Friday, January 25, 2013

What's your Chinese Name?


I’ve started the “What’s your Brand” series by saying each of us has his or her own identity and it takes great insights to build it into a great brand. 
So let’s start with the name itself.  I came to the United States in 1992 with my Chinese passport showing my Chinese name 符海京 (Fu Haijing.  In the past 13 years, I have been traveling the world with my American passport showing my name Helen Fu Thomas. Interestingly all my friends across the globe call me Helen (or even Miss Helen).  Helen has become an old fashioned name in the US.  All of the Helens I have met except for one are either Asian or English.  The most distinguished Helen Thomas, of course, is the retired White House correspondent.  It turned out she and I were both born under the sign of Leo, but 48 years apart.  It was all coincidence as my first name and last name were both given not by choice.  The point is that whether you are aware or not, all names have meanings and connections. 

Conversely, I have been helping American brands and companies localize their English names into Chinese names that will stick.  But why Chinese?  Why can’t we just use BMW, IBM and Coca Cola as they are in the rest of the world?  Chief Marketing Officers would always argue for the consistent branding identity, and I don’t blame them.  The main reasons are relevance and emotion connection; but more importantly, the reality is that if you don’t have your own Chinese characters chosen and trademarked, you may end up with something in Chinese that you didn’t choose and don’t like.  Someone may argue that there is not just one Chinese language anyway.  Cantonese and Mandarin, for example, are two different spoken dialects.  The situation is different from Europe, where both spoken and written languages are different among most of the countries. In China among 1.2 billion people and many different provinces and spoken dialects, there is one unified written language and that is Simplified Mandarin Chinese.  Because internet and mobile devices are spreading so rapidly, these Chinese characters are becoming the second most used languages in the world.  So having your Chinese name and website for searching and education purposes is becoming a “must have” for all global marketing firms.  Google translation doesn’t give you the personality, creativity and relevance you desire.    

Here are the top 50 most-searched for luxury brands in China, published by the Digital Luxury Group.  All of these global brands have their Chinese names.  Interestingly if you can identify the characters, the two Chinese characters for Audi (No.1) and Dior (No. 8) are the same but reversed in order, that is 奥迪(ao-di   phonetically) and迪奥  (di-ao) respectively.  These are different industries and different targeted audience in terms of gender (men vs. women) but use the same characters in opposite order based on phonetic localization.  And almost all of these 50 brands have adopted Chinese names based on the pronunciation, except for Intercontinental (No. 50) 洲际 (zhou-ji) which is based on the meaning.  When I was with LeapFrog, we chose 跳蛙 (tiao-wa) meaning “jumping frog” that is quite popular with positive energetic image for learning.
 

If you are not convinced that a Chinese name is necessary, take a look at the impact of language differences by the Digital Luxury Group, which shows that 76% of people searched Burberry using the unofficial Chinese name 巴宝莉 (ba-bao-li) vs. its official Chinese name博柏利 (bo-bai-li) 15% vs. its English name Burberry only 9%.

 
Everyone that knows anything about brand localization would talk about Coca Cola and its Chinese name 可口可乐 (ke-kou-ke-le) ; and how clever it is for the name created based on the sounds to have such positive meanings of tasty and happiness.  That’s successful branding in the Chinese culture.  It has become such a classic that 可乐was adopted by Pepsi so that Pepsi Cola becomes 百事可乐 (bai-shi-ke-le).  Now take a look at the global Google Trend between the English and Chinese names.

I wouldn’t underestimate one’s Chinese name for its global branding at all given the growing consumption power and dominant web presence of the Chinese people.  Now looking at the technology brands on Google Trends using English and Chinese names separately, HP (惠普)and Lenovo (联想)are almost reversed, while Apple (苹果) is quite consistent between the two languages (likely due to American and Chinese demographics).    While Apple has surpassed Microsoft(微软), the gap between the lines in Chinese is much bigger than in English.  Does that mean that Chinese perceives Apple as much more prestigious than Microsoft? 


One of the main reasons for the need of Chinese brand names is the fact that the internet world is divided between inside and outside China, with different search engines, for example Google 谷歌 vs. Baidu 百度, and social media, for example Twitter vs. Tencent 腾讯, in two separate cyber worlds.  While China may be behind in many areas of research and development, it is certainly head-to-head with the rest of the world in terms of internet development.  It’s fascinating to see how the Chinese, who were isolated by physical and geographical barriers in the past, are now quickly jumping on the mobile phone and web infrastructure.  They are ahead faster because they don’t have to replace what is already in-place over years of development by the western world, but build the best and fastest from the ground up.  And the power of over 500 million people using mobile devices to communicate in one textual  language, one market and one country is historical. 


