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My 2009 Roundup

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:12:24 +0000

It's that time of year where we round up all that went down over 2009, and all that'll be surging down the pipe during Twenty-Ten. So here's a very short summary of the excellent year which was, and a few tip-offs about the promising year which is to come -- despite the obvious onset of worsening economic conditions wherever you live.

Notable milestones:

China: So I finally managed to head on over to the People's Republic -- Beijing and Shanghai, specifically -- last month, the very two

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Nixon and Mao

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:13:34 +0000

It's been a trying week chock-full of technical mishaps and PC operating system roadblocks that's prevented me from issuing daily dispatches, so kindly excuse the short delay. I've finally kicked the can and upgraded to Windows 7, and a very good riddance to the most annoying Vista! Since the summer of '08, I've experienced nothing but trouble with the latter -- from the very first week I'd been using it -- so I'm absolutely over the moon to see it go. How about you? Any Vista troubles you

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Nixon and Mao

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:13:34 +0000

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Marketing to the Poor

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 21:19:55 +0000

I just completed Max Lenderman's Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates and Oligarchs are Reshaping Business, which somehow strikingly reminded me of Vijay Mahajan's Africa Rising: How 900 Million Consumers Offer More Than You Think, a title I'd polished off earlier during 2009.

The parallelisms between these two longitudinal studies especially dawned on me during Lenderman's final chapters where he delves fulsomely into the novel ways multinational (MNC) marketers have begun appealing to…

Bomb It!

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:41:18 +0000

It took me an extra couple of days over this year-end Holiday Rush, but I finally managed to catch the entirety of Jon Reiss' BOMB IT!, an independently-produced, guerrilla-marketed documentary about the phenomenon of "tagging," "piecing," and grafitti writing all around the globe (US, The Netherlands, Germany, France, the UK, South Africa, Brazil, and Japan).

Truth be told, I never intended to watch this film -- in fact, I was somehow gently persuaded into forking out a "combo price" for…

Panda Huggers vs. Dragon Slayers

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:38:05 +0000

Panda hugger? Dragon slayer? What in tarnation am I on about?

Well, it's connected to one of my long-standing pet projects, a field I've been spending a considerable amount of time on these past few months: the Sino-US relationship. Through my humble efforts, this here crazy Canuck is trying to help the two sides see clear through to each other's intentions in the lead up towards what's shaping up to be this century's new policy of détente.

Look, it's no secret I get most of my good…

Chinese African Carrots

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:06:50 +0000

For the world's China watchers, like myself, there's a new dynamic duo in town, the Swiss authors of Serge Michel & Michel Beuret who have recently signed their John Hancocks to their fresh-off-the-press China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa.

So I've got the book and I've been meticulously working my way through it.

Safari is another of those stark assessments of China's involvement on the African continent, an investigative look into a region where only the world's…

#COP15 While the Ads Are Still Shilling

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:32:29 +0000

What delicious irony!

So I'm working my aging muscles at the gym this morning, buzzing in my zone, collected within my own thoughts and space, when on the overhead radio blares the news from the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark and then...followed by a sound bite from the Secretary of State -- Ms. Clinton -- about how "climate change not only affects the environment, but it affects our economy and our security."

Okay, fair enough, so her obsequious speechwriters and assorted…

What Matters Now, an eBook

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:06:59 +0000

In between the other stuff I'm doing, I've been gradually scrolling my way though an excellent new Seth Godin eBook entitled What Matters Now.

It's another one of those savvy Godin-esque compilations of short, meaningful entries from a veritable who's-who of the interwebs celebesphere that I'd heard about at Twitter and threaded within the folds of a recent Twist Image blogpost and podcast hosted by ueber-media maven Mitch Joel of Montreal, Canada.

Despite the work's brevity -- clocking in at

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Madame

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:51:14 +0000

What might China have been like had the KMT had won?

What if Chiang (Kai-shek) had played a slightly more offensive role than his traditional defensive game and taken the fight to Mao's Communists instead of laying back in wait, following Bruce Lee's famous dictum about water:

"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.…

Brand New World

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:13:23 +0000

Global brands like Nike, Apple, Adidas, Burberry, Gucci, and Tag-Heuer are justifiably very concerned about Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, and Brazilian product piracy, but according to author Max Lenderman, they shouldn't be all that concerned.

