While I did just blog about the BootUP! weekend on startupcn – I want to use my personal blog to be a bit more “personal” and not feel guilty for saying how I personally feel rather than the group itself.

Yes, everyone really loved the weekend experience, and even if some left the weekend earlier they thanked me dearly for helping organize and put it together with Bruce and some others. But I have the following lessons to share, and I am still looking for answers, ideas, and feedback:

1. Language – in all these events I have had trouble deciding how to balance language in China. I am American, and my Chinese is limited. I push Li Jun and others in the organization to help with translation and getting speakers, volunteers, judges who are from the Chinese business community. I don’t want this to be a bunch of foreigners hanging out in China talking about China business, for me to feel it is a success, we need to balance Chinese and foreigners together……yet when I helped pair off teams, putting equal balance of Chinese and foreigner, seems the Chinese did not come back throughout the weekend, maybe they are shy, maybe they are busy….or maybe they are intimidated by the English language and/or the naturally more directness of a foreigner.
2. Culture – an SZteam Chinese investor was visiting the office on Saturday, sitting with Li Jun. At that time, in the “break room” some of the team members were joking around and pushing each other. The Chinese investor took it as disrespect towards the office, not caring if they broke something or interrupted others. Li Jun asked me to tell those members to stop joking around, and I tried my best to explain to the Chinese businessman that its a cultural difference and not meaning disrespect to him and the office. A few other instances like this. as well as the bullet point above with the language…culture and language go hand in hand…and maybe that is why some of the teams had people jumping off and quitting and new people joining, etc throughout the weekend.



3. Managing Personality Levels – again, similar to the above 2 points, but we had some extremely extroverted personalities mixed with extremely introverted personalities. And I think most people that have read my blog and spent some time in China (or Asia overall) would agree most Chinese are quieter and less direct, while the typical American / European is more direct and agressive. This also added a new dynamic to the group formations.
4. Making money at the event – just under pressure to pay the rent from SZteam coworking (yes, we are trying separate the startups community (startupscn.com) from the coworking space (szteam.com) and many are confusing the two groups), I wish we didnt have so much pressure to pay the rent and could instead focus on pure community building and networking, but this is life. We didn’t charge for the event, but we also didn’t get any sponsors for the events except members themselves bringing food, snacks, and making small donations in the donation box to pay for the air conditioning.

Today my email box was flooded with feedback from members, as well as new people interested in future events. One to highlight is a great guy who came, Lucian, gave me the following thorough email today:

Hi Mike,

I wanted to thank you again for the event hosted in Shenzhen. I am so happy ur pioneering the way in the local community and you rally the troops there. I was literally impressed with the quality of judges you brought to the table! The event was great, the place is super nice (better than boot actually)! I am looking to get multi entry visa for China and with only a few RMB for ticket transportation I might be able to come out to events you guys host!

Some suggestions to make it better:
- figure out a way to avoid people abandoning SW middle through the process! Otherwise it creates distress for the teams that get built
some solutions:
–> charge people $50 HKD admission fee or so and upon completion of the event refund it back!
–> have a different category of people that can join the event such as “observers” where people are maybe able to come one day or so. Maybe they are a local person and are intimidated, maybe they just want to see diff ideas.
- have perhaps a communication workshop at the co-working space and make locals and foreigners aware of cultural differences when communicating and working in groups. This could be done the same date in 1 hour after the start of the event…etc
Otherwise the foreigners risk having an ‘aggressive’ attitude and intimidate locals. Since Face is important to them, they might be reluctant to work and tensions arise in the group. (It could avoid situations where the mexican girl or the other asian woman get “bullied” by one dominant force and their ideas not appreciated, valued or taken into consideration)
- perhaps have like hang out at the end of the night in a larger group including more locals (it was great what we did!, plus it gives u opportunity to learn about a person on a personal level and build more trust)….the idea of socializing with people u work after work hours is hugely popular in Japan.

Another thing I thought it would be cool to share with you is this link that I came across…

http://www.cyberport.hk/campaign/cyberlink/vol036/detail_page_3.html

It is run by the Cyberport Creative Micro Fund Young Entrepreneur Programme (CCMF-YEP) which is “designed for the tertiary students and recent graduates of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, aims to help young and creative talents in developing the technical and business skills they need to capture the opportunities in the booming Internet and/or ICT busines”.

It is co-organized by Hong Kong Information Technology Joint Council, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Union for Promoting Science & Technology and the PKU-HKUST Shenzhen Hong Kong Institution, and managed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Entrepreneurship
I think there could be some synergy with this program and the events you guys have at SZ Team and you could connect with maybe the shenzhen organizations. This way this university kids will come out and attend the startup weekend events in the future.

Lucian is a real hustler, and Vlad and I told him about the tropical MBA internship with our buddies Dan and Ian….but I may get greedy and keep Lucian for our Shenzhen efforts, as he is looking to make the jump to full time startup and Hong Kong is not the best place to pay the rent and bills if you want to bootstrap!!!

Also Luigi is helping us get more PR press, and is talking to Shenzhen Daily, Bruce took some time to reply, below:

1. Does Shenzhen Team mostly survive by donations?

Shenzhen Team is a co-working space, located in the Science Park. Co-working is a recent trend that is taking hold all over the world, but especially in areas with a concentration of high tech workers. It involves people from different organizations, often entrepreneurs, sharing an office space and facilities. It provides a sense of community for people who might otherwise work at home, or alone in a small office, or in a crowded public space, such as a coffee shop.

Shenzhen Team sponsors a number of activities and groups, including a weekly meeting of the Shenzhen Startups group, and a quarterly “BootUp” startup weekend. These startup weekends are also a growing trend around the world, and now Shenzhen has its own.

The SZ Team co-working space is funded by users who may pay on either a per use basis, or join as a member, subscribing to a one month or three month plan.

2. If it is a profit organization, then how does it intend to make a profit in the long term?

Besides membership and usage fees, Shenzhen Team is considering different revenue streams in order to sustain the valuable service it provides. These include sponsorships, grants, leasing space for groups, corporate meetings and training.

3. Who were those judges? Were they paid for going?

The judges for the BootUP! startup weekend were local entrepreneurs with a multiple successful businesses. We had a mixture of Chinese and foreigner judges, who all generously donated their time for this event.

