I came across an interesting article on the Pacific Epoch site today. Kingsoft, a software and online game developer that is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, is using an innovative way to attract new staff. In order to apply for jobs for their game Hero108, you not only need a high school diploma, but you also need a certain rank and scores in the game itself. If you don’t achieve those scores, you won’t be able to apply for the job. I am sure this will attract lots of attention for the game, although I wonder if you will really find the best candidates in this way.

At the same time the company also made a deal with Yahoo China. Applicants for positions in Kingsoft are only considered if they send out their resumes using a Chinese Yahoo email address. A creative way to get more people to use Yahoo mail, but probably not one that will have a long-lasting effect. Yahoo actually made deals with several other online gaming companies as well, such as The9 (World of Warcraft), Perfect World, NineYou and Ourgame. The article did not state if those deals were for job applications through Yahoo or for other purposes. A very strange marketing strategy in my opinion.

I like a physical challenge every now and then, so this morning I ran the Shanghai Half Marathon (21.1 km), starting at Nanjing Dong Lu and ending at Minhang Stadium. Because of the knee injury that I got in Tibet I had not been able to practice for almost half a year, and only 6 weeks ago I started training seriously again. Actually too short to run a half marathon, and certainly too short for a full marathon, so I dropped the idea to participate in the full 42.2 km event. And that was a good idea, because the half marathon was hard enough.

The start was at 7:30 AM, and I was surprised to see that former Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers was the starter! I knew that Mr. Lubbers was in Shanghai (I got invitations for both a breakfast and a dinner, probably like many other Dutch business people here, but did not go), but had not expected him to to see him here. Later I noticed that a large group of Dutch runners participated (The Rotterdam Ambassadors), maybe this was related?

I had a good starting position, and 15 seconds after the start I passed the start line already. Immediately I started with a relatively high speed, and it felt good. However, my shin splints started to play up a bit, and I had to reduce the speed in order to make the pain more manageable. It took a few kilometers before the pain went away, but then I also started to realize that I had started to quick. The first 5 km I ran in about 22 minutes, and then I slowed down a bit. At 6 km I clocked in at 27 minutes, and I stayed in that tempo.

The weather was nice (about 15 degrees and sunny), but I still needed to drink a lot. I know that I need a lot more water than most other runners in order not to dehydrate (see also what happened in the Macau marathon a year ago), and every 5 km I made a short stop to drink at least one cup of water or energy drink. Especially after 10 km and 15 km I felt a lot better a few minutes after drinking some fluids.

Like two years ago (when I ran the full marathon here) the traffic police did a terrible job, and for several kilometers the runners had to run in the fumes of cars that were stuck in traffic jams caused by the marathon. Why they cannot close some roads in advance I don’t understand. Two years ago I sort of decided not to run Shanghai anymore because of this, and although the problem during the half marathon is not as bad as during the full one, it’s probably not very healthy to run here.

Overall the race was not easy, and especially the last 7 kilometers were quite difficult. Then you realize you did not practice enough, and certainly not at higher running speeds. But ‘no pain, no gain’, so I pretended not to feel my legs and kept the same speed. The last 500 meters I gave everything I had, and passed several other runners that had been in front of me for the past kilometers. I finished in 1:42:14 (after time correction), which means an average speed of almost 12.4 km/h. Better than I thought, because I went out on a 1:50 schedule, and in my mind I would have been happy to finish within 2 hours. Next time that I run I will practice a bit more though.

Thanks to my wife and to Gary who both got up very early to support me today. They drove me to the start, tried to meet me half way (they were one minute too late, because I was far ahead of schedule) and they supplied me with food and drinks afterwards. Gary, next year you should also run!

Some Shanghai Marathon pictures can be found here.

For many years I have said (probably also on this blog) that I never want a driver. I prefer to drive myself, and don’t want to lose the little bit of privacy that is still left in this Web 2.0 era. Well, since a few weeks I have a driver, and I have changed my point of view. The reason we decided to hire one is because my wife is now so pregnant that she cannot drive anymore. And because she often has to work late at night (she is CFO of Tudou.com) she does not want to walk around in the dark looking for taxi’s. Also, when the baby will be born it will be much more convenient for my wife to get around. So finally I gave in and she hired a Shanghainese driver.