So are you ready to communicate to them and educate them about your brand, value, products and services?  Start with your brand name and website in Chinese.  There - you now have your presence in the biggest consumer market in the world.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Build Your own Prefessional Brand


I was first introduced to LinkedIn in 2005.  Soon after a reduction in force at my company, one of my laid-off subordinates asked for my endorsement.  In order to do her this well-deserved favor, I had to sign up, create my account on LinkedIn; then I pretty much forgot about it.  I had a one-track mind in my career, and I felt that LinkedIn was just a “distraction”.  If I wasn’t looking for a job, why did I need it?  And then my perception changed as I realized it’s a great professional network where creditable information and mutual respect can be shared. 
What I liked about LinkedIn as a useful tool was its starting profile template with an output looking like a well-designed document.  Once I discovered that, I did an experiment and pulled together a presentable PDF to use as curriculum vitae (CV) with endorsements from people with whom I had worked.  It was fun getting in touch with people with whom I had not spoken for a while, and learning their perspectives.  It brought tears and laughs. 
Like everything else, there is a difference between just doing it and doing it well.  Creating a high-quality profile on LinkedIn takes time and efforts.  Here is my advice:
1.       Don’t rush to complete your profile without thinking through the content.  Less is more.  Take your time to plan and do research on your connections.
2.       Draft before you publish your profile.  This is not a resume you share in private.  It is public and may end up anywhere in the future. It speaks a lot about you as a professional. 
3.       Keep it up to date and add substance over time. 
4.       Once you are on LinkedIn, spend fair amount of time to build connections and make it your professional resources.  
5.       Have a great professional photo of you taken.  Once again, take it seriously. 
6.       In the Background section, don’t just list companies and education achievements, tell a story. Your readers will be humans, and you want to make a connection with them.

These suggestions represent the minimum fundamentals of a good profile.  The value of LinkedIn, as opposed to Facebook, Twitter and other popular social networks, is its authenticity as a professional network.  On LinkedIn, you are much more accountable in the public eyes as a professional.  Some people tell me that they don’t even use their real identities on Facebook.   I guess they have fantasies about leading more interesting lives, or maybe they are paranoid.  However, that is unlikely to happen on LinkedIn as it would be against the purpose of building a career. 
The proposition of a professional network sets the limits and unifies the executives, recruiters and employees to maintain the value of this platform.  And that is why, even in China where there is no access to Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn is sound.  The top legislation in China just passed a law to require true identities for internet users on all accounts of websites, blogs and micro blogs (Weibo).  Shared accountability is what makes LinkedIn the standard of global professional networks.   Soon it will lead to an open HR infrastructure. 
Now that I have become a regular user, I am paying more attention to LinkedIn as a branding platform for individuals and companies.  Today, I saw the 10 most-liked posts in Q4 2012, provided by LinkedIn to the Business Insider.  Eight of them are Fortune 500 companies and all are outstanding brands globally.  As it’s said in the article “LinkedIn is only in the early stages of branded content creation, so big companies should look at these posts as a guide for what works best”. 

I advise you to build your own professional brand on LinkedIn as well, even if you are not currently thinking about a new career move.



 





 




 

Friday, November 16, 2012

The Global SABRE Awards 2012

About 7 years ago, I met Mr. Lee Ting at an event in San Francisco. He was one of the keynote speakers at the forum discussing China market entry strategies among executives and government leaders.  That was just after Lenovo acquired IBM’s personal computing division.  Mr. Ting, a venture capitalist and H-P veteran executive, has been on the Board of Directors at Lenovo.  Thanks to him, as a mentor and great friend of mine, from one connection to another, I’ve got to know many executives and entrepreneurs in China who are building global brands.  And now Lenovo and BlueFocus jointly won a Global SABRE Award for their successful campaign of “Micro Philanthropy 微公益” in the summer of 2011.

Between July 18 and September 22, 2011, there were 41,000 projects submitted, out of which 40 were selected and coached for the final contest, and 17 eventually won.  In total, Lenovo donated RMB 138 million, providing all resources requested for as long as the contestants’ projects were demonstrating progress.   On the popular Chinese micro-blog Sina Weibo, over 1,260,000 posts themed “Do Small in a Big Way” were published. Three-hundred Chinese celebrities volunteered time to promote the cause, including the “Microblog Queen” Yao Chen (who has 22.4 million followers), Wall Street investor Charles Xue and popular intellectual Huang Jianxiang.  More than 800,000 followed the “Do Small in a Big Way” on Sina Weibo microblog, which achieved more than 5 million page views.  Nearly 1,000 print media reports covered Lenovo’s campaign and 136 official media reports praised Lenovo for helping youth turn ideas for making a difference into reality, including Southern Weekly, China’s most influential lifestyle magazine, which made Lenovo’s micro-philanthropy contest its cover story. Meanwhile, People’s Daily, China’s most authoritative official newspaper, published a one-page report on the Lenovo campaign.