Paul Tittmann, American spending 38 years in Asia. CEO of Pacific Access a large Turkish trading company in Shekou district, previously executive in Global Sources and TNT China

Mr Pang, a successful Chinese businessman, the first China CEO of Cisco Systems, also many years in Sun Microsystems and spent 5 years living in USA

Yoyo – Director of Media for Phoenix TV (HK)

Marshall Taplits – Local Tech guru, owner of 2 bars in Shekou and Implementation Manager for TradeStone Software

Jon Buford – Founder of boot.hk coworking and CEO of his new startup makible

4. What happened to the winning start-up last night?

The winning startup will be featured prominently in blogs and other promotional materials about this event. The SZ Startup group will be pleased to take inquiries from VCs and other investors about the any of the teams that participated in this event, as well as other startups in Shenzhen that are seeking seed capital.

5. How often do you have these pitch nights?

SZ Startups plan to hold BootUP weekends at least once a quarter. The next event being planned will be carried out in concert with startup weekends held in other cities across China, which is looking like Nov 19-20, 2011.

But I am going to keep pushing it! I know we were considering doing a weekend from Sept 16 – 18 , but no way…..gonna have to wait til later. I’m gonna be in USA Sept 21 to Oct 12

Overall, this shenzhen coworking is fitting my overall career and life goals….I do want to start a podcast series, and I am running two main projects – my ecommerce business and this Shenzhen startup community development…. also now adding training services….but overall, I think it makes sense….

AND IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING!. Stay positive, listen to what people want, and keep adjusting.

Incoming search terms:

• Hong Kong weekend startup business plan
• startup weekend Lucian

So this weekend while in Hong Kong, I bought a CHINESE BRAND (Hua Wei) 3G tablet for 2500hkd (about 320usd) that is both a tablet and a phone. I bought it from the same shop in the Wan Chai computer city as I bought the last View Sonic tablet (Which they no longer carry)….and they didn’t seem to remember me, or care to remember me.

So why did I choose a Chinese Brand! Well, I am told that they are the OEM for HTC phones, I want to experiment with a Chinese brand product (though others have broken rather quickly). It does have a 1 year warranty.

Plus, in the Szteam coworking space, 3 full floors of the building are occupied by this Hua Wei company…and the past few days on the elevator I whip out my tablet and show those hua wei workers my phone. Gets some good conversation.

The specs are

—

• Huawei brand
• Ideos model, S7 slim tablet version
• docking port on the bottom edge.
• SIM slot underneath the battery
• CPU: 1 GHz Scorpion processor, Adreno 200 GPU, Qualcomm QSD8250.
• RAM: 512MB.
• External Storage: Micro SD Card Reader up to 32GB.
• Display: 7″ Touch Screen.
• 3G Support: Built in up to 7.2Mbps.
• Camera: Front: 0.3MP Back: 2.0 Mega Pixel.

Product Features:

• Popular mobile communication services.
• Support WCDMA/HSPA GSM/GPRS/EDGE
• Support voice communication, SMS, MMS, Email and mass mailing
• Enjoyable HD media playing and multi-tasking.
• Support multi-tasking
• Support 720p media playback
• Easy and portable Internet surfing experience.
• 7″ touch screen gives you full-screen web browsing experience
• Support WiFi 802.11b/g/n15.5mm
• ultra slim, weighs only 500g, easy to carry about.
• I also like that I CAN REPLACE THE BATTERY, the Mac products, my old Viewsonic tablet, and many others lock the battery inside the casing…now I can buy a few extra batteries and exchange them when I need it.

But again, I am not really amazed that Chinese now are making their own brand. I have been saying this over and over again…as prices for manufacturing rise in China, Americans and other foreign buyers will move their purchasing budgets to other countries, such as Vietnam and other SouthEast Asian countries. I have attended an Chinese ecommerce conference in Chengdu, and the main topic was that as the costs in China rise, companies need to build their own brand to protect their businesses from losing the B2B OEM orders of overseas brands. I also attended SEO conferences in Xiamen and pushed and pushed the audience they need to get smarter, and realize that this is the future.

This is also why I am working on making Szteam a business training center, as Chinese companies will need to invest more money in “white collar” training for their office staff, such topics as project management, internet marketing, sales, etc.

Another case of a Chinese brand is Lennovo, which was OEM for IBM thinkpad laptops, and now has taken over the brand ?????????????????????????????

As an American businessman, I hope this post makes other Americans realize they have to think smarter as well…  the world is becoming more and more flat its not just outsource your development to another country and collect the cash…..the whole world now is getting more developed, more inteliigent, and we all have to t hink smarter, faster, and on our feet.

Lets see how this Huawei tablet holds up….so far it has frozen on me a few times and it hasn’t even been a week….though I can get it serviced in the same building I am working….and it will be an interesting excuse to check out the Huawei offices.

Incoming search terms:

• HUAWEI
• huawei tablet

• an idea lab – incubator – startup breeding grounds.
• But more immediately (and more monetizable) a business training center!

A majority of the speakers have been open to getting paid (duh!) for a longer, more detailed and comprehensive training class in their expertise and topic….and we have the space now in the SZteam coworking center (as well as the whole facility which is the Nanjing University Research center of Shenzhen!)……

We have the demand from the people coming, and we have the experts / speakers over the months of events and gatherings….and we have the place. Its just gotta get organized and tested a bit.

Classes / courses I am thinking of offering (which you can look back to in previous meetings in shenzhenmarketing.com , startupscn.com , szteam.com )

• Ecommerce – building a shopping cart
• Payment settlement, foreign exchange
• IP, trademark law
• Manufacturing law, contract law, making proper documentation for factories
• SEO, web marketing
• HTML, website design, construction
• South American market, USA market, Russian market
• Chinese ecommerce, taobao
• Logistics, warehousing, chargebacks, returns
• Email marketing
• Incubators, hackerspaces, creativity

Now, again, I don’t want to stop the “Free” classes and the networking….I hope people don’t get the fear that will disappear, those are rather quick, introductory, to get common people and minds together to discuss a topic. So don’t worry, those will continue. We will just extend and offer more detailed, intimate courses for those who really want to get down to business. And seems Shenzhen needs this too!

Below is a quick summary of today’s Startups Tuesday #3 by Bruce Levin.