Having one makes traveling around Shanghai certainly a lot more convenient. I can work or write blog posts (like right now) from the back seat of my car while listening to my own music. If I need him he is there within a few minutes, the car is always washed and I never have to get gas anymore. It certainly makes me more productive (I cannot sit in a car doing nothing), and that already compensates the cost of the driver. Furthermore he can do small tasks for us, like going to the post office or the bank, or paying bills. The negative side is that everybody in my office probably knows where I have lunch, where I have meetings and what time I come and go to the office. Not a big deal, because I don’t really believe in the concept of privacy anyway (hence this blog), but it feels a bit strange at first.

What I have to get used to, however, is that he is a bit stubborn and claims to know the quickest way in Shanghai. Well, I am stubborn as well, and he does not always fully agree with my decisions (too bad for him of course). Also his driving style is a bit too aggressive (blowing the horn every 500 meters or so, never breaking for pedestrians even when they clearly have the right of way), but at least that’s better than a passive driver who would brake when a traffic light is still green. He used to be the driver of the boss of a state-owned enterprise, maybe there they teach their drivers to be pro-active and not to care for other drivers in their driving style. Overall the experience in the first weeks was quite positive, let’s see how I feel about it in a few months.

I have been the proud owner of an iLiad eBook reader for about a year now (thanks to Pioco‘s Steve Chao), but I hardly use it. Why? Because it is way too slow, likely because it is a pre-production model and because the content I want to have is not available. The device is great, the electronic ink technology is so much better than reading from the screen of my laptop. It really feels like reading a book. For me the most important success factor for an eBook reader is not the way it looks or how much it costs, but simply the content. The content I want is newspapers and magazines that I cannot buy in China, or that are only available a few days later in the bookstores here. So when earlier this year the announcement was made that Dutch newspapers De Volkskrant and NRC would become available on iLiad format I was very happy. But no, for some reason the newspapers backed off, and is still not available on the iLiad format.

I believe in electronic paper and hope it will break through. So I was very happy when Amazon.com announced the launch of its own eBook reader, the Kindle. It looks like a 1970’s electronic calculator, but that’s OK as long as it is functional. The content problem is no issue either, because already 90,000 books are available in this format. And best of all, newspapers like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Germany’s FAZ, plus magazines like Forbes or Time are available on it as well.

So I was ready to place my order, until I read the first reviews this morning. What did Amazon do? They built it to work only on the EVDO network and the machine has no wifi connection. I am not 100% sure, but I think that makes it useless outside the US. I tried to order it anyway, but got rejected (“We do not ship to non-US addresses). What a stupid move from Amazon, the world is really a lot bigger than the US, Mr. Bezos. Not only that, the Kindle uses its own proprietary format and cannot read many existing other formats.

Maybe this gives iLiad a second chance, their product looks a lot better but it seems they have a serious marketing problem. Why can they not make deals with a couple of newspapers? As an entrepreneur I see some very big opportunities here. Newspaper circulation goes down worldwide, because of the internet. People are finally more concerned about the environment. This is a killer product for these two issues. If I could get a subscription to a few foreign newspapers on an iLiad or Kindle, I would do it right away. But it’s impossible. If you get your favorite newspaper delivered to your home or office every day, you cannot read it while traveling or on vacation. With an electronic ink version you can get it wherever you are. It hardly costs the newspaper anything to add a subscriber, so what is holding them back? And not unimportant, with eBook readers the amount of paper that we use daily can reduce a lot.

I hope the Kindle will break through, and that very soon a version 2.0 with wifi will come on the market. Or otherwise that iLiad gets some entrepreneurial marketing people on board that can put the product into the market. People don’t know how fantastic electronic ink is, and that’s why they don’t use it. If I would have time….

Yesterday I spent a leisurely Sunday in Shanghai, and maybe the things I did might inspire others as well. I started off by sleeping late, always a good start of a lazy Sunday. Then we went to the new Hyatt on the Bund (199, Huangpu Lu – on the North Bund) for a very nice brunch. The hotel just opened, and the staff did not really know the word brunch yet… They initially sent us to their Chinese a la carte restaurant. However, on the second floor there is a huge lunch/brunch buffet, with a Chinese section (incl. dim sum), a Japanese section (incl. fresh sashimi) and a Western section. And of course I should not forget the dessert section (incl. pancakes and many kinds of ice cream). All excellent quality. There were not many people yet, but once the brunch buffet becomes better known you might have to make reservations. The only negative thing is that you don’t have a view from the restaurant, not sure why they did not put it on a higher floor.