 The winning team of BlueFocus with Paul Homles in the middle

Congratulations!  It’s a significant milestone for both companies as Lenovo has become(based on last quarter’s shipping bypassing H-P) the world’s largest PC maker, and BlueFocus aims at global markets after becoming the first publicly listed PR and communications company in China.  The creativity of this program comes from and targets the youth, these amazing young people who are breaking through all boundaries and performing on the global stage.  Technology has made the world flat, and the social media made the speed of development incomprehensible compared to just a decade ago.  Digital and Social Communications are the core of energy for the jet stream of information around the world.  And here in Miami, I met the best of the best in this industry hosted by Mr. Paul Holmes, CEO at the Holmes Group.  Truly it’s one of the best summits I’ve ever been to.   

Here I’d like share a small part of the high spirited Grayling Lecture “The Ethics of Persuasion” delivered by Lord Peter Chadlington, Chairman at Huntsworth, about our people:
“Our profession is an eclectic one.  My generation fell into public relations because they were not very good at anything else – and many of us simply failed at our first choice career.
At the other end of the PR age spectrum, we have today bright, intelligent graduates – many of whom after a general degree have obtained a diploma or even a masters in public relations.
What they lack in experience, they have in spades through person confidence, academic qualifications and innate intelligence.  And we are attracting more and more executives with objective skills with which they can guide even the most seasoned CEO through the ups and downs of his corporate life.”
Photographs by Ralf Rühmeier

The future of communications is digital, mobile, social and global. May this be the first of many Global SABRE Awards for a Chinese campaign that brings public transparency, social responsibility and brand awareness together. Cheers!


 

Thursday, November 8, 2012

What's Your Brand?

It is reported that the US presidential campaign cost $6 billion, with over a million ads.  And the election came down to county-by-county results that showed the demographics and votes (blue vs. red) in fine detail. 


The question that came to my mind was this: What corporate brand would run a commercial campaign like the ones in this election, with the massive scale of spending and coverage?   Would any Chief Executive travel through 4 states per day, meeting people and shaking their hands?  And behind the scenes, would analysts look at all points of sales in stores of each county, tune the messaging to the targeted audience, and have forecasts of sales down to the hundreds, tens or single units? 

I was very impressed with Governor Romney in the first debate.  He was well prepared, sharp and  articulate.  Isn't he the perfect role model for the leadership of America?  Doesn't everyone wish to be like him: Successful, financially independent, ethical, and supporting a great family?  Doesn’t the greatest economy in the world deserve someone like him to lead?  It didn’t turn out that way.  In this country, people of color and women are no longer minorities.  And they turned away the perfect candidate.  Was it a mistake?  Do we really just get four more years of the same after all that? Haven't we all suffered one way or the other?  Why didn't we make a change and exercise our rights of democracy?  It all came down to the brutal facts of data, maybe too much data, depending on how you use them for your decisions.  They may betray you in the end when results are not what you wished after all your efforts collecting data.  How often do companies invest in developing and launching products, but miss the expectations? So why don't people buy them even though they know the benefits?

Steve Jobs’ memoir published after his death was one of the top selling books in the world.  He was unique because of his insights.  Somehow he saw the internal motives of consumers and succeeded in selling technology in so many different industries - computer, animated movies, music, telecommunications, and publishing.  Each of us have unique insights.  How do we apply them to our career and life decisions?  That may well be the start of our own brands.  There is only one Steve Jobs and one Apple.  There is also only one of you.

Somehow, these insights need to develop into a product, a service, an offering, or maybe a business.  President Obama built a coalition of African American, Hispanic, young adults and women.  He used the contrast of the middle class versus the wealthy to make Governor Romney almost irrelevant to the majority of people.  That's right.  You have to be innovative to distinguish your product from the others, and that unique appeal should derive from your insights of your targeted audience.  

That leads to the communications, the essential part of any campaign.  If you want people to buy something, you've got to tell a good story, and tell it again, and again, and again.  President Obama was most vulnerable in the first debate because, somehow, he didn't look like he was in the game.  He wasn't there to tell his story. 