Thanks again to Bruce Levin for coming tonight and speaking on business model generation. We had a solid 35 to 40 people showing up, again a good mix, actually a better quality mix, of Chinese and foreigner, technical and business, entrepreneur and investor. It keeps getting better and better.

He is willing to share his slides, you can download them – Introduction to Business Model Generation

I took some notes, and as usual past them below.

Business model generation

NOT a business plan.

What is a business model? Describes rationale how a business creates, delivers, and captures value.
think things through first!

there are 9 points, but there are 4 main points:

Customers
Offer (product / service)
Infrastructure
Financial viability

What is value? the thing (product or service) that people will pay money for.

We got a bit off topic talking about Gilette razors loss leader model, printers making money selling ink not the machines, and affiliate marketing tricks and ways they make big money. Also a big topic was skype, being bought out by ebay, then bought back by the founder of skype for a fraction of the price, then sold to microsoft for 8 times that (approx)

Incoming search terms:

• hackerspace shenzhen

I’m taking the weekend in Shenzhen now, been trying to cut down meetings (thanks Leon and others), and just learning to better say “NO”, even though I may dissappoint people or miss out on some opportunities. But then so be it.

Here is the upcoming week:

• Sunday – here in Shenzhen, working on preparing for week ahead, also hope to finish a book “Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure”.
• Monday – go to Dongguan at the Fiveislands Chinese ecommerce center, my trusted assistant Amy says everyone misses me….(awwww, I feel the love!) One of our clients of bike accessories needs a bike from his Shenzhen workshop to be moved over to our Dongguan facility, maybe I’ll ride it over (nahhh, not that crazy!) Oh, and yea maybe also catch up on work! (yes, I do work, not just blog and travel guys!)
• Tuesday – Dongguan still, hopefully there will be electricity, hope to have more team and management meetings about the Chinese ecommerce projects and logistics. Plan to head to Hong Kong after the day of work is done.
• Wednesday – in Hong Kong, meet with my friend Vlad introduce him to my Hong Kong business friends, investigate a new web project for the Hong Kong market (still a bit early stage for me to blog details). Also hope to meet some social media gurus like Kitty Cheung and @battlestars Jason
• Thursday – still in Hong Kong for the morning and early afternoon, work in Boot HK coworking, in the evening there is the Shenzhen meeting for networkprd.com re-launch. More name card trading and networking over cocktails.
• Friday – A day between networking meetings, probably stay in Shenzhen and catch up on work.
• Saturday, afternoon meetup for shenzhen marketing, the fifth one, topic on mobile app marketing
• Saturday night, Head back to Hong Kong, my friend Andy Englander from USA is in town for a couple weeks, spend a night on the town w/ him, wish I had more time, but have the Philippines in the morning.
• Sunday morning – fly to philippines from Hong Kong airport, will be in Philippines from the 19th to the 30th. Plan to visit my staff, the scholarship program progress, check on progress of Clear Cafe center, hope to do a meetup, and get some beach time in Boracay (yes, I know MikeMo, finally!)

So there is my upcoming week. I am going to try my best to stick to this schedule….whats exhausting is not the traveling, but changing the plans due to others or some strange circumstances last minute….that is what really drains me…switching gears. I need to mentally prepare and plan.

But I feel more confident…I’ve learned the best ways to get around these locations….that took years of hustling to do…now its about planning and execution! DO IT!

I think, just like I am a fan of coworking, couchsurfing, and minimalism.

I think the same will happen not only in “adult world” but in children’s learning environment, aka “schools”. This is disruptive, and I recently read an article Peter Thiel takes his dream kids out of college to do business! He is definitely not making universities happy doing this. Taking top students out of college…..

My friend Marshall also sent me this program, called the Khan Academy as another popular new way for people to learn.

But I think more resistance will come because the university costs feed the system. Get a loan, pay the school, get into debt, pay back the debt for the rest of your life.

How much do we really learn in school?

Again, I see this as social media in action. But sure, even today I have met kids being home schooled. It is possible to learn outside of the classroom, but we also need to INTERACT eith kids our age. We also need to face kids we naturally wouldnt be friends with. Yes, I mean the bullies wjo beat up kids for their lunch money, the stuck up girlie girls who taunt the odd girl out. Why would I possibly say that is necesary…

Because when we get older, we are stuck dealing with those personalities in life. landlord, boss, police, lawyer. We cannot shelter ourselves from people we dont like in grown up life, we have to face them. so in the children phase of our life, we need to learn how to deal with all kinds of people too.

I have to say I was never a fan of structure. A fan of being forced to take a class in school i had no use for. I remember my struggle in high school cemistry, i saw no point in taking it. I had to though to get into university (or so the nuns in my catholic school told me). First day of class Sister Felimina rolls down the chart for the Periodic Table of Elements. She tells us that by the time this class would be over we would have memorized every single symbol, elements atomic number, and atomic weight on this chart. I raised my hand and asked “why”. Obviously this didnt go over well….as I was challenging her whole curriculum. She told me that it was imperative to memorize this to prepare for university, as she said in university it is expected you have this memorized already, or at least it would put you at an advantage over the other students. She mentioned some of her all star students who came back and said how much her class helped them for university. Each friday we would have tests on a new column or row of elements on the chart.

So she asked me to stay after class to discuss further. She asked me why I am being difficult. That this class will not only help me in my schooling but also in daily life. I still wasnt buying into it. She asked what i wanted to be when i grew up, i said a businesman. I cannot remember the exact rebuttal but she said i would need chemistry in business so that if in the office if someone was going to mix two deadly toxic fluids together it would set on fire or explode……i still said i don’t know why i need memorize the periodic table of elements….i said it was a waste of my time and i can always look back at the chart in the future if i needed to. she said it was necessary…..and this struggle continued for the length of the time I was taking the class.

Going into university, the first day of my chemistry class, the professor showed us a standard periodic table of elements and said this sheet can be brought to even quiz and exam for the whole semester, and not to waste time memorizing the chart, as its an easily accessible piece of information and as you used it more you would memorize what you needed.

Man, that was funny…..

Incoming search terms:

• School hong kong

I have been in touch with her on weibo (Chinese twitter) and its great she is explaining there are more developments in Chinese marketing and internet promotions.