After the brunch we drove over to the new lifestyle and design center in Hongkou, in the former slaughterhouse, called 1933. There was a design exhibition going on, so we could check out the whole building. Amazing architecture, a bit Gaudi style. Very un-Chinese, and worth to check it out. If you are in the design or creative industry and looking for an office, this might be a good place to go. Very special and sure to impress your clients. Several bars and restaurants will open in the building soon, among others one run by David Laris. Address: 29, Shajing Lu. Some pictures can be found here.
The last part of the afternoon we spent at Taikang Lu. This street has changed a lot over the past year or so. Not only has one side completely disappeared and is now a construction site, but also a lot more of the backstreets are converted into bars, boutique shops, art galleries and coffee shops. It’s worth to check it out and have a coffee here (for some pictures see here). This is how Xintiandi should have been, because here the houses are still real (but you also have the occasional smell of communal toilets…). And of course food and drinks are a lot cheaper here than in Xintiandi. The only problem is the parking if you come by car, because there are no official parking spaces in the area. You can park on Taikang Lu, where there is enough space, but it’s officially not allowed and most of the cars that parked there on Sunday afternoon got a parking ticket.

Sunday we drove to the Sheshan Golf Club to watch the HSBC Champions 2007. We met Thijs and Joan there, who had driven up with Joan’s car. After watching a bit of action on the 9th hole, Joan and my wife headed for the HSBC Hexagonal Suite overlooking the green on the eighteenth hole to have some food and drinks. Thijs and I walked around a bit, and then also got hungry. We had member tickets, so could even enter the club house and have lunch there in the Players Lounge. Not sure if that was actually allowed, but we just walked into the lounge and enjoyed their buffet. Only problem was that they did not serve any alcoholic drinks for the players, so after lunch we also went over to the HSBC VIP suite.

The food in the players lounge was good, but at HSBC the food was even better (catering by the Ritz-Carlton as I later found out). They also had an unlimited supply of good wines and beers, so we watched the action from the balcony while sipping a glass of champagne. Life could be worse. After a few glasses we decided to stay there and enjoy some more food, instead of following the players around the course. That turned out to be a good choice, because the tournament ended in a double play-off on the 18th hole, so we could see it all from the best viewing point on the course. Thanks for the nice afternoon Joan & HSBC!

This weekend I managed to keep my plan not to work much on weekends anymore. Because of a schedule filled to the brink, that was not too difficult.

On Saturday I was in Beijng, where I attended the first Foo Camp in China (pictures). As usual this Foo Camp was organized by Tim O’Reilly and his team. About 80 people participated in this unconference. If you are unfamiliar with this concept, it basically means that it’s not a normal conference where you listen to speeches, but a seminar where everybody is involved actively in every session. There was no schedule, but at the end of the opening session everybody who wanted to discuss something could sign up for that. The board was filled in no time.

For me the event was interesting not only from a business perspective (Got to know an interesting start-up with an idea I totally believe in, and even learned some new things about online gaming in China – thanks Frank!) but also from a personal perspective (meeting interesting people, and talking with smart people about things you normally do not talk about too much).

China Foo was not just about tech as many people think, but you could talk about everything that you are passionate about. I had a good discussion with Paul Denlinger about the whole global warming problematic, and we both agree that this is underestimated by most people. Why are people so passive about it? Do they not realize what is happening, or do they just not care? Things can get out of hand very quickly, but most people just sit and wait. I am worried about this. Paul sent me an interesting article today, read it if you are interested in this subject. One small part I want to point out here: About 11,000 years ago the earth went from a warm, wet climate to a cold, dry climate within 3 years (results from the Greenland ice coring experiment). Think about it, a complete climate change in just 3 years. Can the collective power of the people -through the internet or other technologies- still do something to avoid this?

After China Foo I took a plane back to Shanghai (yes, that might be a cause of Global Warming), because I was going to meet Gary and Bill for drinks. Finally a flight without much delay. And it was my last flight in the next 2-3 months, because I don’t want to miss the birth of our baby. Nice to know that I don’t have to travel for the next couple of weeks!