Today I finally could use my iLiad again after the screen was repaired (under warranty, thanks iRex Technologies!). I looked forward to reading all the details about what happened on the financial markets over the weekend, and about the nationalization of Fortis Bank (one of the biggest banks in Belgium and the Netherlands) in particular.

I downloaded the paper around 9 PM (the earliest time the paper can be downloaded in China) and was surprised to see a half empty front page. No problem I thought, I just go to the index and find the articles there. But no, there was one link to the Fortis article, but that did not work. I scrolled manually through all 106 pages, but there were no articles about the most important news (at least for Holland) that happened during the weekend.

It happens more often that articles are unreadable because editors do not check the eBook edition as well as the paper version, but I did not notice before that the most important news is missing. Is there an editor in charge of the iLiad version? I pay hundreds of Euros per year for this paper and I expect that at least someone checks what the paper sends out to its customers. NRC, do something about this!

I am writing this from an intercity train to Amsterdam Schiphol airport where I will catch the overnight flight back to Shanghai. This weekend I spent mainly with my parents, who live in an area with lots of woods and hills (there are a few hills in the Netherlands). Next to getting good food and drinks and catching up on sleep (very necessary after a week that was a bit too busy), I always look forward to staying with my parents because I can spend some time in nature. If you have been reading this blog for a longer time you may know that that is one of the few things that I really miss in Shanghai. Since I started living in the suburbs I at least see a bit of green around my house, but it is very different from the surroundings of my parents house.

Because I only managed to run twice last week in Amsterdam, I really needed to do some running practice, so that’s what I did. On Saturday afternoon my dad any I ran about 8 kilometers through the woods. Running over sand paths deep inside the woods, through grass- and moor land and even over some sand dunes in the middle of the woods. As usual we hardly saw anybody else. It did not go easy. Even though I had a good sleep I was still a bit tired from the busy week and my body did not really cooperate. My muscles hurt and I felt like I had no energy. Of course I did not give up, but to say that running was easy would be a lie.

On Sunday we had planned to participate in a 11 km race on the Besthemerberg (a hill in the woods that you have to climb a few times). But because the race would only start at 10 AM and we were up by 8 AM, we decided to just run our own round. This morning we ran from my parents house to the Lemelerberg and followed a course that involved running up the hill twice. Nature there is beautiful, especially early in the morning. The grass was still wet and filled with spider webs that reflected in the sunshine, and we even saw two deer that crossed the path right in front of us. Fantastic! Although today’s run was longer than yesterday’s (in total about 12 km) it went a lot easier. It shows me that I need to slow down a little bit during this kind of weeks, it’s not good for my body if I need more than 24 hours just to recuperate.

Because we ran early in the morning it was still very foggy. You could not see more than 100 meters when we left, but very soon the sun behind the fog got more power and the fog started to disappear. After about 30 minutes we were greeted by a clear blue sky. It was still pretty cold (during the night it was close to zero degrees) and I had to wear long running pants and even a hat to keep warm. But when we got back home it got warmer pretty quickly, and after breakfast we had coffee and tea in the garden. A nice ending of a successful business trip to the Netherlands. From tomorrow onwards I will mainly have to run on my treadmill again…

One of the things I noted over the past days in Holland, is that service in restaurants and hotels often is terrible. Not sure if it has gotten worse over the past years or that I am too used to the service level in China where people at least try to do a good job (not that it always works out!). Just a couple of examples from my stay in Amsterdam this week.

Yesterday morning when I checked out of my hotel in Amsterdam I asked the receptionist to call a taxi for me. She told me that I should ask the concierge to do that. Because the concierge was outside helping other people and I was in a hurry, I asked if she could help me. There were no other people waiting, but she still refused. This was not part of her job she told me. I told her that the day before the person at the counter had called a taxi for me, but she just ignored it. I waited a few minutes until the concierge came and he quickly got me a taxi. I now have a bad feeling about the hotel, even though I liked the rest of the stay there very much.

