We had quite a few visitors to our new Shanghai office on November 19, 2009, including Nora Neibergall, Cindy Urbaytis, Karen Collins, and KK Poon from Institute of Supply Management (ISM), Marcus Chao from Lean China, Tim Yeh and Kenneth Mao from Zheng Heng Industry, and Marty Komer from RT-Systems. Most of these visitors did not know each other. It just happened that they all came to visit us on the same day. In order to efficiently use our time, I proposed that we all go to Hyatt Jing Mao Hotel for lunch, which is one of the nicest places to entertain visitors in Shanghai. My dear friend Marcus asked, “How come you never took me to such a treat?” Well, I answered that it was simply extraordinary that, without planning, all these important people would gather at Logic Shanghai at the same time. It was time to celebrate and to see what we can do for each other. We reserved a room on the 86th floor at the Jiang Mao Club, where you have an extraordinary view of Shanghai. As the government of Shanghai prepares...

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The day before I left for Taiwan, my wife, who was already there with the children, told me, “Typhoon Morakot is pounding Taiwan. We are running out of food at home.” I reassured her that typhoons typically last only 1-2 days, so they should be fine by the time I arrived.Growing up in Taiwan, I have been through a lot of typhoons. When I was a kid, I used to love typhoons because school would be cancelled and there would always be a treasure hunt with my buddies afterwards. Now as an adult, I know what human tragedies these natural disasters can cause. Still, not in my wildest dreams, did I expect Morakot to be so devastating. In the three days that I was in Taiwan, I saw the horror first hand. With advances in media and internet, we can feel and witness the sorrow as if we were there. The disaster clearly has also gathered worldwide attention: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/typhoon.wrap.saturday/index.html.Taiwan...

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The pressing issue nowadays in Michigan is the rising unemployment rate that seems unstoppable. Whenever there is news about a company going under or downsizing, the first reaction is that the unemployment rate is going up again. However, some of these jobs can be saved if they can be put in good hands.About four months ago, I came across a company called Taylor Systems Engineering (TSE) in Plymouth, Michigan. Its parent company, Red Roller, had filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut, which left TSE without much management structure for months. Employees were in despair and clients were confused. If the company had been liquidated to a company outside Michigan, jobs would have been lost or left Michigan. When I visited the company, my first impression was that even when the parent company was completely out of business, the employees at TSE were holding the company together on their own without any supervision. Everyone still came in to put in their best effort every day. I said to myself, “These are the kind of...

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On my recent trip to China last month, I had a five hour layover in Tokyo on my way back to Detroit. Searching for something to read at the Northwest World Club, I saw two headlines that grabbed my attention. The Wall Street Journal read “Chrysler Makes Bankruptcy Filing” and on Time Magazine it was “Shanghai, the Next Detroit.”

 

In my years of doing business in Shanghai, I have witnessed both the enormous growth and influence of this coastal city. Nonetheless, it is still farfetched to claim Shanghai the “Next Detroit,” just as it is wrong to declare Shenzhen (in Canton province) the “Next Silicon Valley.” During my visit to the biennial Shanghai International Auto Show, I saw a number of things that might have caused this incorrect connotation to persist, including:

 

The show’s size. There are so many automotive OEMs in China now, more than 120 of them. Naturally, there are a lot of cars to see. There are more than six large halls that host domestic and foreign made cars. ...

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There are things that I still like about bricks & mortar. When I started Logic Solutions 13 years ago, most people could barely spell website. I remember that the first public talk that I gave was to tell people what a website was, how to make one, what it is used for, etc. I predicted that the internet would replace a lot of what we were used to. Logic Solutions was started based on that belief.

 

Well, sometimes I wonder if I really want to believe in my own prediction. Recently, our local newspaper, The Ann Arbor News, shocked the community by announcing that it will cease operation in July after 174 years of operation.  Although both Seattle and Denver newspapers made similar announcements a few weeks ago, I still can’t accept that I soon won’t have The Ann Arbor News to hold in my hand everyday. What replaces The News will be annarbor.com which is mainly an on-line only media site. I found it funny that I was arguing with my wife about why the newspaper must exist when I am the one who always...

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