As I have said over and over…as the global economy gets more “flat”, equal, and competitive — currencies evening out (US dollar declining) , inflation (China labor and raw materials are skyrocketing), and education / information flow (internet and telecommunications) — there is no longer “easy money” for Chinese factories…they will have to apply more “soft skills”, management skills, use a CRM (client relations management) system. All those things a factory manager would laugh and say “no need” years ago. The customers were banging down their doors in the past, giving them wire transfers quick and easy…

Times have changed.

And Chinese businesses, especially factories for the export business, need to adapt. Fion, at Timev asked me to let people know about their upcoming PM (project management) event in Beijing on June 17. I really wish I could go, but I’ll be having events and meetings down in South China. Anyway, here is her shared info on the event:

It would be more than great if you can say something about this Beijing PM meeting, which is scheduled on 17 June. The website is http://pm.timev.com. As you may know, Product Manager isn’t so “familiar” to Chinese Internet world yet. Some people just don’t know what PM means, or how important this role may play in a company. Maybe you would like to discuss this topic a bit in your blog?

And please do mention our PM meeting in Beijing. We have invited almost 20 senior Internet PMs to be our speakers this time, including Chairman and CEO of Qihoo 360, CEO of meitu.com, VP of 58.com, founder of 8684.cn, CEO of EICO Design, and more from Bing, Motorola Mobile Devices, Baidu.com, qunar.com. We believe this meeting will be China’s biggest PM meeting so far. And we expect all speakers and participants will enjoy a good time of learning, sharing and meeting.

Even I was not exactly clear what she meant by PM (product management), I normally think of PM as a PROJECT manager.
Here she calls PM as a product manager, a person who manages a specific product. Not necessarily a PHYSICAL product, but in the internet world, a web platform, a web service, as a platform. Fion goes on to clarify on a product manager:

Well, that’s a typical question, I’m actually not sure whether I understand product manager correctly A product manager is sometimes considered as a bit similar to Project Manager. There’s saying that the difference between the two. A Product Manager is required to “think”, about the design of his product, about what the users may need, about how better user experiences can be created and about whether this product may make profit for the company; while the project manager is focusing on the execution and the performance under certain conditions concerning time, cost, resources, etc.

A product manager is responsible for the overall and ongoing success of a product. In the internet world, a product could be a website, an APP, a software… But I believe product manager can be find in any industry. I read an article on http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/ff_bloodwork/2/ about how to redesign a blood test report and help people read it more easily. This, as I understood, could be a work by a product manager too. Read this item on wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_manager. And just write what you think about PM. Actually, you kind attention and interest to this meeting is itself an support to us.

And, here’s another interesting thing. I @ you at sina weibo earlier, telling you that I replied you email and asking if you’ve see what we do to promote the PM meeting. Then a friend of mine, who’s actually my previous colleague @ me and said it’s wired I’m talking to you like that, and suggested that I could have private messaged you. Ya, isn’t it an interesting thing? I actually did @ you openly on purpose to test/utilize the openness of weibo. But in some way I think this story shows that most people are still using and considering weibo as private, amusive and even a small circle of his friends…

Still, my main point here is that China continues to make progress in marketing and “white collar” skills. Moving away from making widgets in a factory, and more high tech products and services. Its natural in the development of any country, and for Americans, it means we (as Americans) have to keep on top of our marketing and sales skills to be competitive globally.

Incoming search terms:

• chinese seo 2011
• xiamen china seo

Again, part of my continuous transition of life and career, I think spending today reflecting and reading helped a lot. Below I was typing notes on my tablet as I was reading, thought I would share the “cliff notes” from the book. But still recommend spending time to read it over.

conquering fear = defining fear – What are we afraid of, what do we have to lose? How hard is it really to get back to where you left off, get job back, get your income back? Think about the risks and rewards of keeping what we have and not being happy versus taking a risk and trying something new, with the worst case returning back where you started.

fear is optimistic denial, thinking life will get better – So many times we don’t want to try something new because we think the life we are living now can get better if we just keep putting up with it. But Tim calls this optimistic denial. We have to take charge of our lives and our destiny.

do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. He mentioned how when he spoke at Princeton University, he challenged the students to contact 3 famous people and ask them questions, the first one to do so would get a trip paid for around the world. NO one did it, or event attempted (he says if someone had at least told them they tried, they would have one) Tim’s point is that people feel that others are better then them, smarter than them, faster than them….so why bother trying? Don’t think this way!!!!!

dont chase happiness, chase excitement, passion, bliss, so ask what would excite yourself? Its not happiness we are looking for, he says happiness can be a bottle of wine and chocolate once a week. It should be passion and excitement we are looking for.

“life is too short to be small” benjamin disraeli

dreamlining, tmi, total monthly income

elimination time management isnt right, dont try to jam every minute of your day with things to do.

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important
2. requiring a lot of time does not make the task important.

what you do is important, not how you do it.

the end of time management, ask yourself these questions each day

1. am i being productive or just active?
2. am i inventing things to do to avoid the important?
3. if i only get this one task done today, will i be satisfied with my day?

low information diet

learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace. – Robert Sawyer

“nobody can give you freedom. nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. if you’re a man, you take it” – Malcolm x

eliminate before you degate

mba, manage by absense where the owner founder purposely isnt always there in order to have staff ….. process oriented vs founder oriented business

removing yourself from the equation, outsourcing yourself.

“orders are nobody can see the great oz! not nobody, not nohow!” guardian of the emerald city gates, the wizard of oz

dont be the driver if the train, be the police officer on the side of the road that can pull people over if need be.

fewer options = more revenue, “the customer can have any color he wants,  so long as its black” – henry ford

Just an amazing book, I think this was a life changer for me when I read it back in San Diego, California back in summer 2007….and strongly recommend reading it to anyone who wants to change the way they think and work!

A rainy monday here in shenzhen, took a trip with my friend James to Long Hua district of shenzhen, the factory district of this massive city.  Its a growing factory that wants to expand towards direct distribution, invited some foreigners to visit, discuss cooperation and assistance in marketing and branding. Late last year I had visited a mouse factory in shenzhen as well as a LED factory here, maybe this is the 3rd of some sort of series…..hmmmm…

Learning and seeing all kinds of things like PCB printing, SMT machines  and assembly of consumer electronics.