Later that morning I was meeting someone at the PICNIC conference. It was nice weather and we decided to have a drink outside at the WestergasTerras (a bar/restaurant next to the Wester Unie building). It was 10:30 AM and several people were already sitting there in the sun talking with other conference participants. The person running the restaurant was cleaning the tables and I asked him for two coffees. Bad luck. He told me they would not open until 11:00 (or 11:30, I forgot), so we would have to wait until then. I did not understand it, there is a big conference going on around your restaurant and you refuse to open earlier to serve many people already sitting on your terrace? How much easier can it be to make money? Maybe I should be glad he did not send us away, but allowed us to sit on his terrace…

Something similar happened at the espresso bar next to my hotel. Earlier in the week I was waiting there for a friend around 6:30 PM and several people entered the bar to grab a coffee or a small bite to eat. But the owner refused to serve them. I close at 6:30 PM, he told them, because I also want my private life. How can you run a business like that? As an entrepreneur I would be glad for every new client that would walk in, but this guy sent 3 clients away within 5 minutes! He even complained to a guest, saying that each time he closes his bar so many people walk in… The guy has been running this shop for years, so it does not seem to hurt his business too much. But of course his business has also not expanded over the past years.

Lunch at PICNIC was also an interesting experience. I had a business lunch on the terrace of Pacific Parc. We were lucky to get a table outside, but we were not so lucky to get the attention of a waitress. After about 10 minutes we finally got a menu, but she did not want to wait for us to order. So we had to wait for another 10 minutes, but still no one came. Eventually I went inside to order, but there I was told I could not order inside, only with the the waitresses. I told them I had been here for 20 minutes already but did not manage to order yet. The answer: “If you’re in a hurry you should not come here.”

When I see people running a business with this kind of attitude I think there are still a lot of opportunities to make money in Holland. And if I would have staff treating clients in this way I am sure they would not stay long in my company. And the strangest thing is that customers seem to accept it!

Last night I was a guest in talk show Pauw & Witteman. I was invited together with Dutch minister of the interior and Kingdom relations mrs. Guusje ter Horst, Dutch top business woman Sylvia Toth, and writer Johan Faber. It was my first time on this show and I enjoyed being on it. My part of the show is embedded below:

There is also a 5 minute “summary” with the highlight of the show available on the internet:

At the moment I am on a business trip to Holland, and I have a very busy (but fun) schedule. I am here mainly for meetings at Spil Games in Hilversum, but I am also doing a couple of interviews with magazines. Yesterday I gave a talk at the very nicely designed ING House to a group of wealthy individuals (mainly entrepreneurs who sold their companies) about entrepreneurship in China and success factors to do business there. Tonight I am going to be on the famous Dutch talk show, Pauw & Witteman, which will be broadcast live at 11 PM. I look forward to that, but hope it won’t be a China bashing event (Dutch media love to be negative about China).

Later this week I will also visit Dutch public broadcaster NOS where I will give a talk about China in general, and the internet in China in particular. Furthermore I will be at PICNIC 08 where I will participate in “Games Go Social” on Friday. And on Friday night I will join the Marketingfacts Cruise party in Amsterdam. If you’re at any of the events say hi!

I just got back from a Friday night visit to Carrefour and noted that the company is not taking any risks during the melamine crisis and has removed all Chinese milk products.

But you can still buy milk: there is a large supply of French milk at (what I assume) are discounted prices. RMB 16.30 does not seem to be much for a liter of imported milk (about EUR 1.60)

Just last week Tudou received its SARFT license, and this week the company made its next big announcement: Tudou officially launched the beta version of “Hei Dou” (black bean), the name for the new high definition area within Tudou: hd.tudou.com. This is a major breakthrough for the online video industry in China. In foreign media Tudou is often referred to as the YouTube of China, but with the addition of Hei Dou it is now more a combination of Hulu and YouTube. Hulu is quite similar, but Hei Dou offers programs from a lot more TV stations (mainly Asian content) and all Hei Dou’s programs are in high def quality.

Hei Dou provides high definition version of popular shows, for which Tudou has the full copyright. Currently Hei Dou has 3 different channels: TV shows, movies and variety shows. Upon launch Hei Dou already has over 10,000 shows, all fully legally licensed on an exclusive or semi-exclusive basis.