Really?! What's this, you say?

Lenderman does the yeoman's work in his new book, Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates, and Oligarchs and Shaping Business explaining the nuances of another way of looking at the whole counterfeiting plague that will

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aa

Blogy a názory: Libor Stejskal — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:20:00 +0000

Futuretainment

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:47:02 +0000

Twitter's great because it acts as a kind of triage mechanism for new books I'd like to read. Several of my friends are avid readers -- surprising given their time commitments to their professional and family duties -- and one of them based in Shanghai recently suggested I have a look at Mike Walsh's Futuretainment.

Futuretainment isn't your typical sort of read. For one, it's issued by boutique publisher Phaidon Press, and weighing in at 274pp and boasting decidedly non-standard binding,…

So How Antisocial Are You?

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 08:34:13 +0000

I've been slowly making my way through Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's superb Trust Agents over this weekend. From what I can make of the book so far, the key to increasing the amount of trust people place in you online revolves around how much stuff you put out there. By being a prolific content provider and by demonstrating how competently you speak about a particular topic online goes a long way to building a loyal online and offline following.

This is particularly true in Brogan's case.

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Twitter Propagators, Community Builders, and Follower Transfixers

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:11:32 +0000

Jeremy Gutsche, head honcho at Toronto's Trend Hunter, recently published his company's 50 Top Interviews of 2009. Interviewees ranged from new media to old media types, women and men responsible for generating memes and spotting trends who provided brief but candid responses to a series of repetitive questions asked -- with minor variations, according to their respective industries -- by Gutsche's Trend Hunter team.

My several gleanings from the read are too numerous to distill into just a…

A Crisis Economy…But the Service Still Sucks

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:25:45 +0000

It's great to be back in Prague again after a long stint abroad and on the road. China and Romania were superb, as always, but there's nothing quite like home...I think?

A couple of interesting interactions upon my return to the Czech lands that bear mentioning here, stuff that had me scratching my head whether it was just me or was it the place in which I found myself that was causing such things to happen? So for the past twenty-four hours, I've been mentally parsing out what (or, more…

On Rotten Podcast Guests

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:18:12 +0000

Most of my listeners and viewers are already aware that I began my Web 2.0 "career" as a podcaster (and here). I'll still occasionally record an audio piece when I have something interesting to say (hehe) though these days I remain an avid supporter of others' online works. Lately, my show selection is limited by the amount of time I have available to listen to longer-form material in light of how much of it I've lately been devoting to perfecting my video craft. Being thusly hogtied, I try to…

Jobs In China

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:13:32 +0000

So you've scored yourself a shiny new college diploma and want to take a big step up on the career ladder. You've read and heard about how China's growing like the jolly green giant so you think your best prospects of landing a promising new gig are squarely in the PRC's lap. Well, think again. While China is indeed on its "peaceful rise," you may want to re-examine things before you make your own "great leap forward." If you're not delivering some beneficial skill to the Chinese market --

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So This Is Communism?

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:28:55 +0000

Today I'm standing on Shanghai's Nanjing Lu (Avenue), one of China's most storied shopping thoroughfares. The street is a 24-7 hive of activity and -- I kid you not -- it's worth it to just stand there with a cuppa joe just to watch the throngs go about their business in the district. The Double E whipped out the cam so you all could get an eyeful what "Socialism With Chinese Characteristics" looks like. The harsh reality of the matter is that everything -- and yes, we mean absolutely

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Breaching the Great Wall

Blogy a názory: Adam Daniel Mezei — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:44:39 +0000

There are a ton of pretenders out there claiming to be another of the so-called "China experts." Truth is, there's no such thing as a "China expert." If one thing's for certain, the PRC keeps on changing and not even China's hardline leaders know where things might ultimately head. Where better to debunk the "China expert" theory than from atop the country's Great Wall? That's right, Episode #51 comes straight at ya from the Great Wall of China north of Beijing, at the Mutianyu entrance. Enjoy

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