When I was at Livescribe, my first start-up experience, I told my story with 5 pencasts that I made myself: 1) Helen's first English Lesson, 2) Teaching my son the Chinese character "rain" by descriptive way of explaining the strokes, 3) an architect's design of a bridge, 4) my son' writing his first rhyme, and 5) my advanced Chinese lesson of a Tang poem.  The point was to show, capture, access and share live content uniquely with handwriting and audio for language learning and creativity.  Many years from now it will still be magical for people to look at the pencasts, especially for my son who had the biggest giggle when he saw the pencast he wrote 4 years ago. I can’t wait for his son to see it.  The authenticity of his handwriting along his voice was just precious.  So why didn’t all parents buy one?

Execution.  Easy to say and hard to do.  Even Governor Romney fell short in the end.  How could he have done better?  I am sure everyone has lots of ideas.  One of the interesting factors is timing.  The other is momentum.  Obviously he lost some momentum in the final week if the campaign when Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast.  Some even said it was "God's will".  Could Livescribe have had more momentum had the iPad not been launched? 

Politician or not, we each have our own identity.  To make it a brand, a great brand big or small, we all have to recognize that with digital and social media, we are not just who we are but what we are perceived to be.  That perception is the driving force for the others' actions.  The more you can connect your authentic self to them and offer value with great insights of their needs, the more relevant you are in this world, and the happier you may be about yourself.  The biggest satisfaction is always when you can give and are well received ...  even paid for, maybe.

Being a strategic brand advocate, I help people and companies evaluate where they are in the product cycle and what actions they can take to enhance their product positioning.  What’s your brand?  What insights and suggestions may you need to make your brand spectacular?   

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Life at Livescribe

It’s been a while since my last blog. Now you can see the Pencast created by Livescribe, where I am currently driving the global roll-out program.

The world here is very different from my old worlds of consumer package goods, educational toys and Change Leadership consulting. Here, I am living and breathing cutting-edge technology and innovation. And fortunately it is personally very fulfilling.
When I came abroad from China in 1991, I literally started my life from infancy in terms of culture and communication. Although I had attended the best schools all the way through college in Beijing China, my English conversational skills were not adequate.

Now 18 years later, I am equipped with the best technology, platform and position to help people learn languages across different countries, cities, schools and levels. If I could give any advice to thousands of students coming to the US with big ambitions and dreams, I would say “don’t be afraid of learning anything and starting from scratch.”
So, cheers. Here is the first English lesson for Helen.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Thanksgiving


Fall is always my favorite season. It is colorful, mellow and relaxing. A good year’s efforts would give you the sense of accomplishment. People like results and celebrations. And they like to share. Share their stories, their feelings and their opinions. This is the beginning of the season of celebrations and giving. We give our compliments, write the over due congratulation notes or simply say thank you to everyone around us. It makes the difference.

Recently I read about “China’s Me Generation” in the Time magazine. “Young Chinese are the drivers and chief beneficiaries of the country’s current boom: according to a recent survey by Credit Suisse, the incomes of 20- to 29-year-olds grew 34% in the past three years, by far the biggest of any age group. And because of their self-interested, apolitical pragmatism, they could turn out to be the salvation of the ruling Communist Party – so long as it keeps delivering the economic goods. Survey young, urban Chinese today, and you will find them drinking Starbucks, wearing Nikes and blogging obsessively”. This is hardly anything we could have imagined 16 years ago when I left China. But somehow, we have contributed to this, at least for me by working for American consumer companies who have the mission to penetrate the Chinese markets. Now these 300 million adults in China under age 30, noticeably about the total population of the United States, are growing into the main force of production and consumption. The impact is to be global.

Now I personally have transitioned from marketing products to providing services, specifically executive consulting and coaching. The question is how to make global best practice relevant to the Chinese markets. A year and a half ago, at LeapFrog, we worked with a local Chinese partner to localize software titles. This relationship ended. And I am no longer at the company. But the processes and development know-how stayed. The Chinese software developer learned the best practice by striving to meet higher standard set by LeapFrog. They would not have got that far if their goal was just to make it good enough for their local customers. They were forced to change old habits and established better processes through the working relationship with LeapFrog producers. I wonder whether they would have paid for the training instead of having been paid for completing the job. Learning by doing has been the best practice in China.

Benefiting from the inflow of direct investments, technology and talents, Chinese economy has been growing like no other. And we somehow are all contributing to it by pursuing opportunities, which we believe will pay off. I was told during my last visit in Beijing at a university “There is money everywhere here. It is just a matter how you pick it up”. Sounds exciting! And look at the list of companies gone public or waiting in the pipeline, you cannot help thinking it is just incredible. Specifically, I am happy for Perfect World (NASDAQ: PWRD) and Acorn (NYSE: ATV) since I had the pleasure knowing their leaders in the past.