I had been tweeting and weibo-ing (chinese twitter) photos and messages during my visit…..some chinese weibo guys feel work conditions in the factories are not suitable….noticing a fan next to some of the workers in the assembly line. Sure, I wonder too, but today has been quite a rainy day.

It is a network of a few factories, having general assembly in one, PCB printing, and then assembly dedicated purely for bluetooth headsets. they have capacity to make 3,000 units per day currently, with ease to scale up if demand is there.

They have a target for foreign sales department to increase their sales to 100,000 units per month, and would then expand to an additional facility if this goal can be achieved.

Hoping to cross promote thier facility with services from fiveislands fulfillment, as they are also looking to market and distribute consumer electronics.

Next we and video game accessories (this factory network also operates a game accessory factory, but didn’t have time today to visit.

Checking in on foursquare, I see other facilities in the area, it was funny to see Foxconn factory (OEM factory for Apple’s iphone and ipad) not too far away.  We drove past it on the drive as well.  A massive, almost unending series of factories along the highway. There is also talk of Foxconn leaving Shenzhen, moving majority of its production to inland cities of mainland China, such as Wuhan.

Chit chatting to people here about last year’s factory suicides at Foxconn as well as later doubling of salaries to factory workers inside shenzhen, there were some political initiatives behind it. For one, Foxconn only doubled wages inside Shenzhenl which it had been planning to close and move inland anyway, thus screwing the little factories surrounding it in Shenzhen. Another bird told me that it was also a slap against the Shenzhen government, as Foxconn officials and Shenzhen government were not making a lot of happy synergies lately.

Anyway, its good to get inside some fresh factories to get perspective, talk cooperations and brainstorm. Maybe this blog post can also bring some ideas and cooperation, feel free to contact me!

Incoming search terms:

• bluetooth factory
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But life is always re-inventing yourself, adapting to the environment around you. And people are constantly approaching more more as a social media guy, integrating social campaigns, connecting people, building community and environment. People, and businesses see the importance of social media.

But more and more, I am being asked about integrating to facebook, or twitter follower management, or building traffic on a blog. This is all social media. In a way, I already have announced I’m an online social salesman, but its screaming it outloud now…from inside myself as well as from friends and business associates all around me.

But then there are those “hesitations” I have to be a full time consultant. Is that a business? Like the image I posted on this blog, it says “Consultant – If you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.” In a way, I have in my history been under the impression consultants are short term, expensive, overrated people (maybe because I have always heard it from the position of a full time staff in a company?).  But I am also afraid to be measured by time instead of value.  There are ways to  create proposals that are not just based soley on time, I’ll get creative.

<a href=”http://www.leonstafford.com”>Leon</a> has been helping “coach” me the past few weeks here in Hong Kong, with the focusing of business and IT management.  Just being able to lay it all out there has been helpful.  And he, as well as others are screaming my maximum value is my knowledge and I have to focus on making money from it.

Here are some bullet points to solidify my position:

• Connector – I truly love connecting people.  I can do it all day long.  I want to focus more on organizing my contacts.  I have gotten restricted on facebook for friend requesting too many people (I had  imported my business cards contact info).  I love seeing the strengths in people and find ways to connect them with other people who can maximize each other’s strengths.
• Event Organizer, Community Builder – I have been organizing twitter meetups, couchsurfing meetups, somewhat complaining its exhausting but that was when I was exploring and experimenting. Now I have a purpose. I just hope to keep it “original”, I want it to still be fun for everyone.
• Story teller – I think I’ve always loved sharing stories. Heck that was a primary reason I started this blog, to share stories with everyone about my travels in business, entrepreneurship, and then to China. I do prefer to tell the stories in person, as I get to use my hands when I talk (yes, I have Italian heritage) and can jump around the room and explain how the story goes more real time.
• Motivational writer / speaker – I love getting blog comments about people who have gotten some inspiration in their daily worklife, or career, or just direction in life. That makes it all worth it. I haven’t really spoken about motivational things, publically, but I think…when I am focused….I am good at inspiring others. And have been told that multiple times. Just recently its FOCUS that is bogging me down.
• Positioning – White guy in China – Yes, its true, I am also able to play the card of a “white face” in China, and it helps me (and probably hurts me in other cases) but I have been able to speak in China about social media as well as many other internet marketing topics, building up my relationships here, and leveraging that with my friends / contacts back home in USA. So I gotta use it, right!
• Industry Changes in Internet Marketing – I’ve been blogging about the changes in SEO and internet marketing ….I knew when I came to China, and saw the industry getting standardized into link building machines…Chinese are very systematic….they will keep on trying until they figure out how to maximize the opportunity. And Google had to find ways for these massive link systems to not affect their user (searcher) experience. Now, links are people, and social media and SEO / internet marketing have combined….people vote for what they want to rank and what their friends like….and this is the future for sometime to come

I have always been attracted to the power of the internet….but I am also a guy that likes to deal with people, get outside, travel, inspire. And the new internet is about people, people are websites now, not websites are hiding companies behind cloaks. We have to come out of our shell and realize, people do business with people!

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There are ten startups here in Hong Kong, competing to attend the Echelon pitch in june in singapore. Casey Lau, ( @hypercasey ) was the moderator and host of the event.

Casey briefly went over about the startupshk, at the end 2009 silocon valley investor @davemcclure visited Hong Kong at Cyberport and discussed the startup world / environment in Silicon Valley. Those attending Dave’s speech asked how they could do this in Hong Kong, build this network and community. Dave suggested to just start casual meetings in coffee shops and see how it goes. So it started with six people meeting in coffee shops, help each other with their company pitches, business models.

Then the first pitch event in Hong Kong was August 7, 2010 in cyber port with an impressive turnout.

From it, the hong Kong coworking boot hk started.

Also from that, weekend bootup startup launchpads came, bringing more and more startup energy to Hong Kong.

Recently a new online community, techisland.hk is moving to allow people to find staff, investors, clients, and partners.

So basically, things are moving very quickly in the past almost 2 years. For the event, we used #hksat hash tag

We had a panel of judges, some of which were arthur chow from six waves, jon chi from boton investment, vincent from laforia. Ranking each startup for a total of up to ten points.