The name Hei Dou was chosen because of the black background (hei = black, dou = bean, the same character as the ‘dou’ in Tudou) of the site, and of course because of the abbrevation hd (=high definition). The working name of the project used to be Kili, guess where that name came from 🙂

All Hei Dou’s programs are broadcast using H264/MP4 encoding, which allows for the lowest bandwidth consumption while keeping the highest broadcast clarity. No additional software or plug-in needs to be installed in order to watch the shows (unlike what some media report).

Once again Tudou shows its strength as the market leader by being the most innovative online video site, bringing higher quality video programming to Chinese netizens.Enjoy the show(s)!

I just received a press release announcing that Spil Games was nominated for the China Trader Award 2008. This is a yearly award given to the most successful Dutch company that is active in China. Spil made it to the last three, and on November 13 the winner will be announced during a festive award ceremony.

I am very happy with this, and I want to use this occasion to thank Spil’s founders Peter Driessen and Bennie Eeftink that they had the vision to become active in China in early 2006, and that they gave me the opportunity to set up and grow this business for them. Without their knowledge and support Spil Games Asia would have never taken off.

A major reason why foreign businesses fail in China is because management cannot act independently from headquarters (see for example Yahoo or Ebay China). But luckily they understood that I needed the freedom to run the business independent from their other worldwide operations, and that was an important reason why we managed to grow so fast. Thanks for the chance to do this and congratulations to the whole Spil Games team with the nomination!

The press release:
HYVA, ROYAL BOON EDAM GAMES AND SPIL GAMES GROUP NOMINATED FOR CATHAY PACIFIC CHINA TRADER AWARD 2008

Schiphol, September 17 2008 – The nominees are known for the Cathay Pacific China Trader Award 2008 (in alphabetical order):

— Hyva (www.hyva.nl)
— Royal Boon Edam (www.boonedam.nl)
— Spil Games Group (www.spilgames.com)

These three Dutch companies are all very successful in China. Through innovation, creativity and corporate sustainability they are able to distinguish themselves from their competitors and managed to maintain in the complex and constantly changing Chinese market.
Hyva a global multinational company which is offering a wide range of technical products and components, mainly used in connection with hydraulic loading and unloading systems on trucks and trailers for the road transportation industry in on and off road applications. In 2004, the first office of Hyva in China opened and now they opened already 3 offices waste collection and treatment facilities in municipal authorities of a large number of cities across China.

Royal Boon Edam began in 1873 as carpentry and went in 1970 to focus fully on revolving doors. Under the leadership of the Huber family a unique leadership position built in the market for revolving and security entrees. Since 2002, Boon Edam production set up in Beijing. Since then, Royal Boon Edam has a marketshare of more than 60% in exclusive hotels in China but they also placed doors in the CCTV Building and they are placing the two highest revolving doors around the world in the China World Trade Tower in Beijing.

Spil Games Group is a leader in the field of online game portals and gaming traffic. In China, Spil Games has become in two years the second largest player in the field of flash games (free games) with the websites game.com.cn and xiaoyouxi.com. At this moment Spill Games is the largest foreign game site in China with over 21 million unique visitors per month. In Shanghai Spill Games also set up its own game development studio where most games are remembered. This studio is already the largest flash games studio in China.

During the festive award ceremony on November 13, 2008 at Country Estate Duin & Kruidberg, Santpoort, we will announce the award winner. Besides the actual award, the winner receives two Business Class tickets to Hongkong and five overnight stays at one of the Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. This year the Hong Kong Shooting Star Award will be presented to a young Dutch enterprise operating from Hong Kong. The Lifetime Achievement Award, which is presented occasionally will be received by Mr. Rattan Chadha, former CEO of Mexx.

Note: In the original press release Spil Games was misspelled as Spill Games (also the website was misspelled).

Furthermore, the figures in the press release were based on early July. At that time we had 21 million unique visitors, in the meantime we already have 32 million visitors per month!