks of “excitable dorkitude,”:

Each to his own, of course. But am I wrong in thinking that there’s something not quite healthy and weirdly solipsistic about this? Mind you, I do find Twitter useful, as I made clear in a post of mine last week – a post which, as if to prove the point it made, rode a wave of Twitter-distribution to become one of my most widely-read posts to date. But if we all start looking like a bunch of excitable dorks (which many clearly are) we’ll scare away people who actually might make truly useful contributions – links to great stories, life hacks, great recommendations on apps or software or books or eats, real insights into the things that matter: things predicated on actually having a life.

Guilty as charged.  Kaiser earlier post about the myriad uses of Twitter notwithstanding, I concur with his latest view that indeed there is life outside of Twitter.

Yeah, “why not name our club CK?” That’s a real forehead slapper.

Like Volar, Racks has a sister venue in Hong Kong and also promotes a certain members-only exclusivity. But if Volar Shanghai’s experience is of any indication, that’s a policy with its obituary already written.

The China Business Network and The Shanghai Business club hosted a “Joint Happy Hour” at Racks this past Wednesday, and Elliott suggested that I attend after twittering a pseudo-invitation out of the event organizer, Christine Lu. After an afternoon of plotting world China domination with the Regional Director of admanGo, Herman Yueh, I managed to convince him to come along. After all, we’re looking for a few good men and these sort of international-minded/expat professional mixers just might be a good place to do some network recruiting, especially after one gets fed up with local talent (more on this in a future interview piece).

We arrived fashionably late. Greeted by the vast and empty black expanses of Rack’s, we almost walked right back out the door. To be sure, a splatter of people for the event were lounging in the corner, but the relative emptiness (and vastness) wasn’t particularly inspiring.

I’m glad I forced us to stay.

We ended up spending about a couple of hours there, and while we didn’t meet an army of people, I did get to network with a handful of great individuals across different fields (FMB, international trade, publishing, expat services, logistics, chemicals, contract manufacturing, architecture headhunting, etc.). With that came ample discovery and discussion of various potential business opportunities, both for admanGo and my own travel start-up, adex360. As far as I was concerned, that made for a productive evening.

I never did end up meeting Christine Lu, which I felt would’ve been common courtesy due to her and Elliott’s twittering relationship. I recall recognizing her (from her Facebook picture) early at the event but later she was nowhere to be found, ostensibly busy interviewing for her video profiles. Too bad, quite a few of us were curious to meet her.

One last thing, and I hate feeling compelled to ask this but, did anyone at the event catch those two (questionably) stunning ladies? Someone tell me those two dolls were, uh, professional models (yeah) and not, uh, the stereotypical gold-digging Chinese huntresses that prowl Shanghai wherever relatively affluent foreigners with the scent of money can be found (of which XinTianDi is not unknown for).