Here are my best summary of the 10 startups pitching their idea. One will move on to Singapore:

1. hometasty the “couchsurfing” for sharing home cooking skills. Invite people from the internet to your apartment to try your cooking skills. This came from the bootup 2 weekend I was in.
2. job tiger – by 213stompers from japan saying headhunting is dead. A disruptive headhunter social media platform
3. compath.me, from japan. compathme (another from japan), helping people find relevant events from their friends, using tags / meta. Unfortunately the english language level of the entrepreneur was low and it was hard for me and the rest of the audience to understand…..too bad.
4. social job posting facebook app – another Japanese job hunting application, this is pure play facebook, allowing you to show your friends you are looking for a job, get connected to others hiring, etc.
5. moglue – interactive ebook maker, add sounds, from korea. Speaker brought up his childhood drawing, danny doomsday, the storyteller, helps you to share from your phone to an audience. Its an interactive way for publishers to drag and drop to create story books and not pay expensive developers.
6. tributeballoon – video presentation from korean startup, dig ur balloon to support various causes.
7. flipter, sharing your opinion online, ask questions, get feedback & you see the demographics of people answering
8. jellybus from korea, “happy-ware” for your mobile. a games and photos mashup both for android & apple. app makes 400-800usd/day income, 70% from android, 30% from apple ios
9. makible - by boot hk founder Jon Buford. Allows niche products to be made, small production runs direct from factory to end consumer. licenses idea from designers, pays 10% royalty, does the rest.
10. trustcircle, help you get dates from your friend network. Also not just date, maybe business partner introductions, customer introductions. An easy way rather then sending separate messages in facebook, 1. do you like my friend, 2. do you like my friend, 3. introducing the 2 in a message.

The winner turned out to be Jon Buford’s Makible startup,, with the 2nd being trustcircle. Overheard some saying that it may not be completely fair, as the first few startups didn’t have the full audience in attendance, and some of the earlier attendees had left earlier. But alas, tis life.

Congrats Jon!
Here are some photos I snapped with my tablet:

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So when I was asked to speak on this subject…..I had to take a second look and question the girl, Fion who was emailing me, her reply below:

Hi Mike,

Ok, your newer photo and title received.

For the topic, we think it would be still interesting to talk about SNS promotion and even facebook, because many Chinese companies are also using it. Actually, my previous job was in a online gaming company whose games were all operated in North American and Europe. They did a lot on facebook and were very interested in it. So, it would be nice if you can talk about SNS promotion. Let us know what you think.

so…….it is true and something I have been saying forever….by blocking these social tools inside of China, it is holding back business, sales, marketing, and networking with the outside world. How can an export company, which needs to gain foreign customers in order to grow, and survive, continue to be competitive in the global ecinomy if the government forbids them to utilize social platforms where their target customers “reside”. As social media continues to be integrated into SEO it will be harder and harder for businesses inside countries that control and regulate information to be as effective, which is sad because I love the Chinese business spirit…and having them setback from international business because government policies is such a waste of mind and opportunity.

In my presentation obviously I do not go into this, but I spoke about

• benefits of social media promotion for your business,
• listening to customer
• social media monitoring
• engaging with an audience
• Acting, having a plan to react to customer feedback – An example of customer service in action is Dell. This end consumer, Savannah Spangler, is complaining about her PC not working well, even saying the CEO of Dell, Michael Dell, “sucks”. Notice that they dell cares department addresses it, by asking if they can help….and then she RETWEETS it on her stream to show that they are listening and replying.
• how to grow a following
• measuring social media, klout

– on this blog I have mentioned klout optimization and how it is measuring social media people, both on a score and in a certain industry. It is quite amazing, and we need to be on top of it as it develops.

• case study on Dell’s social media command center – Late last year, Dell opened a social media command center, taking proactive measures in the quickly exploding social media world, listening to its customers, and not sitting back and waiting for others, but being a leader in social media.
• employees having their own social media account – Again using Dell as an example, we see staff having their own “work” twitter account (maybe these staff have a personal twitter account for off hours? cannot confirm), but notice how they use twitter to talk to other team members, customers, and just showing the “behind the scenes” action of the Dell business.

I am pretty passionate about social media, see the exponential power of connecting people in similar industries and feelings….and how like wildfire we can grow our network and expand our horizons. How social media is PEOPLE, and SEO is/was websites connecting to each other….

It was my 3rd time to present at the timev event, and I am happy to meet so many motivated and exciting Chinese internet enthusiasts.

If you want, you can download the presentation – Winning in Social Media 2011 xiamen timev

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Some of my friends in Hong Kong were up all night Friday buying off the apple website, to sell the ipad 2 in Hong Kong a week later.

This morning, on my way to Dongguan, Philip mentioned I should have my USA friends buy the ipad2 and sell in China….between the taxes and customs crap…

in Hong Kong, can sell the ipad 2 for 7,000 HKD (around 900usd) for the cheapest ipad 2 model, just wifi model, no 3g!
in China the ipad 2 would be even more, at least 10,000rmb (over 1200usd).

Also the smart cover case, there is a special ipad 2 case that is a hot item…selling on Taobao (Chinese ebay) for a healthy profit as well.

How in the world can the ipad 2, which you can get in USA for $500usd, sell for almost double in Hong Kong and China? WHEN IT IS MADE ON THIS SIDE OF THE WORLD!!! Crazy right.

I still get messages from friends in USA who ask me to buy them cheap electronics in China, thinking the costs in Asia are lower. I have talked about comparing costs in USA and Asia and really, many luxury items are so much cheaper in America…..

Why is the ipad 2 cheaper in USA than China?

I know its crazy, Chinese people actually get upset…heck, I even get upset….but there are a couple reasons:

• VOLUME – America is the world consumer…buying up tons of ipads and iphones and other consumer electronics. Therefore the bulk of the goods are sold there first, in large quantities.
• Protect Intellectual Property – I think both Americans, and Chinese, can agree, it is still not “safe” to sell in China…..
• Taxes – USA has low taxes, with simply sales tax in each state as the main tax (ranging from 6% to 8% from my experience). In China, there is VAT (value added tax) that is about 17% on top of

So basically, this is the thought process of Apple and other big brands – make the big money quick in USA, and then the rest of the world is “Cream” or pure profit. To get the money from USA customers quickly, pay back the upfront investment on marketing and R&D to invest in the iPad 3! Then release to the worldwide international marketplace to “get residual” income for the next 6 months to a year.