There are gaps to be filled with more talents needed to sustain the growth and move the economy up the supply chain with more innovation, better quality and less waste. Taking a long path away from home and learning many lessons in different places, I wonder where the life journey will take me next. Somehow if I can be helpful to bring soft skills to the new leaders and workforce in China, it would be a great thrill. But you never know whether you are just a little too early for the market when you see what others don’t see. The basic principle of demand and supply presents a challenge to be where you are needed at the right time.

Now taking a break from work, I want to say thank you to all the old friends and new ones. It is Thanksgiving time. Although it is a very American centric holiday, I do feel it is a good tradition to express gratitude to others and be thanked for whatever. I am grateful for the positive energy I possessed and shared in my life, and for my two darling children David and Lily. I am happy for the lucky “Golden Pig” babies that joined us this year, Jake Wang and Daoyuan Chi, just to name two. Two family weddings in May, Jody and Chris respectively got married! And I am most thankful for Jeff’s job at the Alameda County because he is so happy there…

Friday, September 21, 2007

One Month Note to My Friends

It is September 21st. An important milestone for me. I have to say it felt like a long time since my last day at LeapFrog, which was exactly a month a ago. And I feel bad that I did not write to my dear friends, or have coffee, lunch… All the nice things I wished to do at my departure.

Not sure how many of you know that I have started at Pivotal Resources, inc., an executive consulting and coaching firm in Walnut Creek, CA. I am the Vice President of China Operations. Yes, I took a portrait picture just like an executive. I actually took two (out of over 20 shots) back to the office. The one won the vote was my pick (vs. the photographer's). Talking about culture and fit. I felt great about it here! Thanks to Laura Garnier! She introduced me to Pete Pande, the President of Pivotal, a well-known author of books such as The Six Sigma Leader, The Six Sigma Way and What is Six Sigma, and a great mentor.

I got my first Apple PowerBook G4, but a hand-down repaired Laptop… It was a long story. There is no IT department or travel agent here. Now I know how spoiled I was. I am writing this note on the Mac on the way home from Las Vegas. To learn about the new arena, I attended the Lean Six Sigma Improvement Summit 2007, a conference at the Venetian. I proudly booked my Southwest Airline flights online. Used to long flights across the Pacific Ocean, I was excited about this 1-hour plus journey. Should be easy. Well, I missed the flight while sitting in front of the gate for almost 2 hours READING! Never figured out why the plane just left without me but my checked-in bag. It could never happen on United to Tokyo. I panicked while the smiling Southwest agent issued me a new boarding pass and assured me that my suitcase will be in Vegas waiting for me at their luggage office when I get there on the next flight. Yes, he was right although I couldn’t help questioning him twice. What a relief! Do they use Six Sigma process management?

Met a Japanese attendee at the conference during the first-day lunch. He’s from NEC in charge of “New Solution Development”. It’s his first time in Vegas. He exclaimed what a STRANGE city it is. “It is so artificial. It’s like a big Disneyland…” He couldn’t understand! He said it’s all amusement. It reminded me of Japanese amusement industries… Nintendo, Sega… I thought it was crazy at the Tokyo Toy Fair when there’s so much noise, so many action figures and characters and games after games. It’s all about perspectives. An attendee from US Army told me that it was fun just watching people in the casinos. You can learn so much just watching human behavior.


One thing I learned was life is not about take actions for the sake of taking actions. We were so busy with our action items back at LeapFrog. I saw so many changes there that life without crises and changes could make me uneasy nowadays. WOW. How bad is that? So forgive me if I drove you crazy in the old days. Now I am learning a lot everyday by reading, watching others, talking with very smart people… not taking much action yet honestly. I know it’ll happen. And I am planning to take some small steps first when the strategy is in place. It is such a diversified, talented and supportive team of people! I am very fortunate to be on a new learning journey so soon. It is a thrill working with Laura here. We have so much fun together. Please feel free to visit us at www.pivotalresources.com or better yet in Walnut Creek with so many great places to hang out.

Almost forgot to mention that David started kindergarten right after Labor day. He is the tallest in his class. Lily is now potty trained. She misses David terribly at the preschool and asks to go to David's school from time to time. Our aquarium has been prospering. So far 3 baby fishes were born and they are happily growing up. It is a good sign, right? But no more kids for us. Jeff agrees. We just had our 7th Anniversary while I was by myself at the conference in Vegas. I treated myself to the Phantom of Opera. No matter how many times I watch it, I am always fascinated by the music and performance. May God bless us with love through the rest of our lives. Happy anniversary!

P.S. This is my first blog as part of my first month learning. There may not be another one. What do you think?