But Apple has been getting better at doing business in China, by allowing the iphone and ipad to be sold in the domestic Chinese market faster. Apple now has its own branded stores in China, whereas in the past they were using only resellers. This is also due to the fact that CHINA IS RICH now and not just a country to outsource and manufacture in….its a viable consumer marketplace that is growing rapidly.

So hey, my USA friends, want to make some extra cash buying iPad 2 and shipping to me in Hong Kong? Lets do it!

Hey Mike, funny you speak of this. It is really tough to get an ipad
2 here in the states. I was hoping to get one and it was nuts. They
released it for sale to customers at 5PM friday afternoon. I called
the apple store on my way from work and they couldnt tell me how many
they had, all they could tell me is that the line of people is over
200 and not to even bother showing up. Luckily there is a best buy
nearby too where I went instead. the line here was around 60 people
(and people got in line behind me, some said they came from the apple
store which was 1000 people long according to their estimates) – what
sucked is they only had 55 ipads. they announced it and the 2 guys in
front of me left (i guess i was 58th) so i was next in line hoping
someone would want one that is not avail. and thats what happened. the
guy in front of me wanted a 3G one and all they had was the wifi – so
he left and i got it. then another guy decided he didnt want to wait
any longer (we had to wait 45 minutes after getting the ticket to buy
an ipad) so he turned his ticket in and some lucky lady that showed up
at the right time got it. incredible. so many people left. people
kept coming trying to get in line, but the best buy guy said they were
all out. so then this one guy comes by, it sounded like he was from
western africa and he wanted one too. except he didnt turn away, he
said he needed the ipad for his company. he said he needed to ship it
to china the next day. he looked nice and was polite and was dressed
well, and offered the lady $200 for her ticket (for a 16GB wifi only).
she couldnt believe it and agreed. He came back 15 mins later with
$200 cash. the lady made $200 USD for showing up at the right place
at the right time – incredible.
I got mine and im happy. i ended up with what was left but i got
pretty much what i wanted. (i wanted a 32GB wifi only, i got a 64GB
wifi only) and after the accessories and tax the thing was like $860
USD. incredible. i looked on craigslist today, check it out or ebay,
and people are selling them like crazy!!! but like the commercial
says the first time you use facetime, you smile. I talked to my dad
this weekend and he immediately smiled when he saw my face, and I
smiled when i saw him. its an incredible tool.
but ur right – its all for a purpose. its all hype. Apple on purpose
hyped it up, didnt announce numbers, and only had limited quantities.
thats how they make an item HOT!!! but i think the black market may
be hurting them. imagine that they could be making those 200-300
markups cause people are willing to pay for it – incredible.
but apple is smart – at the apple store, you wait for someone to help
you, you wait while you play with the stuff and as soon as someone is
available, they come up to you, ask you if you have questions. You
talk, ask questions, they help you find stuff, and if you are ready to
purchase, they dont send you to checkout, they actually check you out.
they have iphones with credit card swipers and they check you out
right then and there, and they email you the receipt (or they can
print it) incredible!!!!! so i hope they come up with a better way to
get these ipads to the people, without the scalpers, or the lines. it
shoudl be a lottery or something to get the first one.
in the future im pretty sure they will have to make the line waiting
better, google some of the stories, people are angry they waited in
line for hours and the apple store employees couldnt tell them if they
had enough ipads for everyone or not.

another follow up
Gary just told me – Just drop by wanchai computer, today price for ipad2 16g wifi hkd8500, smart cover hkd850

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Maybe its because am I a middle man in this whole process? Is my role not as valuable as I think, being a connector, being a networker, being a marketer. I still think THE PERSON is the most important thing, but as technology continues to make things colder and more direct, where bottom line seems to outweigh trust and relationships ,am I overvaluing integrity?
It’s a dog eat dog world in the business world, and in the microscopic startup world, as a foreigner in a country that doesn’t seem to welcome foreigners, it’s a constant struggle. Just getting basic things done in China, as a foreigner, can be a fulltime job. Then there is actually starting or running a business on top of it.

So is it a balance of money, technology, knowledge, leadership, charisma? Is there one of them that rules more then another? Or should we, as a person born into the position we are born into, exploit that attributes were are given.

1. Some of us are born with money, titles, and privileges
2. Some of us are born so intelligent, with photographic memories
3. Some are born with natural charisma and sales abilities
4. Some are detail oriented, managers.

This leads me back to DISC personality method. I remember I had my personality taken, and I was a D and a I, D being dominant, and I being influencial. The seminar leader told us that in order to be successful we had to build project teams, departments, or companies that had at least 1 D (dominant), 1 I (influential), 1 S (steady) , and 1 C (comphre

I love the movie Oceans Eleven, just the group coorindation, the comedy watching such drastically clashing personalities coming together, kind of sucking up dealing with such opposite people in order to accomplish a common goal You had the small flexible guy to get into the safe, you had the bomb squad, you had the hustler card dealer to make distractions, it’s a great film. Another example is the dream movie Inception where a team is put together in order to accomplish a goal, all from various backgrounds – some as an investor, overseeing their investment, some as the builders of the dream, some as the mind manipulators, others as the detailed managers to keep on top of others – you can see the clash of personalities, and while there are some times they get angry at each other, they do put it aside in order to get the job done.

I think maybe this is why we, as human beings, have to learn how to work in teams. No one is perfect, and all knowing, we all need specialists, sales, investors, techies, etc in order to get something done. And it’s this fine balance of being able to handle strong personalities in others to get a common goal achieved.

So, money can’t be everything, there is plenty of money in the world. I think it’s about executing the idea, and getting everyone in a team on board to get the job done.

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Finding the right product to sell online is CRUCIAL. I am always asked how I started selling bar products, back in 2004. I kind of wish I knew what I knew now, then, because the bar products market is rather specialized and niche – learn how I got into the bar products industry. Maybe if I had started drop shipping mobile phones and electronics back then….I’d be much more (maybe) financially well off.

The other issue to take into account is to take inventory or not. Taking inventory means it will tie up cash, as well as make it more difficult to change your product line later. I have learned this all too well with the bar products industry….warehousing and logistics headaches galore!

I blogged about a year ago about how to start an online ecommerce business in more general terms. Today I just received this question on all experts about CHOOSING the right product group (a common question, but this question was much more interesting and detailed then the normal ones I get) and thought I would share with everyone today:

You answered this question on 02/18/11

Questioner: adriana

Category: E-Commerce, Web Businesses

Private: No

Subject: ebay store

Question: My husband started an EBay store about 3 months ago and he’s been selling more and more little by little. Mainly used/new electronics that he gets from either Ebay itself, people on Craigslist or Thrifty Store. He is really good at it, I can tell. He is really organized and calculates his profits and control his small inventory really well.

So, I’m wondering if we could have any kind of help on advising us in how to move up to next level, with wholesale retailers and such. It seems that are lot of scams on the internet offering this info anyways.

On top of that, I was thinking of having a section for women on his store as well, so I could sell items as well. However, the items that I’ve been trying were not in demand at all…

Anyways, if an appointment is necessary I’d be more than glad to do so. We are in Los Angeles, CA.

Thanks!

Adriana

Answer: Hi Adriana,

Its great to hear your husband is doing well, and you will join him as well to earn more money!

There are a few things / ideas. You can use ebay to see which items have been selling by doing an advanced search and seeing what has closed/ sold….and if those listings are selling, and for what price. This will help you make a better decision

I STRONGLY recommend you try not to be soley dependant on ebay…they are dropping every day in the market because they keep increasing fees and buyers and sellers are moving to their own .com shops or to amazon.com so I suggest you looking into your own online shop and selling on amazon as well.

more ways to search for demand in product is reverse keyword tools, a free one is:

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

there you can put in product names / keywords and it shows how much people are looking for and what they want to find. Selling on the internet is all about GIVING PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT….instead of push media w/ television ads that is TELLING PEOPLE WHAT TO BUY. To be successful on the internet, you have to listen to what people want and give it to them.

I would love to meet you for consulting, it is a passion of mine, but I am based overseas in Hong kong / China. I would be open to a phone call or skype call – email me at site@michaelmichelini.com

Hope this helps and Good luck! Main thing is not to give up!

Mike

There is also the idea that you should pick a product line you, yourself are interested in, and a customer of.  This is because a business is mostly serving YOUR CUSTOMERS. I love the article – CEO means customer, employee, and THEN owner (in that order), so if you yourself are already a customer in that product / service industry, then you will understand the perspective of those customers. Also you want to pick a market group inside of the product group, not just sell products- BUT TO WHO? Old women? Teenagers? That is also just as important as selecting which type of products, but which demographic of customers.

The main idea is to DO YOUR RESEARCH. I am not one to talk, as most who know me well know I move quickly…because all talk and no action isn’t good either.  People also use this “market research” task as a way to find an EXCUSE why they have NO TIME to start their own business. That they don’t want to sit down and write everything down, make a plan….

I love getting emails like this, people motivated to do their own business, create value in the world by jumping into the world of entrepreneurship. While I myself cannot call myself a true success story, I have lasted a few years at it, and am not afraid to tell people the real deal. I think its a fine balance of preparation and GUTS to actually execute and do it.

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“Increasingly people want to be able to stay connected and communicate with their friends on Facebook anytime, anywhere,” said Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook. “Gemalto has developed a creative solution in Facebook for SIM that enables people without mobile data plans to stay connected to their friends on Facebook in an affordable way.”

I have been thinking for a while that more and more people will be on social media with their phones….with the android “droid invasion” of cheaper smartphones that are making it easier and cheaper for everyone to get online and get social. But embedding it into SIM cards and allowing SMS, jeez, this is much faster way then I had imagined…now you can take those cheap Nokia phones everyone has and allow them to interact on social media websites like facebook.

But….now we are putting everything on the internet…..

My friend Nagib Tharani of a new Hong Kong startup taxizu taxi sharing has a cool idea of allowing random people who are out late (lets face it, partying at a bar / club) and the subways in Hong Kong are closed, now need to take an expensive ride outside of the city center (to new territories or kowloon) so why not find people to share a taxi with? His mobile app will allow people in the vicinity to all say they need to share a cab to a certain area / region and then can pool together, once queue is filled up, they meet up and taxi home.

We were having some BBQ the other night talking about it…and its another effect of SOCIAL MEDIA. A few years ago, this wouldn’t have worked. but more and more people are keeping an open mind, being more open on the internet.

AND THEY CHECK THE OTHER PEOPLE’s FACEBOOK PROFILE before “Accepting them” in their taxi-sharing group that night.

Amazing right….its like an eBay feedback score for a PERSON. Maybe they would even see friends that are friends of friends in that area, and therefore if this person is a friend of a friend…they probably aren’t that bad. Imagine if facebook has FEEDBACK on the person.

This is already happening in the couchsurfing world – I have my couchsurfing profile …. and if i want to “request a couch to surf” then the person will look at my profile, my feedback, my friends….before deciding to approve me to surf their couch. People feel more comfortable dealing with people who have track records….and people are more open now to trust who other established people online think are trustful.

JOB HUNTING…..come on…who isn’t checking a facebook profile in USA now when they are in the interview process. I cannot believe it if people say they aren’t checking their prospects online reputation, google-ing the name, checking their linkedin profile, checking their facebook, myspace, whatever……I know its probably not legal in US law, but come on….

I have talked about klout social media scoring but I only applied that thought to a business……seeing that a person or social media “person / place / thing” has built a following and is relevant in their industry….I hear Virgin airline has given people with high klout score in travel or adventure or whatever free flights or reduced fares if they tweet / blog about Virgin airlines to their friends…as its a relevant social media promotion to people who travel and Virgin wants to reach that audience. Less and less eyeballs on the television these days….

But man….now I am wondering if it will go as far as SOCIAL SECURITY numbers……in USA social security numbers are basically like the unique identifier to our personal information for banks and other government authorized institutions….

Imagine this…our facebook profile is linked to our government ID number….and then we are bound to our online profile as our real life profile…..

Then you start seeing reality in those microchips embedded in the back of our necks, walking into stores and the store knowing everything about you, serving advertisements in banners next to you, flashing up on screens targetted exactly to YOU!

ok, scary……time to stop.

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